Amid Departure, John Boehner Promises To Avoid Government Shutdown

Amid Departure, John Boehner Promises To Avoid Government Shutdown The House speaker says he'll also "clean the barn up a little bit" in his final month. WASHINGTON -- A noticeably relaxed House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised Sunday to avert a government shutdown and do do some cleaning in his final month at the helm of the House. “I don’t want to leave my successor a dirty barn. I want to clean the barn up a little bit before the next person gets there,” the soon-to-be-former speaker said on CBS' "Face the Nation." To the optimistic, Boehner’s remarks suggest the Republican leader might try to move on several other items that his conservative hardliners have hamstrung, such as raising the debt ceiling and the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. Boehner stunned Washington on Friday with a surprise announcement that he would be leaving the speaker's chair and Congress at the end of October.