US House Speaker John Boehner was re-elected Thursday to lead the lower chamber, despite unrest in his conservative Republican majority after this week's passage of the unpopular fiscal cliff deal.
The legislation, which President Barack Obama signed late Wednesday, fended off across-the-board income tax increases and postponed major spending cuts for two months. The measure allowed
income taxes to rise on households earning more than 450,000 dollars a year, a concession by conservative Republicans who argued that any tax increase could harm the still-fragile economic recovery.
After receiving a strong, bipartisan majority in the Senate, the legislation passed the House 257-167, with only 85 Republicans supporting it, while 151 Republicans voted no.
The second-ranking House Republican, Eric Cantor, considered a potential rival to Boehner, sided with the hard-line, anti-tax Republicans, voting against the fiscal cliff deal supported by the
speaker.
After the vote, Boehner received a standing ovation when he entered the House chamber and walked to the podium to take the oath of office. Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic minority in the
House, in a bipartisan tradition, introduced Boehner, who held up a large wooden, ceremonial gavel.
Boehner pointed out that his oath, like that sworn by all Congress members, "makes no mention of party or faction or title ... only to the constitution."
"We're sent here not to be something, but to do something," he said.
Boehner said that an "anchor of debt" was weighing on the US economy and threatening to burden future generations. "We have to be willing - truly willing - to make this problem right," he said.
Boehner, who is known for weeping easily at momentous occasions, repeatedly paused and appeared choked with emotion during a short address.
The House speakership vote coincided with Thursday's swearing in of the new Congress for 2013-14, after the November elections in which the opposition Republicans remained in a slightly smaller House majority, 235-200. In the Senate, Obama's left-leaning Democrats expanded their majority to 55-45.
The 435-member house has 82 new members: 47 Democrats and 35 Republicans. The chamber has a record 81 women, while the 100-member Senate has an unprecedented 20 women.
Both chambers have become increasingly diverse.
The small, north-eastern state of New Hampshire became the first state to send an all-women delegation to Congress. Joining the state's two female senators were newly elected congresswomen in New Hampshire's two House seats.
The Senate has three Latinos: two Democrats and one Republican.
For the first time since 2010, the Senate has an African-American.
Congressman Tim Scott was appointed to a Senate vacancy from South Carolina, making him the first black senator from the South since 1881.
Japanese-born Mazie Hirono from Hawaii is the first Buddhist and the first Asian-American woman in the Senate. Another Hawaiian, Tulsi Gabbard, is the first Hindu in Congress.
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has been described as the first openly bisexual Congress member.
Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin congresswoman elected in November to the Senate, becomes the first openly homosexual member of the upper chamber.