Key cyber leader weighing House Speaker run

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), who chairs a key House subcommittee on cybersecurity, is considering a run for House Speaker.

Capitol Hill was turned upside down Thursday when Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the heavy favorite to become the next Speaker, unexpectedly quit the race just as Republicans were preparing to vote.

{mosads}The move has left House Republicans in disarray, without any clear candidate to succeed Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) when he retires at the end of the month.

Westmoreland, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee’s subcommittee on cybersecurity and the National Security Agency, may try and fill that vacuum.

“I am offering myself up,” he told reporters Thursday, Bloomberg reported.

His office later clarified in a statement: “He will be speaking with his family and spending time in prayer before he makes a final decision.”

Westmoreland has been a leading cybersecurity voice in the House this year as the topic rises in prominence.

“Our nation’s finances, national security and healthcare rely heavily on the internet and the information these connections hold,” he said in a recent statement recognizing October as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. “Terrorists and hackers understand our dependence on this technology, and it has become a new battlefield we face each and every day.”

Mammoth hacks across both the private sector and government sector have exposed hundreds of millions of Americans’ personal data and left Congress scrambling to try and shore up the country’s cyber defenses.

Earlier this year, Westmoreland vocally backed two complementary bills in the House that would enhance the exchange of cyber threat data between companies and the government. Both measures passed in April, and the Senate is set to soon consider its companion legislation.

More recently, Westmoreland pressed intelligence officials at a September House Intelligence Committee hearing to create better definitions of when the government should use offensive cyber capabilities to protect itself.

Even as the House devolved into chaos and uncertainty on Thursday, Westmoreland was meeting with Columbus State University officials to discuss the school’s new focus on cybersecurity, according to Westmoreland’s Facebook page.

“The number of cyberattacks I hear about each week are steadily growing and it’s an issue that can’t be ignored,” Westmoreland said recently.