He pulled a vote to replace him a few days ago because he was fixin to lose, the house Freedom Caucus has been growing in strength and the fact is, they were within two votes of running him off. I would guess he simply took the cowards way out, quitting before he was fired. Theres talk of McCarthy taking the spot and some suggest hes not much of an improvement. I covered an event a couple weeks ago with several members of the Freedom Caucus speaking - we are making serious headway in the house, but, MSM won`t cover it out of fear we will actually be informed. One of my senators, the illustrious Bill Nelson, has already trotted out the old" extremists in congress" shtick. Of course no one in media has thought to ask him his thoughts on all those "extremist" Americans voting in historic numbers in the last two elections to show his party the door...