A San Diego representative said he hopes the next leader of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives will do a better job of uniting both parties in Congress. 

“We call it the Speaker of the House, not the Speaker of the Republicans,” San Diego Rep. Scott Peters said when reacting to John Boehner’s resignation as Speaker of the House Friday. “I would just ask the next leader to be the leader of the whole Congress, not just the Republican Party.”

Speaker Boehner announced his resignation at a news conference Friday morning, saying continued turmoil over his leadership would do irreparable harm to the House. Boehner was a focus of conservative’s complaints during his time as speaker, and prior to announcing his resignation, faced the threat of a floor vote over whether he would remain in his spot.

Peters, in his second term as representative of the 52nd District, said he felt frustrated with Boehner's leadership of the Republican majority.

“There are a lot of things… that moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans can agree on, but he never really gave us a chance to work on it,” Peters told NBC7. “I’m not sure what the inner working of that caucus was, but I’m sure he was as frustrated in many ways as a lot of us were.”

Peters praised particularly;s commitment to public service, but said he felt the Speaker’s inability to reach across the aisle has harmed San Diego as well, particularily when it comes to budget issues. 

“Budgeting issues are particularly difficult on San Diego where we rely heavily on military investment. That all gets stalled by sequester and shutdowns. People don’t know what to plan on. They don’t know if they can hire people,” he said.

“We have a big science community, a lot of people doing research in those labs depend on NIH grants to fund their research and each of those labs is really a small business and we don’t want those people to be laid off. I mean, it really is unfair for us to do that,” Peters said.