The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the House. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. The speaker is second in the United States presidential line of succession, after the vice president.
About Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in brief
The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the House. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. The speaker is second in the United States presidential line of succession, after the vice president and ahead of the president pro tempore of the Senate. The current House speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California, was elected to the office on January 3, 2019. She has the distinction of being the first woman to serve as speaker, and is also the first former speaker to be returned to office since Sam Rayburn in 1955. The House elects its speaker at the beginning of a new Congress or when a speaker dies, resigns or is removed from the position intra-term. The Constitution does not state the duties of the speaker, but the role has largely been shaped by traditions and customs that evolved over partisan time. A position from early in the speakership’s existence began to gain power in development under Henry Clay. In contrast to many of his predecessors, Clay used his influence to procure the passage of many measures, including the declaration of the War of 1812 and various laws relating to Clay’s American System of Economic Policy (ASOP) The speaker usually does not personally preside over debates. That duty is instead delegated to members of theHouse from the majority party, and neither does the speaker regularly participate in floor debates. The Speaker is the de facto leader of the body’s majority party and also performs various other administrative and procedural functions, such as the ceremonial swearing-in of the dean of the chamber, the chamber’s longest-serving member.
Every person elected speaker has been a member of the house of Representatives, although every speaker thus far has been an incumbent member. To be elected speaker, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes cast, as opposed to an absolutemajority of the full membership. There have only been a few instances during the past century where a person received a majority, and thus won the election, while failing to obtain a majority of membership. It happened most recently in 2015, when John Boehner was elected with 216 votes. Such a variation in the number of votes necessary to win a given election might arise due to vacancies, absentees, or members being present but not voting. Multiple roll calls have been necessary only 14 times since 1789; and not since 1923, when a closely divided House needed nine ballots to elect Frederick H. Gillett speaker. Upon winning election the new speaker is immediately sworn in by the dean, the House’s longest serving member, and sworn in as the speaker’s chief of staff for the next term. The first speaker, Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, waselected to office on April 1, 1789, the day the House organized itself at the start of the 1st Congress. He served two non-consecutive terms in the Speaker’s chair, 17 1889–1791 and 1793–1795.
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This page is based on the article Speaker of the United States House of Representatives published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
