Who Needs the Speaker of the House?

Kevin McCarthy

By the time you read this, you’ll already know something I don’t as I write: whether the United States has a sitting Speaker of the House. At this writing, Kevin McCarthy has narrowly failed six ballots, making his the first Speaker’s vote in a century to require multiple ballots. Because the Republicans hold a razor-thin majority, the usual procedural workarounds used to prevent intraparty entanglements won’t resolve the problem.

However, that razor-thin majority precipitates an important question: does the United States need a Speaker of the House? Does the role, as it currently exists, serve the House’s legislative role, as defined by the Constitution? Or does it impede debate, preventing testing of important ideas and the process of coalition-building? Would America be better served by dismantling the Speaker’s authority into an executive committee holding dispersed authority?

The fact that I’m asking these questions probably telegraphs my preferred answer.

The Speaker position’s existence is specified in the Constitution (Article One, Section 2), but no responsibility specified. Like much in America’s Constitution, the actual execution remains vague. Nothing actually requires the Speakership’s current authority to not only start, but also prevent, legislative debate. The Speaker’s control of legislative agenda derives from written rules and unwritten traditions—any of which could be changed.

Previous Speakers, like Sam Rayburn or Joseph Cannon, exercised significant power. But the Speakership’s current authority derives from Newt Gingrich, who explicitly saw the purpose of politics as war. His goal, in exercising authority, was not to serve the common good, but to destroy his opponents. He consolidated decision-making authority specifically to ensure only bills favorable to partisan causes even made the floor; any other debate got spiked.

Nancy Pelosi

We’ve seen more power accumulated to the Speakership. Officially, the Speaker provides order and governs organizational procedure, but in practice, that lacks definition. The “Hastert Rule,” not really a rule but a practice introduced by Dennis Hastert, gives the Speaker the power to prevent voting, or even debate, on bills which the Speaker’s party won’t support. Equally important, the Speaker dispenses committee appointments, ensuring which bills even advance.

This matters because, under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, currently in force, the Speaker is second in line for the Presidency. By concentrating powerful authority in the Speakership, the procedure essentially creates a second national executive—then gives that person specific motivation to undermine the existing Executive Branch. Under a divided government, that provides remarkable incentive for individual corruption, as Gingrich demonstrated.

Nothing about the Speakership requires this level of executive authority. Unlike the President, who must often act swiftly and unilaterally to preserve national interests in a volatile world climate, the Speaker seldom faces such urgency. The issues which the House handles are long-term and national in scope, deserving test through debate. Though “compromise” and “horse-trading” have become dirty words lately, they describe how we build legislation that works.

Whatever political party doesn’t hold the White House usually gains power in midterm elections. This means the Speaker develops massive power over national priorities. Which sounds great, if Speakers hold actual policy positions, but few do. Since Gingrich, the bipartisan procedure has been to use the Legislature to break everything, preventing solutions to growing problems. Global warming, economic inequality, and an unaccountable military go unaddressed, as Speakers jockey for partisan advantage.

Newt Gingrich

Living in the shadow of Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi, the Speakership has become a barrier to governance. Bills don’t receive nuanced debate in full chambers; indeed, the full House seldom meets unless a vote is scheduled. The House serves at the Speaker’s discretion, not the people’s. An entire second presidency has grown, tumor-like, on the Legislative Branch’s rump, one which isn’t popularly elected and doesn’t serve all Americans’ interests equally.

Arguably, the House needs the Speakership to organize routine business. But as the office has accumulated extra-Constitutional power, it has served to resurrect the exact conditions that doomed the Articles of Confederation: in-group loyalties, one Congress passing legislation to overrule the last Congress, and institutional whimsy. The entire office has become antithetical to clean governance and a sense of responsibility to the people.

While left-wing pundits whip themselves into a tizzy over supposed injustice of the unfair Senate or the Electoral College, the Speaker of the House has become the enemy of small-d democracy. The bitter, and frankly stupid, fight currently unfolding behind the Speakership vote demonstrates this. The ballot remains unresolved because partisans are fighting over who deserves that level of power. Sadly, the natural answer seems to be: nobody.

Edit for historical context: Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-California) eventually won the election. It took four days and fifteen ballots, the longest lag in electing a Speaker since before the U.S. Civil War.