The House of Representatives elects a Speaker to serve as its presiding officer. At first the Speaker performed the role of moderator—modeled after the Speaker of the British House of Commons—directing the flow of legislative business and maintaining order. When Henry Clay became Speaker in 1811, he assumed the additional role of party leader, preserving his right to debate and vote like other members. (The Speaker must step down from the podium and speak from the floor if he wishes to address a specific issue.) Since Clay's time, most Speakers have combined the roles as leader both of the majority party and of the House as a whole.
As the number of members of the House grew, strong Speakers such as Thomas B. Reed, who served in the 1890s, interpreted and enforced the House rules to favor the majority and to block obstructionist tactics by the minority. In 1910, however, progressive reformers protested against the “dictatorial” leadership of Speaker Joseph G. Cannon and stripped away many of his powers, including the authority to name all committee members and appoint the chairs of all committees. Today the Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference make committee assignments, and House committee members elect their own chairs. House reforms also prohibited the Speaker from serving on the Rules Committee.
A majority of votes is needed to elect a Speaker, and the position has often been hotly contested. The longest election took place between December 1855 and February 1856, when it took 133 ballots to elect Nathaniel Banks as Speaker. Since the 1930s it has become common for the majority leader to move up to become Speaker. Sam Rayburn (Democrat—Texas) holds the record of the longest service as Speaker: a total of 17 years, 2 months, and 2 days over three periods from 1940 to 1961.
When not presiding, the Speaker appoints a Speaker pro tem (a Latin phrase meaning “for the time being”) to preside in his place. The Speaker, through the House parliamentarian, refers all bills to committee and also appoints the chairs of the committee of the whole (a device by which the House suspends its rules to meet as a committee, to limit debate and amendments). A combination of administrative, legislative, protocol, and political duties makes the Speaker, in the words of Thomas B. Reed, “the embodiment of the House, its power and dignity.”
| Speakers of the House |
|---|
| Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg (Federalist–Pennsylvania), 1789–91 |
| Jonathan Trumbull (Federalist–Connecticut), 1791–93 |
| Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg (Federalist–Pennsylvania), 1793–95 |
| Jonathan Dayton (Democratic-Republican–New Jersey), 1795–99 |
| Theodore Sedgwick (Federalist–Massachusetts), 1799–1801 |
| Nathaniel Macon (Democratic-Republican–North Carolina), 1801–7 |
| Joseph B. Varnum (Democratic-Republican–Massachusetts), 1807–11 |
| Henry Clay (Democratic-Republican–Kentucky), 1811–14 |
| Langdon Chives (Democratic-Republican–South Carolina), 1814–15 |
| Henry Clay (Democratic-Republican–Kentucky), 1815–20 |
| John W. Taylor (Democratic-Republican–New York), 1820–21 |
| Philip B. Barbour (Democratic-Republican–Virginia), 1821–23 |
| Henry Clay (Democratic-Republican–Kentucky), 1823–25 |
| John W. Taylor (Democratic-Republican–New York), 1825–27 |
| Andrew Stevenson (Democrat–Virginia), 1827–34 |
| John Bell (Whig–Tennessee), 1834–35 |
| James K. Polk (Democrat–Tennessee), 1835–39 |
| Robert M. T. Hunter (Whig–Virginia), 1839–41 |
| John White (Whig–Kentucky), 1841–43 |
| John W. Jones (Democrat–Virginia), 1843–45 |
| John Wesley Davis (Democrat–Indiana), 1845–47 |
| Robert C. Winthrop (Whig–Massachusetts), 1847–49 |
| Howell G. Cobb (Democrat–Georgia), 1849–51 |
| Linn Boyd (Democrat–Kentucky), 1851–55 |
| Nathaniel P. Banks (Republican–Massachusetts), 1856–57 |
| James L. Orr (Democrat–South Carolina), 1857–59 |
| William Pennington (Republican–New Jersey), 1860–61 |
| Galusha A. Grow (Republican–Pennsylvania), 1861–63 |
| Schuyler Colfax (Republican–Indiana), 1863–69 |
| Theodore M. Pomeroy (Republican–New York), 1869 |
| James G. Blaine (Republican–Maine), 1869–75 |
| Michael C. Kerr (Democrat–Indiana), 1875–76 |
| Samuel J. Randall (Democrat–Pennsylvania), 1876–81 |
| J. Warren Keifer (Republican–Ohio), 1881–83 |
| John G. Carlisle (Democrat–Kentucky), 1883–89 |
| Thomas B. Reed (Republican–Maine), 1889–91 |
| Charles F. Crisp (Democrat–Georgia), 1891–95 |
| Thomas B. Reed (Republican–Maine), 1895–99 |
| David B. Henderson (Republican–Iowa), 1899–1903 |
| Joseph G. Cannon (Republican–Illinois), 1903–11 |
| James Beauchamp ("Champ") Clark (Democrat–Missouri), 1911–19 |
| Frederick H. Gillett (Republican–Massachusetts), 1919–25 |
| Nicholas Longworth (Republican–Ohio), 1925–31 |
| John Nance Garner (Democrat–Texas), 1931–33 |
| Henry T. Rainey (Democrat–Illinois), 1933–34 |
| Joseph W. Byrnes (Democrat–Tennessee), 1935–36 |
| William Bankhead (Democrat–Alabama), 1936–40 |
| Sam Rayburn (Democrat–Texas), 1940–47 |
| Joseph W. Martin (Republican–Massachusetts), 1947–48 |
| Sam Rayburn (Democrat–Texas), 1949–52 |
| Joseph W. Martin (Republican–Massachusetts), 1953–54 |
| Sam Rayburn (Democrat–Texas), 1955–61 |
| John W. McCormack (Democrat–Massachusetts), 1962–71 |
| Carl Albert (Democrat–Oklahoma), 1971–77 |
| Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill, Jr. (Democrat–Massachusetts), 1977–87 |
| Jim Wright (Democrat–Texas), 1987–89 |
| Thomas S. Foley (Democrat–Washington), 1989–95 |
| Newt Gingrich (Republican–Georgia), 1995–99 |
| J. Dennis Hastert (Republican–Illinois), 1999– |
See also Blaine, James G.; Cannon, Joseph G.; Clark, James Beauchamp (“Champ”); Clay, Henry; Committee of the whole; Foley, Thomas S.; Garner, John Nance; Gingrich, Newt; Longworth, Nicholas; Muhlenberg, Frederick Augustus; Officers of the House and Senate; Rayburn, Sam; Reed, Thomas B.; Rules committees; Wright, Jim
Sources
- Ronald M. Peters, Jr., The American Speakership: The Office in Historical Perspective (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990)
