The Speaker of the House

The Speaker of the House is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The position is established by Article I of the Constitution and is second in line of presidential succession after the Vice President.

Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution provides simply that "the House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers." Beyond that line, the office is what each generation of the House has made of it. The Speaker is elected by the full House at the start of each Congress, typically by the majority party. The Speaker presides over floor proceedings, refers bills to committees, rules on points of order, and controls the legislative schedule. The office is more powerful than its constitutional description suggests. Strong Speakers like Henry Clay in the early nineteenth century, Thomas Reed and Joseph Cannon at the turn of the twentieth, Sam Rayburn through the mid-century, and Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich in recent decades have shaped the legislative process well beyond the chamber. A 1910 revolt against Speaker Cannon stripped the office of some of its most autocratic powers, decentralizing authority to committee chairs. Reforms in the 1970s shifted some of that power back. The Speaker is also second in the presidential line of succession, after the Vice President, under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. No Speaker has ever assumed the presidency under that line. The role has become more partisan in recent decades. Earlier Speakers often saw themselves as institutional stewards as much as party leaders. Modern Speakers function primarily as leaders of their party in the House, with the institutional role taking second place. The position is also less secure than it once was. Speaker Kevin McCarthy was removed by a motion to vacate the chair in 2023, the first time in American history a Speaker had been ousted in such a vote. The mechanics of the office continue to evolve. Its centrality to the legislative process does not.