Speaker of the House

[Cordelier]

So you can't sit as a member of the House if you can't vote
QED: The Speaker MUST be a member of the House.

There's nothing in the rules that says the Speaker must vote.... or that they have to be a member of the House.

 

[Rich2018]

There's nothing in the rules that says the Speaker must vote.... or that they have to be a member of the House.

How can you sit in the House if you're not a member of it ?

Bit like saying that you can be a member of the Supreme Court without being a justice of it.

 

[Cordelier]

How can you sit in the House if you're not a member of it ?

Bit like saying that you can be a member of the Supreme Court without being a justice of it.

What do you think the Vice President does in the Senate?

 

[Rich2018]

What do you think the Vice President does in the Senate?

He/she presides over the Senate - and actually that's the only official duty of the VP as stated in the Constitution

Now if the Constitution was to grant authority for someone like the VP to sit in the House, that would be different. But it doesn't, so all people sitting in the House have to be members of it.

 

[Cordelier]

He/she presides over the Senate - and actually that's the only official duty of the VP as stated in the Constitution

Now if the Constitution was to grant authority for someone like the VP to sit in the House, that would be different. But it doesn't, so all people sitting in the House have to be members of it.

Well, like the OP of this thread points out, Article I §2 of the Constitution says, "The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers" There is no codicil that the Speaker must be chosen from sitting House members, nor is there any provision to that effect within the Rules of the House of Representatives. If they deem fit to choose their Speaker from outside of their membership, then that's their constitutional prerogative.

That same provision of the Constitution also states "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States". Members of the House of Representatives are chosen by the people. The Speaker is chosen by the Members. Two very different sets of constituents. The Speaker and other Officers (ie, The Clerk, the Sergeant-at-Arms, et al.) have no right to cast votes by virtue of the offices they hold - only sitting Members do.

 

[Glitch]

So Vietnam had nothing to do with it?

Absolutely nothing. Carter was President after Vietnam had already ended. He also pardoned every deserter coward on his first day in office, which completely destroyed the morale of those serving in the military. Carter was an unmitigated disaster for the military. Reagan was necessary to remove cowardly Carter from being President. Or did you forget about Carter's abject cowardice in freeing the Iranian hostages?

 

[Cordelier]

Absolutely nothing. Carter was President after Vietnam had already ended. He also pardoned every deserter coward on his first day in office, which completely destroyed the morale of those serving in the military. Carter was an unmitigated disaster for the military. Reagan was necessary to remove cowardly Carter from being President. Or did you forget about Carter's abject cowardice in freeing the Iranian hostages?

Let me get this straight... Carter actually served, and he was a "coward"? Reagan didn't, and he wasn't?

What about George McGovern? Was he a coward as well? DFC notwithstanding?

 

[Glitch]

Defense spending had been steadily declining since the end of the Vietnam war - if you want to blame anyone, it ought to be Kissinger and détente. Truth in point, it was Carter who reversed that trend in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

I don't have the actual numbers in front of me at present (I can get to them tomorrow), but from memory, Clinton's budget policies accounted for about 70% of the deficit elimination and the Republican initiatives accounted for about 20% (more Dole than Gingrich), with the remaining 10% resulting from reduced interest payments.

Not true. Defense spending peaked in 1968-1969, then began declining until 1981. Between 1981 until 1991 Defense Spending increased substantially, only to be cut back again beginning in 1992 just before Clinton was elected. The military is still bigger than it was before 1981.

Carter was already on his way out of office by the time the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1980. Nor would it be the only nation to fall to communism while the coward Carter was President.

No President has ever had their proposed budgets passed by any Congress. What Clinton proposed is completely meaningless, since only Congress can determine the budget. Furthermore, there was never any reduction in the interest payments on the National Debt because the National Debt never declined. The National Debt has only increased, even during the three years of surplus created by Speaker Gingrich's House.

 

[Glitch]

Let me get this straight... Carter actually served, and he was a "coward"? Reagan didn't, and he wasn't?

What about George McGovern? Was he a coward as well? DFC notwithstanding?

Absolutely Carter was a coward. He turned his tail, ran away, and hid under a rock when Iran took US citizens hostage. We've been paying for Carter's cowardice with Iran ever since. Just like we are still paying for Carter's botched negotiations between Israel and Egypt. Carter couldn't broker a peace between Israel and Egypt, so he bought one at US taxpayer expense. To this day the US taxpayer is paying both Israel and Egypt $5 billion each and every year not to go to war with each other. It is damn difficult to find a worse President than Carter.

McGovern was simply pathetic, and the second biggest loser in American history, after Mondale.

 

[Cordelier]

Absolutely Carter was a coward. He turned his tail, ran away, and hid under a rock when Iran took US citizens hostage. We've been paying for Carter's cowardice with Iran ever since. Just like we are still paying for Carter's botched negotiations between Israel and Egypt. Carter couldn't broker a peace between Israel and Egypt, so he bought one at US taxpayer expense. To this day the US taxpayer is paying both Israel and Egypt $5 billion each and every year not to go to war with each other. It is damn difficult to find a worse President than Carter.

McGovern was simply pathetic, and the second biggest loser in American history, after Mondale.

How many hostages do you figure would have walked out of there if he had bombed Tehran?

 

[Cordelier]

Not true. Defense spending peaked in 1968-1969, then began declining until 1981. Between 1981 until 1991 Defense Spending increased substantially, only to be cut back again beginning in 1992 just before Clinton was elected. The military is still bigger than it was before 1981.

Carter was already on his way out of office by the time the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1980. Nor would it be the only nation to fall to communism while the coward Carter was President.

No President has ever had their proposed budgets passed by any Congress. What Clinton proposed is completely meaningless, since only Congress can determine the budget. Furthermore, there was never any reduction in the interest payments on the National Debt because the National Debt never declined. The National Debt has only increased, even during the three years of surplus created by Speaker Gingrich's House.

Hate to break it to you, Glitch.... but what we spent on Defense in Fiscal 1981 was proposed by the budget Carter submitted in 1980, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Reagan's first budget was FY82.

 

[Glitch]

Hate to break it to you, Glitch.... but what we spent on Defense in Fiscal 1981 was proposed by the budget Carter submitted in 1980, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Reagan's first budget was FY82.

Once again, not a single budget every proposed by any President has ever passed Congress. It may shock and dismay you to learn that Presidents do not enact budgets, Congress does. You should learn some basic civics.

The Democrat-controlled Congress passed the 1980 budget, and they were part of the problem. Carter had a Democrat majority in Congress during his entire four years as President. We had four years of a very serious recession because of out of control congressional spending by Democrat scum. Much worse than anything we experienced while Obama was President. In 1977 there was lines stretching for blocks waiting for gasoline to be delivered. Inflation had been out of control since 1974, long term interest rates hit 18% by 1980, and people were losing their homes by the thousands thanks entirely to the Democrat-controlled Congress.

 

[Cordelier]

Once again, not a single budget every proposed by any President has ever passed Congress. It may shock and dismay you to learn that Presidents do not enact budgets, Congress does. You should learn some basic civics.

The Democrat-controlled Congress passed the 1980 budget, and they were part of the problem. Carter had a Democrat majority in Congress during his entire four years as President. We had four years of a very serious recession because of out of control congressional spending by Democrat scum. Much worse than anything we experienced while Obama was President. In 1977 there was lines stretching for blocks waiting for gasoline to be delivered. Inflation had been out of control since 1974, long term interest rates hit 18% by 1980, and people were losing their homes by the thousands thanks entirely to the Democrat-controlled Congre

Yeah, blame Arthur Burns and the Fed.

Carter appointed Paul Volcker, and he handled the inflation problem by pulling the M1 e-brake.

 

[Glitch]

Yeah, blame Arthur Burns and the Fed.

Carter appointed Paul Volcker, and he handled the inflation problem by pulling the M1 e-brake.

I don't blame Carter for the recession. It was not of his making. There are a myriad of things for which I can, and do, blame Carter, but the recession is not one of them. The recession began about the same time Ford became President in 1974, and we didn't recover from it until 1985. It took a 25% reduction in taxes by a Republican-controlled Senate (for the first time since 1953) over a three year period before the recession finally ended and we started to enjoy a booming economy by 1985.

 

[Cordelier]

I don't blame Carter for the recession. It was not of his making. There are a myriad of things for which I can, and do, blame Carter, but the recession is not one of them. The recession began about the same time Ford became President in 1974, and we didn't recover from it until 1985. It took a 25% reduction in taxes by a Republican-controlled Senate (for the first time since 1953) over a three year period before the recession finally ended and we started to enjoy a booming economy by 1985.

I've got no problem with the Kemp-Roth 1981 Tax Cuts.... but if the economy was booming by 1985, then what was the logic behind the Tax Reform Act of 1986? In my mind, that was a big step too far on the road to putting us into the bubble economy we now find ourselves. The Eisenhower 1954 Tax Code was a great system, highly adaptable and showed itself fully capable of adapting to changing situations. The 1986 revision just puts more and more money into fewer and fewer hands. It's a piece of crap tax code. We need to go back to an updated version of the Eisenhower model.

 

[Glitch]

I've got no problem with the Kemp-Roth 1981 Tax Cuts.... but if the economy was booming by 1985, then what was the logic behind the Tax Reform Act of 1986? In my mind, that was a big step too far on the road to putting us into the bubble economy we now find ourselves. The Eisenhower 1954 Tax Code was a great system, highly adaptable and showed itself fully capable of adapting to changing situations. The 1986 revision just puts more and more money into fewer and fewer hands. It's a piece of crap tax code. We need to go back to an updated version of the Eisenhower model.

The tax cuts that Congress passed in 1981 took effect in 1982 (10%), 1983 (10%), and 1984 (5%) and were across the board for everyone, lowering the overall income tax rate from 25% to 20%. The 1986 tax cuts lowered the top taxable rate from 50% to 28%. The economy boomed from 1985 until 1988. In 1989 there was an adjustment to the Stock Market, the economy tanked and the boom was over. It only lasted until 1991 however. The economy began growing at a more normal rate beginning in 1991, but the boom ended in 1988.

Congress has repeatedly demonstrated over the last 20 years that it does not matter at what rate they tax us, they are going to spend anywhere from 150% to 200% more than what they collect in taxes anyway. 1998 for FY99 was the last year all twelve appropriation bills passed Congress. Ever since 1999 Congress (both Republicans and Democrats) have been using Continuing Resolutions, Supplemental Spending bills, and Omnibus bills to fund the federal government, and more often than not with a veto-proof majority.

Projected revenues, budgets, surpluses, and deficits have not mattered to Congress in the slightest since the twenty-first century began.

 

[bearpoker]

It's not that the Speaker is not a Member, it's that the order of succession lists the Speaker of the House in the line of succession. In the case of the inability of the President and Vice President to continue to serve, that would mean an unelected person (except by the House Membership) would become President, a prospect that a number of people object to. In all other cases, the person has been elected to office, or appointed and confirmed by a majority of the Senate - thus vetted publicly. I was merely pointing out that there are expectations of the Speakership that are not, strictly speaking, in the Constitution.

There are practical reasons, I think, for both selection of the Speaker from the membership (the norm), and for picking an outside person. Under the present situation, the Speaker acts not only as the leader of the House itself, but of their party. I consider this, often, to be a conflict of interest, and many Speakers have taken that to extremes (Newt Gingrich and Denny Hastert come to mind). The House is supposed to represent all of the people, not just their party, and the Speaker should be someone that takes that to heart. In that regard, selection of someone from outside of the Members could further that purpose. On the other hand, I think it would be difficult, as a practical matter, for the Speaker to influence Members if they, themselves, didn't have to run for office or have a vote in Congress.

What powers does the Speaker have that are not based on their leadership within their majority? It seems to me that a Speaker who is not an elected member of the house would become a figurehead.

 

[bearpoker]

Impeach Biden and Harris. Trump elevates to the presidency, runs again in 2024 because he only served part of a term, and voila - pretty much "president for life."

It would be easier to just shoot Biden and Harris than get a Senate conviction. I'm sure they could find a MAGAt to take the job.

 

[Rich2018]

Well, like the OP of this thread points out, Article I §2 of the Constitution says, "The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers" There is no codicil that the Speaker must be chosen from sitting House members, nor is there any provision to that effect within the Rules of the House of Representatives. If they deem fit to choose their Speaker from outside of their membership, then that's their constitutional prerogative.

That same provision of the Constitution also states "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States". Members of the House of Representatives are chosen by the people. The Speaker is chosen by the Members. Two very different sets of constituents. The Speaker and other Officers (ie, The Clerk, the Sergeant-at-Arms, et al.) have no right to cast votes by virtue of the offices they hold - only sitting Members do.

Yeah, upon thinking about this, whereas I can't believe the intention was for the House to elect a Speaker from anywhere other than from it's own members. A literal interpretation of the Constitution, is that it could elect a non-member of the House as Speaker

I saw last night a new piece that Trump could stand foe election as Speaker if the Republicans win the House next year. One suggestion was that he stand as a congressman but another was that he didn't even need to do that.

 

[Luce]

Absolutely nothing.

Dismissed.

 

[NWRatCon]

What powers does the Speaker have that are not based on their leadership within their majority? It seems to me that a Speaker who is not an elected member of the house would become a figurehead.

I agree.

 

[Cordelier]

The tax cuts that Congress passed in 1981 took effect in 1982 (10%), 1983 (10%), and 1984 (5%) and were across the board for everyone, lowering the overall income tax rate from 25% to 20%. The 1986 tax cuts lowered the top taxable rate from 50% to 28%. The economy boomed from 1985 until 1988. In 1989 there was an adjustment to the Stock Market, the economy tanked and the boom was over. It only lasted until 1991 however. The economy began growing at a more normal rate beginning in 1991, but the boom ended in 1988.

Congress has repeatedly demonstrated over the last 20 years that it does not matter at what rate they tax us, they are going to spend anywhere from 150% to 200% more than what they collect in taxes anyway. 1998 for FY99 was the last year all twelve appropriation bills passed Congress. Ever since 1999 Congress (both Republicans and Democrats) have been using Continuing Resolutions, Supplemental Spending bills, and Omnibus bills to fund the federal government, and more often than not with a veto-proof majority.

Projected revenues, budgets, surpluses, and deficits have not mattered to Congress in the slightest since the twenty-first century began.

You're forgetting a couple of key factors in that analysis, though. After the 1981 Kemp-Roth Tax Cuts, there was the 1982 TEFRA Tax Increases (which obviously didn't crash the economy).... and secondly, real GDP growth for FY89 was 3.9% - hardly an economic downturn. The recession didn't happen until FY91 when real growth was -0.3%.

 

[Cordelier]

Yeah, upon thinking about this, whereas I can't believe the intention was for the House to elect a Speaker from anywhere other than from it's own members. A literal interpretation of the Constitution, is that it could elect a non-member of the House as Speaker

I saw last night a new piece that Trump could stand foe election as Speaker if the Republicans win the House next year. One suggestion was that he stand as a congressman but another was that he didn't even need to do that.

I don't see it happening, barring a massive pro-Trump Republican landslide in the mid-terms. But if that happens, it's not going to matter anyway. That'd be the death-knell of the 1st American Republic.

 

[Rich2018]

I don't see it happening, barring a massive pro-Trump Republican landslide in the mid-terms. But if that happens, it's not going to matter anyway. That'd be the death-knell of the 1st American Republic.

The plan needs every part to fall into place:

Trump to win a congressional seat (should manage that)
Republicans to take the House (Hmmmm....with Trump standing, I think that is actually less likely to happen)
The House to vote to impeach Biden (Trump has such a grip on the GOP, if they win the House and if Trump was speaker, it's hard to see many dissenting voices)

Downside, if Trump wins election, he'd actually have to do work, like show up for votes and stuff
If he were speaker, he couldn't get away with watching a dozen hours of TV a day and playing golf...it's a non-starter, Trump won't run next year

I can't see even the rabid GOP congressmen electing him as a non-sitting House Speaker.

 

[NWRatCon]

What powers does the Speaker have that are not based on their leadership within their majority? It seems to me that a Speaker who is not an elected member of the house would become a figurehead.

My previous post got truncated.

I agree. But... I think there is a good argument, as a practical matter, for a Speaker to come from outside of the body (as long as it is not a partisan hack or someone like Trump). Here's my pitch:

The fundamental purpose for the Speakership is to manage legislation. Having an outsider not beholden to party, but simply there to administer the process could alleviate some of the more partisan actions. A neutral Speaker could be a gatekeeper to keep legislation on track, keep out pure partisan posturing legislation, determine committee assignments on merit, organize the schedule, etc. They wouldn't be as subject to partisan pressure, and wouldn't have to worry about losing their seat during an electing.

As in the Senate, there'd be a Marjority leader and a Minority leader to pursue party interests, but the Speaker could be outside the fray. There is a significant conflict of interests in the current arrangement where party interests override public interest.