The Speaker of the House is elected by the majority party. Why does everything I hear and read indicate that if the Democratss take control of the House, the Speaker will be Nancy Pelosi? Why wouldn’t it be another Democrat?
Is this just an election year tactic, to scare people into voting Republican, or is there some reason why Pelosi would be a shoe-in for the post?
Nancy Pelosi is the current floor leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, through her holding of the position of House Minority Leader.
There is a tradition of the House Minority Leader becoming the Speaker of the House in the event of a change of party control. Five of the last six times party control has switched (1931, 1947, 1949, 1953, 1955), the previous House Minority Leader became Speaker, and 1995 was an exception solely because the incumbent House Minority Leader had retired at the previous election.
If a party is in the minority in the House, the top leadership position is the Minority Leader. If the party takes control of the chamber, one generally presumes that the top leadership official in the minority will take the top majority leadership position, which is the Speaker.
Barring that rule of thumb, it is clear that Pelosi wants to be Speaker and will probably get that position. It is not fearmongering. There is some idle chatter about Dems looking to someone less polarizing to take the Speaker’s job, but that’s not really serious talk at this point.
I see a catch 22. Pelosi is a very strident critic of the republicans and I believe that we must tone down the partisan rhetoric, so in that view she seems a poor choice. On the other hand, if the neocons continue to control the republican party, then she would seem to be the right person to stand up to continued partisanship.
While I think a certain amount of gridlock has been good for the country in the past several decades, this contiuous bickering is not good. The best political solutions leave everyone a bit disappointed while accomplshing what’s best for the people.
Tom Foley didn’t retire; he lost in the general election. It was the first time since 1860 that the sitting Speaker of the House lost his re-election bid.
I was not talking about Foley, but, rather, Robert Michel, who had been Minority Leader in the preceding Congress.
The opposite to the aforementioned Minority-Leader-becomes-Speaker, the Speaker of the House becoming Minority Leader, happened in 1947, 1949, 1953, and 1955. It did not happen in 1995 for the reason you already mentioned, and it did not happen in 1931 because the previous Speaker had died.
Thank you!
I swear I went to all my Civics classes and this didn’t come up. 
Congresswoman Pelosi is a major leader in the Democratic party; it’s part of her job to be a critic of Republicans. However, she has emphasized that if she becomes Speaker of the House she plans to govern not start any witch hunts. She has told candidates who have talked about impeachment and special hearings that it isn’t going to happen.
Perhaps as an interesting aside: not only does the party leader not necessarily become the Speaker of the House if their party takes control, as others have pointed out, but there’s nothing saying that the Speaker even has to be a member of Congress. If a majority in the House voted to elect, say, Paulie Shore their Speaker, then he could be Speaker, even though he’s not a congressman. It’s never happened before; the Speaker has always been a member of Congress. But it’s entirely possible that it could. Likely? No. But possible.
Well, that sucks. Special hearings NEED to happen. I don’t give a good goddamn about bipartisan harmony or happy horsepucky like that. The whole damn Republican Congressional and Executive contingent needs a giant, long-lasting application of the harshest sunlight possible.
I, and many other people, would disagree. The purpose of government is to run the country, not to advance the powers of one political party over another.
OK, so we could have Speaker of the House Bill Clinton?
Sounds good to me.
Heh… funny you should mention that. It was an article suggesting that very thing that brought this fact to my attention. Considering how presidents have been taking an increasing role in creating and influencing legislation, it makes sense to get the legislative branch its own executive. I wouldn’t mind seeing it become the tendency that the Speaker of the House is a former president.
Speaker Clinton… the idea will never get much traction until it’s clear that his wife’s presidential bid is either over or a non-starter. I can’t think of a better way for the former president to use his talents.
It has nothing to do with advancing the powers of one political party over another. It has everything to do with punishing criminal and ethical lapses by people entrusted by the people with this kind of power.
I’ve been of the ‘I bet there’ll be more than one hat in the ring’ though process myself. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Pelosi faced a challenge for the Speaker’s Post.
She’ll become Majority Leader, sure. But Majority Leader and Speaker are NOT the same position. One is avowedly partisan and the other is, theoretically, not. Though, of course, that’s a joke these days.
Pelosi is a good choice for a partisan leader as she’s about as safe a liberal incumbent as we’re likely to see. She could get up and wipe her ass with a picture of the President and it’s likely she’d roll in the next election cycle. As Speaker? I dunno.
And I utterly feel that hearing are coming if one or the other chamber flips democrat. I don’t see how that can be avoided.
The main reason why the minority leader becomes speaker is a matter of power. If you challenge your party’s leader in congress, you’d better be sure you win it, because if you lose, forget about getting any committee assignments you want, or having your favorite legislation approved, and there’s a good chance that you’ll get fewer party funds for your next election.
It can happen if the leader is weak and unpopular, but he or she has got to look extremely vulnerable for anyone to challenge.
I suddenly regret my vote. Perhaps the democrats truly are soft on terror.
Something Nancy Pelosi knows a little about.
But to answer the other part of the OP, yes, it is also a scare tactic by Republicans, who’ve been using the “San Francisco Democrat” line for at least the last 20 years.