Constitutional politics
Jan. 2nd, 2013 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexAt New Year's Eve a question arose as to how the Speaker of the House is to be elected. Since that's going to happen tomorrow (Jan 3) I thought it would be fun to go read the original text. As I expected, the position of Speaker - which is third in line for the Presidency - is Constitutionally established in Article 1 Section 2: "The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment."
Interestingly it's not required that the Speaker even be a member of the House - that's just long-established tradition.
The question of how the speaker is elected is a little more tricky. Most sites say that a majority is needed, for example http://constitution.laws.com/house-of-representatives/election-of-the-speaker says:
I think the authority for that is Article 1 Section 5 which says "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business..."
So if I read those two texts correctly the lack of a quorum would prevent the House from holding an election but even if a quorum is present the actual number of votes needed is only a majority of the votes cast, which can be substantially less than a majority of the membership. (There's also a provision for non-quorum situations that lets the Members present compel the others to show up by effectively unlimited penalty. That'd be a sight to see!)
Interestingly it's not required that the Speaker even be a member of the House - that's just long-established tradition.
The question of how the speaker is elected is a little more tricky. Most sites say that a majority is needed, for example http://constitution.laws.com/house-of-representatives/election-of-the-speaker says:
A majority vote is required by the Constitution's provisions, however, less than a majority vote can be needed to elect a new Speaker because of absentee Members of the House placing a vote as "present." If there is no candidate receiving a majority vote, the election process will be repeated until a Speaker is elected.
I think the authority for that is Article 1 Section 5 which says "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business..."
So if I read those two texts correctly the lack of a quorum would prevent the House from holding an election but even if a quorum is present the actual number of votes needed is only a majority of the votes cast, which can be substantially less than a majority of the membership. (There's also a provision for non-quorum situations that lets the Members present compel the others to show up by effectively unlimited penalty. That'd be a sight to see!)
