There’s a civics lesson to be learned out of what we all witnessed happening in the U.S. House of Congress this past week. It was crazy. It was hard to understand and keep up with, and some of us may still be scratching our heads trying to figure out what the heck happened.
Here’s the thing: On January 3, 2023, everyone expected there to be a vote to confirm who the new Speaker of the House would be. Since the Republicans are in the majority, that means the Democrats who’ve enjoyed the speakership for the last number of years have to give it up. So out with Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. A new leader emerged on the Democratic side, although since the Democrats are not in power, he won’t be the speaker, Jeffries from New York state.
But the really crazy thing is that it took four days and fifteen votes before the Republicans finally could come to an agreement that put Kevin McCarthy in as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Needless to say, the 118th Congress got off to a rough start with lots of drama. At the end of the day, it was a scene of how our American government works. This past week’s indecisiveness amongst Republicans in Congress, as to who their next Speaker would be, hasn’t happened since before the Civil war in American history.
The following information comes directly from a website called study.com, which outlines much of what the Speakership is all about.
The Speaker of the House is the elected leader of the House of Representatives in the United States Congress. Historically, the position originated in the 14th-century British House of Commons. The Speaker was the head of the legislative body and acted as a representative of the House of Commons before the monarchy. The Speaker was also the monarchy’s representative to the House. This dual role eventually ended, and the Speaker of the House of Commons became solely a representative for the House.
The role of Speaker of the House was carried over into the American system of government as well. The Speaker of the House, while primarily an official of Congress, also acts as a liaison between the House of Representatives and the President of the United States and is second in the line of succession to the presidency, right behind the vice president.
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