Table Of Content
But the Republican conference's rules for the 118th Congress suggest Trump could be ineligible to serve as speaker. At the beginning of the year, House Republicans adopted a set of rules including Rule 26, which says a member of leadership who has been indicted for a felony that could carry a sentence of two or more years in prison "shall" vacate their position. Trump faces 91 felony charges across his four criminal state and federal court cases.
The Humbling of Marjorie Taylor Greene
"Although the Constitution does not so require, the Speaker has always been a Member of the House," the report said, and outlined recent instances where non-members received votes. The Constitution does not specify that the speaker must actually be a member of the House and the Congressional Research Service emphasized that point in a 2021 report about elections for the speaker. Republican Representative Lauren Boebert suggested that she could nominate Trump during an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
Steve Bannon Slams 'Disgusting, Revolting Loser' Mike Johnson
There are at least two House Republicans vying for the position, and one of them (or one of their colleagues) is likely to be the next Speaker. The theory that anyone can be elected speaker relies on a seeming omission in the Constitution. Article I states that the House "shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers." Because the clause doesn't expressly state that the speaker must be a member, proponents infer that anyone could be speaker.
WATCH: Trump gives support to embattled Speaker Mike Johnson at pivotal Mar-a-Lago meet - PBS NewsHour
WATCH: Trump gives support to embattled Speaker Mike Johnson at pivotal Mar-a-Lago meet.
Posted: Fri, 12 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Jury seated in Trump hush money trial
Moreover, Article I vests all "legislative Powers" in the Senate and the House, and the House is "composed of Members" elected every two years. Unlike the "other Officers" elected by the House, like the clerk and the sergeant at arms, the speaker engages in legislative functions. By statute, the speaker must sign enrolled bills before they are presented to the president and administer the oath of office to other members. An enrolled bill signed by a nonlegislator could be vulnerable to legal challenge. "A lot of people have been calling me about speaker," Trump said Wednesday morning outside a New York City courthouse for the New York attorney general's civil fraud trial against him. The current rules of the Republican House conference actually prohibit someone charged with a felony from serving in leadership.
Blinken: Russia would struggle in Ukraine without China’s support
But unlike in the case of leadership posts, the rules permit the conference to waive the committee step-aside requirement by a simple majority vote. The current rule suggests that Trump could not hold a role in Republican leadership, including the speakership, since he has been indicted on numerous felony charges that can carry at least two years of imprisonment sentences. The last time a member of House party leadership — defined as one of the top three leaders — was indicted, they stepped aside. Tom DeLay, a Republican from Texas, left his post as majority leader under then-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) in September 2005 after a grand jury accused him of conspiring to violate political fundraising law to help House candidates in his state. Republicans’ own rules forbid someone under criminal indictment for a felony from serving in party leadership.
Support
Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida reignited chatter of Trump becoming speaker of the House if Republicans reclaim the chamber in 2022 on Tuesday, telling reporters he's spoken with Trump about the possibility. Historically, the speaker of the House has been a member of Congress, but the majority party can pick whoever they want. "Even for those who support Trump, this would be akin to turning over the House majority to someone who would only use the office to run a presidential campaign," Andersen said.
"What this would lead to is a deep internal divide about whether to remove the rule or not, but Trump would likely win this battle." The roiling civil war on Capitol Hill that’s led to the ousting of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the US House of Representatives has left Republicans scrambling for a replacement. With no clear successor, the risk of further acute embarrassment to the party, and a slew of legislative priorities on the docket, desperation may already be setting in. While theoretically possible, it is unlikely that Trump will receive enough support overall to be elected House Speaker.
In this case, that means the Speaker must get 218 votes, or half (plus one) of the 435 elected members of the House. The 44-year-old congressman, who has served two years in the House, voted against certifying Joe Biden's presidential victory in 2021. If Trump gets as far as a full House vote as the Republican nominee, it would take only a handful of Republican defectors to deliver the election to the expected Democratic nominee, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. This is not an idle threat, given that there are 18 House Republicans serving in districts won by Joe Biden in 2020 who would think long and hard before voting for Trump for speaker. "It requires that you actually get to the office at a reasonable hour and deal with the kinds of factional disputes that he would rather fuel, rather than settle," said C. Replying to a post on X citing Hannity’s comment about the push for a Trump speakership, Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., shared a screenshot, saying, "I would direct your attention to rule 26(a) of the House Republican Conference rules for the 118th Congress."
That's a suggestion that has been floated by some of the former president's supporters in the past and it is technically possible for Trump to fill that role if a majority of those voting choose him. The person must be nominated by a member of the House, then chosen by a majority of the full membership of the House. For a House with 435 members, that's 218 votes, although there are two vacancies right now.
As summarized by Louis Jacobson for Politifact, many experts believe there is no constitutional requirement that the Speaker of the House be selected from among the House's members, even though this has never happened before. Back in 2015, Pete Williams reported for NBC that both the Clerk of the House and the House historian concurred with this view. McCarthy remains the favorite but Republican Representative Steve Scalise, who has been discussed as a potential alternative, is also in the running. It's also possible for members of the House to say Trump's name during the roll call vote. "There are certainly names that have been floated around, and hey, maybe I should nominate President Donald J. Trump tomorrow," Boebert told Hannity. The U.S. House of Representatives has failed to elect a new speaker in six ballots across two days as a group of Republicans continues to oppose Representative Kevin McCarthy.
Over the summer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he's had numerous conversations with Trump, who he said wants him to become speaker of the house. So, theoretically, Republicans could choose to put Trump in the speaker's chair by a majority vote. However, Trump's been noncommittal on the idea and it's possible he wouldn't even want the position if it was offered to him. It would require the creation of an ad hoc committee, appointed by the speaker and chaired by a senior Republican member of the Committee on Rules of the House. Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Buchanan is a close Scalise ally after getting his support during a failed bid to become Ways and Means chairman. Trump received one vote for the speakership back in January on the seventh, eighth and 11th ballots, despite only being nominated on the 11th by Gaetz. House members have been advised that a vote for a new speaker will not take place until next week.
With House speaker at his side, Trump suggests Ukraine aid should be loan - Voice of America - VOA News
With House speaker at his side, Trump suggests Ukraine aid should be loan.
Posted: Fri, 12 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Although a non-member of the house has never served as speaker in the institution’s 234-year history, a speaker isn’t actually required to be a Congress member. The constitution only states that the “House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker and other Officers”. The Democrats look set to once again vote for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who ran for Speaker in January against McCarthy, although he would require several Republican votes to be elected. At least three GOP House members—Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, Florida's Greg Steube and Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene—have already indicated that they will support the former president in voting to select a new House Speaker. The House Republican Conference’s rules can be changed fairly easily by an internal vote that doesn’t require any input from House Democrats.
That omission has occasionally led to speculation that there could be a nonmember leader of the House. The role of House speaker has importance outside of Congress; that person is second in the presidential line of succession just behind the vice president. Trump’s name was immediately floated by supporters after the successful vote to depose McCarthy, and a Trump adviser Tuesday night told NBC News that Republican members of the House had already been asking Trump to serve as an interim speaker. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Troy Nehls (R-Texas) have been the most vocal proponents of electing Trump to the speakership, with the former saying Trump is the “only candidate” she is supporting at the moment, and the latter vowing to nominate him. The 2024 GOP presidential front-runner didn’t reject the idea of becoming speaker outright but insisted that he’s focused on his White House aspirations. However, with his freedom potentially at stake and an election rematch against President Biden possibly in the cards, it appears improbable, for now, that the former commander-in-chief would take the gavel.
"A speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress," John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told PolitiFact in 2021. "That said, we have never elected a speaker from outside the House. But it is constitutionally permissible." Another Republican House member, Greg Steube of Florida, posted on X, "@realDonaldTrump for Speaker." And Fox News host Sean Hannity told viewers Oct. 3 that "some House Republicans" had "been in contact with and have started an effort to draft" Trump as speaker. Becoming Speaker of the House would return Trump to the Washington, D.C., spotlight and could afford him the opportunity to preside over an impeachment of President Joe Biden, if Republicans sought to oust him from office. Yet doing so may risk further dividing the GOP, even before Trump could be voted in. The rule restricting Republican leadership appointments has been adopted by the House Republican Conference since 2005.
No comments:
Post a Comment