Speaking of Speakers

The current House of Representatives is the 117th in the history of the United States since the first one gathered in 1789.

It convened for the first time on April 1, 1789 with 65 members, which increased to 69 members in the next session and then continued apace as the nation added states and people. The only time in American history the House decreased in membership was during the Civil War, when the 11 states confederated in rebellion against the United States were not represented.

In the 67th Congress from 1913 to 1915 the membership (always apportioned on the basis of a population that included slaves until 1861, who until then were counted as three fifths of a human being for the purpose of representation) became fixed at 435. It marked a decision to keep the number within reason.

Thenceforth the number of people per district would increase, but not the number of districts.

Representation, ever since fixed at 435 members, is still apportioned by population. So Wyoming, though the Constitution gives it two senators like every state, gives it by constitutional apportionment just one representative in the House. That’s because with 591,000 population in 2020 Wyoming has fewer people than apportionment allows per district, 760,000 people. After all, the notion of fractional people went out of fashion in 1861.

Wyoming’s representative was Liz Cheney until this congress, when her support for the very same Constitution cost her the seat, now occupied by an extremist maga zealot, Harriet Hageman – maga having become a recognized descriptive political adjective in American English.

California by comparison also gets only two senators but under apportionment has 52 members of the House, one of whom is – at least in political terms – the late Kevin McCarthy.

The Constititon sets out in detail in Article I, the article establishing and empowering the Congress, a litany of things the Congress can do, must do or absolutely may not do like pass a bill of attainder. That’s a law assigning by legislation guilt to a person or group of people without a trial. A worst case example, maybe the worst ever? The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 in Germany.

The Constitution places initial authority for revenue bills in the House, a power that thus applies to all budget as well as appropriation bills because you can’t spend money you haven’t raised.

But as to how the House is to operate and to manage its business, the Constitution says almost nothing.

In Article I, Section 2 the 6th paragraph directs, “The House of Representatives shall chuse (choose) their Speaker and other Officers; …)

What other officers? The officers the House decides to create and empower according to Article I, Section 5, 2nd paragraph where it says, “Each house may determine the Rules of its Proceedings …”

That’s it. Sounds simple, but not so. Each session, the rules change, sometimes hardly at all sometimes more. The Republicans on taking power last January used the rules to establish a partisan inqusition they call the the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Who chairs the subcommttee? Why Jim Jordan, who else.

Today the Rules of the 117th Session of the House of Representatives are 47 pages of dense, almost undecipherable parliamentary language. In all there are 29 such rules.

It is unlikely any outside the Office of the Parliamentarian, an office itself created by those rules, knows them. The House Parliamentarian and his staff might not even know them but do know where to look when one of them has to be consulted.

In the dense language of Rule I (worse even the rules use Roman numerals to enumerate them) concerning the power of the Speaker as those rules have evolved since 1789, the sole power to bring a bill to the floor resides in the office and thus the person of the Speaker. In the 117 Congresses of the United States only one woman – one woman – Nancy Pelosi, is among the 55 who have served as Speaker.

It doesn’t say it directly – after all that would be simple and direct – but the power to post is there and only there in the rules governing the House and the Speaker.

So what happens in the House if there no speaker?

Other than a convening prayer by the House Chaplain, another one of the officers created by the very same rules, saying the Pledge of Allegiance, a custom, and a few other ministerial functions the rules demand, the rule is that without a speaker nothing happens.

Nothing.

As we know or should know, it has been 16 days since the House removed Mr. McCarthy, who is now a political corpse, albeit one who sees himself as politically Christlike, harboring hope of resurrection in his former august political office. But in all likelihood, the Gospel of Kevin has been written unalterably by the Gaetz eight – the avenging Republican disciples.

So the press/media tells us the House is in stalemate, checkmate in fact. That it cannot move. There is no reason for any Democrat in the minority to cross the aisle to vote for a Republican, especially the likes of Jim Jordan, the Ohio wrestler without a jacket.

That is not the way of politics and legislatures and never has been except in the so rare instances when a state legislative chamber is literally tied; or when a member of a one becomes Brutus or Judas, as occurred in North Carolina earlier this year. There Rep. Tricia Cotham elected as a Democrat, crossed the aisle to become a Republican, thereby giving her new party a veto proof legislative majority as her ambition betrayed those who elected her. Either way, it is a rare, rare occasion.

Then is there really no way out of the impasse after the Republicans so far have been unable to muster the 217 votes they need to elect a speaker notwithstaning three candidacies so far?

Well maybe there will be a 4th, or 5th, or maybe one day soon an 11th on whom they can finally agree. But as Republican impotence and anger increases that becomes exceedingly unlikely – albeit not impossible. Implausible is a word in politics. Impossible is not in the political lexicon. Nothing is. Everything is possible. Always.

There is after all the other party with 212 totally united votes and ready to deal. It would take but 5 Repuiblicans to make a deal with the Democrats. What kind of deal? Up to them to decide whatever deal they are willing to negotiate and enter for 14 months (the 118th Congress will convene Jan. 3, 2025).

Implausible? Of course. Impossible? No. Very soon to become essential? From the perspective here? Yes and not next week,, but tomorrow.

But even if there is, how does it get to the floor, how do they change the rules to accommodate the deal? Well, rules are made to be changed, especially congressional rules.

The Constitution doesn’t say you can’t change the rules, it only says make them. The House needs to do some new bipartisan rule making.

And fast.