Resolution declaring the office of speaker vacant
Under House rules, any member can offer a resolution declaring the office of speaker vacant. Also informally known as a motion to vacate the chair, the measure would oust the sitting House speaker if passed by the chamber. The motion is typically privileged, meaning that, once offered, it would come up for a vote in two days and cannot be blocked by the leadership, which, under most circumstances, controls what measures come to the House floor for a vote.[1]
The rule is part of Jefferson's Manual, which was a book of parliamentary procedure written by Thomas Jefferson for his own guidance as president of the Senate in the years of his vice presidency, from 1797 to 1801. The House adopted the manual as part of its rules in 1837 when it declared that the provisions of the manual should "govern the House in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with the Rules and orders of the House."[2]
Members of the House Freedom Caucus—a group of about 40 House conservatives aiming to "push the entire [House Republican] conference to the right"—voiced the possibility of invoking the procedure with the hope of prompting U.S. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) to give up his position as House speaker. U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who was the top candidate to succeed Boehner as of his campaign announcement on October 22, said that he wanted to reform the rule, making it harder to use. “No matter who is speaker, they cannot be successful with this weapon pointed at them all the time,” a Ryan spokesman said when describing Ryan’s request to Republicans in a private meeting on October 20, 2015.[3]
But the House Freedom Caucus has resisted changing the rule, which they see as an important tool to get their voices heard.[4] While Ryan had set changing the rule as a condition of his candidacy for speaker, he relented on that demand, and both Ryan and the Freedom Caucus have pledged to talk about House rules changes in the future.
Meadows' Motion To Vacate
On July 28, 2015, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) introduced his motion to declare the office of speaker vacant. Meadows did not draft his motion as a privileged resolution, so the measure would have had little chance of coming to the floor. But he subsequently said he introduced his motion to spur a conversation about the leadership. "It's really more about trying to have a conversation on making this place work, where everybody's voice matters, where there's not a punitive culture," he said. "Hopefully, we'll have some discussion about that in the days and weeks to come," Meadows said at the time.[5] In June 2015, Meadows had been removed from his position as chairman of the Government Operations Subcommittee after a vote against the House rule related to the Trans Pacific Partnership allowing the consideration of “fast track” trade negotiating powers for President Barack Obama. House leaders had grown frustrated by an increasing number of members who voted against these rules, and the leaders took action against Meadows. Meadows was restored to his post within five days.[6][7]
Tension between the Freedom Caucus and Boehner increased after Republicans failed to block the White House's deal with Iran to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon, and it was further aggravated after the House approved a temporary spending package that failed to cut off funds for Planned Parenthood later in 2015. Conservatives were frustrated that Republicans—who controlled both legislative chambers for the first time in eight years—hadn't gone to greater lengths to kill the Iran deal, as a fight over defunding Planned Parenthood had been brewing.[8][9]
Boehner decided to step down September 25, 2015, as talk of launching an effort to oust him grew and he needed to get the chamber to pass a spending bill before the end of the fiscal year (September 30) in order to avoid a government shutdown.[10] House Freedom Caucus members had made defunding Planned Parenthood, as part of the spending package, a priority. But Republican leaders told their members that such a provision was a non-starter, saying that Democrats would not back it and that the government would shut down, which would be politically damaging to the GOP. After Boehner's announcement, Congress passed a spending measure that kept the government funded through December 11, 2015.[11]
Last Time The Motion Was Used
It was under the speakership of U.S. Rep. Joseph G. Cannon (R-Ill.) that the motion to declare the Office of the Speaker vacant was last used.[12] As speaker, Cannon had earned the nickname Czar Cannon as a result of the power he wielded in the chamber. Cannon was a conservative Republican and faced a coup when the progressive wing of the House GOP conference threatened to join with Democrats to oust him. The coup, launched on St. Patrick's Day of 1910, was led by U.S. Rep. George Norris (R-Neb.) who ultimately rallied 42 Republicans and 149 Democrats against Cannon.[13] In a speech on the floor, Cannon refused to resign, saying that "a resignation is in and of itself a confession of weakness or mistake or an apology for past actions. The Speaker is not conscious of having done any political wrong."[14] The effort resulted in Cannon being removed from the chairmanship of the House Rules Committee, which until that time was part of the speaker's role and gave him considerable power over the House floor. Cannon himself used the motion to declare the office of speaker vacant; he did so to halt the attack, anticipating that Republicans would rather vote for him as speaker than risk a Democrat's election.[15]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms House motion vacate speaker. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
- Speaker.gov
- MajorityLeader.gov
- House Clerk website
- House History website, speaker
- House History website, majority leader
Footnotes
- ↑ Washington Examiner, "Conservatives weigh vacating speaker chair," October 9, 2015
- ↑ Government Printing Office, "Jefferson's Manual," accessed October 27, 2015
- ↑ The Atlantic, "Paul Ryan's Uneasy Alliance With the House Freedom Caucus," October 22, 2015
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Meet the Donald Trump of the House of Representatives," September 7, 2015
- ↑ The Washington Post, "GOP congressman launches bid to oust John Boehner as House speaker," July 28, 2015
- ↑ Politico, "Chaffetz strips Meadows of subcommittee chairmanship," June 20, 2015
- ↑ Roll Call, "Meadows Gets Subcommittee Gavel Back (Updated) (Video)," October 25, 2015
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Meet the Donald Trump of the House of Representatives," September 7, 2015
- ↑ CBS News, "Obama's Iran deal survives vote in Congress," September 10, 2015
- ↑ The Atlantic, "The Plot Against Planned Parenthood and John Boehner," September 2, 2015
- ↑ The Wall Street Journal, "Congress Passes Bill to Fund Government Through Dec. 11," September 30, 2015
- ↑ Robert C. Byrd for Legislative Studies, "How to Remove a Speaker of the House," August 4, 2015
- ↑ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Getting rid of Uncle Joe," March 14, 2010
- ↑ GPO, "Cannon's Precedents Volume, Chapter 154 - Removal of Officers," accessed October 27, 2015
- ↑ NPR, "In History, House Speaker Has Never Been Removed At Midterm," October 11, 2015
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