How should we think about the Speaker of the House?
Through the "public speakership," speakers can re-establish the imbalance between the influence of the president and Congress.
This weekend, I’ll be headed to the nations capital to participate in the Center of the Study of the Presidency and Congress’ fellowship conference. I’ll be presenting my paper, The Speaker of the House as a Counterweight to Presidential Power; Evaluating the Public Speakerships of Newt Gingrich and Kevin McCarthy. In it, I examine the complexities of the office through a concept known as the “public speakership,” arguing it ultimately serves to balance the power of the presidency.
The Speaker of the House is one of the most unique positions established in the Constitution. Many have become aware of this fact over the past year with the turbulent election, term, and removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Speakers are elected members of Congress, representing their districts constituents, and elected by their fellow members to lead the entire House. Unlike other congressional leadership roles, speakers are not partisan officers, like the majority or minority leader, though their modern function effectively serves that purpose. Speakers must balance numerous, sometimes conflicting interests. They must be conscious to the voters that elect them to the House, the members that elect them to the speakership, and with the office becoming increasingly public, the feelings of citizens across the country.
The term “speaker” likely originates from the British House of Commons which is chaired by a non-partisan speaker. The connection between the American and British offices ends there. The framers were not looking at the British speaker when writing Article I, Section 3, establishing the office. The antecedent of the House Speaker is the leaders of colonial legislatures who often exhibited deeply partisan and activist traits.
The roles and responsibilities of the speaker have been hotly debated at various points throughout history. During the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century, progressives, looking to expand executive functions in government, sought to strengthen the speakership. It was in this period that Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed (1895-1899) and Joseph Gurney Cannon (1903-1911) used the office to yield extensive powers, working and being worked by the party machinery that dominated American government and life.
Following this era, the speakership became a primarily internal position. Speakers, like Sam Rayburn (1940-1947, 1949-1953, 1955-1961), relied on interpersonal relationships with members to pass legislation and build coalitions. Not spending time worrying about national optics, speakers could manage members into legislative compromises and deals, while managing the Houses affairs. The speaker was not thought of much outside of the walls of the capitol.
This began to change in the 1970s. As a reaction to Watergate and a changing media power-structure, Congress needed to become a more public branch of government. From the Progressive Era on, through the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, presidents used, as Roosevelt termed it, the “bully pulpit” to activate public pressure to forward initiatives.
With the rise of TV and radio further into 20th century, the presidency continued to increase in public influence, distorting the constitutional balance of power between the two branches. While still active, Congress took a backseat in the mind of the public. Presidents were at the helm of the ship of government as members of Congress simply rowed on. In 1970, Senator William Fullbright said, “Television has done as much to expand the powers of the president as would a constitutional amendment formally abolishing the co-equality of the three branches of government.”
As a result of this imbalance of power which had led to abuse, the public lost faith in the presidency. Congress was in need of an equally public force to captivate the public as the presidency had done. Who could represent Congress in the publics imagination? The Speaker.
For the first time in 1972, the speaker had a press secretary. During the term of Speaker Tip O’Neill, who is often termed as the first fully public speaker, the mention of the speaker on nightly news programs rapidly increased. From 1969 to 1974, the speakership averaged 4.3 mentions per year. From 1975 to 1980, the speakership was mentioned an average of 13.6 times a year. In the decade that followed from 1981 to 1991, the speakership was mentioned an average of 59.8 times. The speakership had gone from a mostly internal facing office, to one that got the public's attention.
Speakers, beginning with O'Neill, used press conferences to coordinate their party’s messaging, respond to the president's statements and actions, and establish the office as a symbol of Congress for the people, rather than a solely internal figure as it had been under Rayburn and other earlier speakers.
The speaker, in the most basic description of the public speakership, is the human embodiment of Congress, and therefore has a responsibility, beyond party, to uphold their role and defend the power of the first branch. This is not to say speakers should not represent their party. In fact, it is good that speakers align with parties. As discussed, the antecedents that shaped the modern speakership were partisan political officers. If popular legislation fails, voters can better understand which party is responsible through seeing the representation of that party in a leadership position. When speakers succeed, their party can be rewarded.
Tying the speaker to the Congress does pose the risk of projecting scandalous actions of a speaker onto the Congress as a whole. When a speaker is marred by scandal or controversy, voters may view Congress in a negative light as what happens with the presidency.
The public speakership is not all good, or all bad, and speakers who rely solely on the public to further their goals will not be successful. Speakers are most successful when they adequately balance the strategies of the speakership through understanding the goals and motivations of the office. A speaker cannot be a successful rival to the president if they count on the public alone to drive their agenda. Despite the prevalence of the public nature of our politics, internal strategy is still required.
In my paper, I demonstrate the tactics used by Speaker Newt Gingrich (1994-1998) to take the public speakership to the next level. Gingrich framed the speakership as an office directly contrasting the president, running on a “Contract with America", holding a prime-time “Address to the Nation,” and even participating in a public debate with President Bill Clinton.
I also discuss the public speakership as a way to understand Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s rise and fall, and the debacle to elect a new speaker in 2023. McCarthy’s far-right ousters galvanized the public’s attention, hitting fundraising high’s, and goading other legislators into public debate. During the battle to fill his seat, Representative Jim Jordan tried unsuccessfully to activate a national base to put pressure on others members to support his bid. In any other period of the speakership this would have been unheard of.
Government and politics are under more public scrutiny than ever before. Whether this is a net positive or negative (likely the latter) is irrelevant to this discussion. The public era exists and all electeds must adapt accordingly. Any officer, from the presidency and the speaker, to a single member, must understand this fact or else their success will be doomed.
With the president equipped to best utilize public strategies, a public speaker offers a way for Congress to reestablish their role as a co-equal branch of government. To achieve this ideal speakers must execute a successful public strategy, balancing internal motivations too. Only then can Congress maximize its public reach, represent the American people, and balance the power of the presidency.