Five Facts: Notable Speaker Battles
Come January, Democrats will take control of the House, which means that the party will be able to control who becomes speaker of the House. This role is one of the most important in the federal government: The speaker will be the highest-ranking Democrat and the second person in the line of succession to the presidency.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who served as speaker from 2007 to 2011, is once again looking to be chosen by her colleagues to lead the governing body. However, a vocal group of House Democrats have committed themselves to voting against her and earlier this week issued a letter stating why. The New York Times reported that 11 of these signatories are already lawmakers, and four have recently been elected to Congress.
While Capitol Hill is mired in debate on this issue, political disagreement around choosing a speaker is not unique. Here are five facts on notable speaker battles and their outcomes:
1. Georgia Democrat Howell Cobb was elected speaker of the House in 1849 after 94 representatives were nominated and 63 rounds of ballots were cast. This antebellum speaker race was especially contentious as partisanship and sectionalism were rampant. Rep. Cobb served as speaker until 1851, after which he served as the governor of Georgia and the secretary of the Treasury.
2. In 1856, it took 133 ballots and two months to elect Nathaniel Banks from Massachusetts as speaker — the longest race in federal government history. While more than 20 individuals initially vied for speaker of the House, 135 members ultimately received votes, including three who were brothers. In the end, Rep. Banks was chosen over Rep. William Aiken from South Carolina by a vote of 103 to 100. Rep. Banks resigned from Congress in 1857 to become the governor of his home state.
3. Two years later, in 1858, freshman legislator William Pennington from New Jersey was elected to Congress and nominated for speaker — a position he ultimately won. According to the House of Representatives archives, selecting the speaker during this pre–Civil War term took two months and 44 ballots. Choosing Rep. Pennington, a moderate who had the support of both Republicans and Democrats was an “antebellum compromise,” according to these historical records. He remains the only freshman to have held the position for the past 150 years.
4. Rep. Tom Foley from Washington State served as speaker between 1989 and 1994, after which he lost his seat. Rep. Foley’s loss was part of the Republican Revolution that swept Congress during the Clinton administration, and gave the party control of both the House and the Senate. He became the first speaker of the House to lose his re-election bid since Rep. Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania lost his seat in 1862.
5. Speaker squabbles are not just a thing of the past. When Rep. John Boehner was re-elected in 2013, the House narrowly avoided going into a second round of voting. Boehner needed to secure 214 votes; he got 220. According to Reuters, during the voting process, 12 conservatives withheld support for Boehner. The news organization reported that this was the closest vote that had been held since 1997.
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