Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

What does the speaker of the House do? Here’s what Nancy Pelosi’s successor will have for a job.

Nancy Pelosi announces she is stepping down as speaker

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on the House floor Thursday that she would not seek another term in the leadership.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Caufield is a professor of Political Science at Drake University.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and the first woman to hold the post of speaker of the House, announced on Nov. 17, 2022, that she will step down from House leadership – and the speakership – after 15 years leading her party. Republicans scored a narrow victory over House Democrats in the midterm elections and will take over as the majority party in January, with Rep. Kevin McCarthy nominated by his GOP colleagues to lead them as the next speaker of the House, pending a vote of the full House in early January 2023.

“For me the hour’s come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect,” Pelosi said in a speech on the House floor.

Second in the line of presidential succession after the vice president, the speaker occupies a central role in our national government. But what is it that a speaker actually does?


Most people think the speakership is a party office. It’s not. The speaker is selected by the full House membership, though the majority party’s voting power ensures that the role is occupied by one of their own.

From legislation to accounting

The speaker fills three primary roles.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

First, they are the most visible and authoritative spokesperson for the majority party in the House. Speakers articulate an agenda and explain legislative action to other Washington officials as well as the public. They oversee House committee assignments and collaborate with the powerful House Rules Committee to structure floor debate.

Second, the speaker manages business on the floor and navigates legislative rules, structuring House debate in a way that will advantage their legislative priorities. Adherence to strict rules and procedures is necessary to overcome the difficulty of managing a large legislative body like the House of Representatives.

Third, the speaker oversees everything from accounting to procurement for the House.

Power ebbed and flowed

During the republic’s early years, the speakership gradually gained power. By 1910, Speaker Joe Cannon had centralized power to such an extent that many of his own party members rebelled. Power was redistributed to committees and lower-level party leaders.

By the 1970s, committees had gained such control over legislative outcomes that widespread reforms were adopted, which shifted power back to the speaker.

From 1977 to 1995, three successive Democratic speakers – Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, Jim Wright and Tom Foley – reinvigorated the speakership. They enlarged the party leadership structure, creating wider networks of loyalty among members of the majority party while strengthening support for their priorities.

Today, the role of the speaker is influenced especially by changes instituted by Speaker Newt Gingrich, who took the gavel after the 1994 elections.

Gingrich, a Republican, was overtly partisan in the role. He announced that, compared with past speakers, he was “essentially a political leader of a grassroots movement seeking to do nothing less than reshape the federal government along with the political culture of the nation.”

Since Gingrich’s tenure, speakers are often criticized as too partisan and too powerful, trampling minority party interests. But this is the nature of the job in today’s Washington.

This story was updated to reflect Nancy Pelosi’s announcement on Nov. 17, 2022, that she will not seek to be in the next congressional session’s Democratic Party leadership.

The Conversation

Read More

Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin
- YouTube

Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin

The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.

Karissa Raskin is the new CEO of the Listen First Project, a coalition of over 500 nationwide organizations dedicated to bridging differences. The coalition aims to increase social cohesion across American society and serves as a way for bridging organizations to compare notes, share resources, and collaborate broadly. Karissa, who is based in Jacksonville, served as the Director of Coalition Engagement for a number of years before assuming the CEO role this February.

Keep ReadingShow less
Business professional watching stocks go down.
Getty Images, Bartolome Ozonas

The White House Is Booming, the Boardroom Is Panicking

The Confidence Collapse

Consumer confidence is plummeting—and that was before the latest Wall Street selloffs.

Keep ReadingShow less
Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship
Getty Images, Mykyta Ivanov

Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship

The current approaches to proactively counteracting authoritarianism and censorship fall into two main categories, which we call “fighting” and “Constitution-defending.” While Constitution-defending in particular has some value, this article advocates for a third major method: draining interest in authoritarianism and censorship.

“Draining” refers to sapping interest in these extreme possibilities of authoritarianism and censorship. In practical terms, it comes from reducing an overblown sense of threat of fellow Americans across the political spectrum. When there is less to fear about each other, there is less desire for authoritarianism or censorship.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less