Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

The Speaker is the presiding officer of the United States House of
Representatives. The office is provided for in the United States
Constitution in the second section of the first article, which states:

"The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers..."

In practice, this amounts to the speaker's election from the sitting house
members. The speaker is thus almost always elected along strictly partisan
lines, and is thus a member of the House's majority party. (The Speaker need
not, by the Constitutional provision stated above, be a member of the House,
but to date has always been one.

The Speaker is considered a partisan officer, unlike the nonpartisan Speaker
of such bodies as the British House of Commons. While there is a majority
leader in the House of Representatives, he is in fact the second highest
officer of the majority, and the Speaker is in fact the functioning leader
of the majority. However, it is customary for the Speaker not to vote,
unless his vote is necessary to pass a bill. The current Speaker is
Republican Dennis Hastert of Illinois. He succeeded Newt Gingrich on January
6, 1999.

The Speaker is currently second in line to succeed to the US presidency in
the case of death or resignation after the Vice President. (See United
States Presidential line of succession.)

America's "Loyal Opposition"

The speaker of the House is ceremonially the highest ranking legislative
official in the United States government. He is generally a well-known
national figure, and thus a human "face" on the legislative branch. Since
the Speaker and the President are often from different parties, this can
sometimes leads to situtations in which the two men appear at odds with each
other. The speaker can thus come to be seen as the leader of the
"opposition" and the symbol of his party, and the very personification of
partisan opposition to the President's agenda. The American speaker is also
a much more politically active figure than many of his counterparts in other
countries, and though he has little formal power, throughout American
history the speakership has evolved into one of the nation's key political positions.

America's Prime Minister?

In the late nineteenth century, in particular following the impeachment of
President Andrew Johnson and the damage that was perceived to have done to
the American presidency (already shaken by the assassination of his
predecessor, Abraham Lincoln) by Congressional actions to limit Executive
branch powers, it was speculated by academics, foreign diplomats based in
Washington, D.C. and even by leading members of the Senate that the United
States would evolve from a presidential to a parliamentary system of
government, with the Speaker becoming a de-facto prime minister, sidelining
the President of the United States. The President would in turn evolve into
a form of nominal chief executive head of state, in whom legal executive
authority would continue to be nominally vested but whose role as policy
maker and head of government would in effect move to the Speaker. See Prime
Minister of the United States for more discussion on this topic.

Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789-present

  1. Frederick A.C. Muhlenberg (Federalist-Pennsylvania) 1789-1791
  2. Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. (Federalist-Connecticut) 1791-1793
  3. Frederick A.C. Muhlenberg (Republican-Pennsylvania) 1793-1795
  4. Jonathan Dayton (Federalist-New Jersey) 1795-1799
  5. Theodore Sedgwick (Federalist-Massachusetts) 1799-1801
  6. Nathaniel Macon (Republican-North Carolina) 1801-1807
  7. Joseph Bradley Varnum (Republican-Massachusetts) 1807-1811
  8. Henry Clay (Republican-Kentucky) 1811-1814
  9. Langdon Cheves (Republican-South Carolina) 1814-1815
 10. Henry Clay (Republican-Kentucky) 1815-1820
 11. John W. Taylor (Republican-New York) 1820-1821
 12. Philip Pendleton Barbour (Republican-Virginia) 1821-1823
 13. Henry Clay (Republican-Kentucky) 1823-1825
 14. John W. Taylor (Republican-New York) 1825-1827
 15. Andrew Stevenson (Jacksonian-Virginia) 1827-1834
 16. John Bell (Whig-Tennessee) 1834-1835
 17. James Knox Polk (Democrat-Tennessee) 1835-1839
 18. Robert M.T. Hunter (Whig-Virginia) 1839-1841
 19. John White (Whig-Kentucky) 1841-1843
 20. John Winston Jones (Democrat-Virginia) 1843-1845
 21. John Wesley Davis (Democrat-Indiana) 1845-1847
 22. Robert Charles Winthrop (Whig-Massachusetts) 1847-1849
 23. Howell Cobb (Democrat-Georgia) 1849-1851
 24. Linn Boyd (Democrat-Kentucky) 1851-1855
 25. Nathaniel Prentice Banks (American/Republican-Massachusetts) 1856-1857
 26. James Lawrence Orr (Democrat-South Carolina) 1857-1859
 27. William Pennington (Republican-New Jersey) 1860-1861
 28. Galusha Aaron Grow (Republican-Pennsylvania 1861-1863
 29. Schuyler Colfax (Republican-Indiana) 1863-1869
 30. Theodore Medad Pomeroy (Republican-New York) 1869
 31. James Gillespie Blaine (Republican-Maine) 1869-1875
 32. Michael Crawford Kerr (Democrat-Indiana) 1875-1876
 33. Samuel Jackson Randall (Democrat-Pennsylvania) 1876-1881
 34. Joseph Warren Keifer (Republican-Ohio) 1881-1883
 35. John Griffin Carlisle (Democrat-Kentucky) 1883-1889
 36. Thomas Brackett Reed (Republican-Maine) 1889-1891
 37. Charles Frederick Crisp (Democrat-Georgia) 1891-1895
 38. Thomas Brackett Reed (Republican-Maine) 1895-1899
 39. David Bremner Henderson (Republican-Iowa) 1899-1903
 40. Joseph Gurney Cannon (Republican-Illinois) 1903-1911
 41. Champ Clark (Democrat-Missouri) 1911-1919
 42. Frederick Huntington Gillett (Republican-Massachusetts) 1919-1925
 43. Nicholas Longworth (Republican-Ohio) 1925-1931
 44. John Nance Garner (Democrat-Texas) 1931-1933
 45. Henry Thomas Rainey (Democrat-Illinois) 1933-1934
 46. Joseph Wellington Byrns (Democrat-Tennessee) 1935-1936
 47. William Brockman Bankhead (Democrat-Alabama) 1936-1940
 48. Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (Democrat-Texas) 1940-1947
 49. Joseph William Martin, Jr. (Republican-Massachusetts) 1947-1949
 50. Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (Democrat-Texas) 1949-1953
 51. Joseph William Martin, Jr. (Republican-Massachusetts) 1953-1955
 52. Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (Democrat-Texas) 1955-1961
 53. John William McCormack (Democrat-Massachusetts) 1961-1971
 54. Carl Albert (Democrat-Oklahoma) 1971-1977
 55. Tip O'Neill (Democrat-Massachusetts) 1977-1987
 56. Jim Wright (Democrat-Texas) 1987-1989
 57. Thomas Stephen Foley (Democrat-Washington) 1989-1995
 58. Newt Gingrich (Republican-Georgia) 1995-1999
 59. Dennis Hastert (Republican-Illinois) 1999-present

Free Ajax Scripts - Mortgages - Wester Union - Loans - Loans