The President’s Lobby: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Electing the Speaker of the House of Representatives

The Constitution dictates that the 119th Congress begin at noon and Friday.

And the first order of business in the House is to elect the constitutional officer for the legislative branch of the government: the Speaker of the House.

Only the House votes for the President. And the House cannot do anything – I repeat, nothing – until it elects a President.

Deputies cannot be sworn in until the House play a speaker and he or she takes the oath. The Speaker then swears in the rest of the body, en masse. Then the House must adopt a package of rules to govern daily operations. Only then can the House debate bills, vote and form committees for hearings.

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If the House fails to elect a President in the first vote, it must proceed to a second vote.

And so on.

Consider for a moment that the House had not even held a second vote to elect president in a century before Donnybrook two years ago. It took four votes to re-elect the late House Speaker Frederick Gillett, R-Mass., in 1923.

What is past is Chamber prologue. Consider how the House consumed 15 rounds spread over five days before electing former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in January 2023. The speakership remained vacant (and thus the House frozen) for 22 days after Republicans fired McCarthy nine months later. House Republicans then elected House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, as speaker. Scalise withdrew his name even before there was a floor vote. House Republicans then elected Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to become speaker. But Jordan lost three consecutive votes for president in the House of Representatives, losing support on each vote. House Republicans then anointed House Majority Leader Tom Emmer, R-Minn., as speaker. Emmer left hours later.

Fox News Digital spoke briefly with former President Kevin McCarthy during a rare appearance on Capitol Hill.

House Republicans ultimately nominated House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, to the position. The Louisiana Republican won the floor. But some conservatives have since been disappointed in Johnson. They have pointed out how he handled multiple stopgap spending bills from last November onward. They didn’t like that he allowed a bill to help Ukraine to be introduced. They opposed his passing another stopgap spending bill in September. They really didn’t like how he worked with Democrats on important, binding legislation. And then came the misstep of the astonishing 1,500-page interim spending package. that Mr. Trump and Elon Musk pulverized from afar in December. Johnson then followed President-elect Trump’s orders with another spending package, including an increase in the debt ceiling. But 38 House Republicans rushed to accept that bill.

So Johnson’s tenure has been eventful. And that’s why he’s in trouble Friday afternoon during the vote for president. Everyone on Capitol Hill is on edge when it comes to wrapping this up quickly.

This is what will happen on Friday at noon:

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Acting House Clerk Kevin McCumber will preside until the House elects a speaker. The first order of business is a “House call.” That’s where the House establishes how many of its elected representatives are present, simply by voting “present.” the house should sign in 434 members: 219 Republicans and 215 Democrats. There should be a vacancy. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., resigned in the fall and said he did not “intend” to serve in the new Congress, despite winning re-election.

Be careful to see if there are absences in that call of the Chamber. Fox is told that Democrats who have struggled with health issues lately, including Reps. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., Dwight Evans, D-Pa., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. , they will probably be there. But the election of the president is a matter of mathematics. The number of lawmakers who report to the House of Representatives will determine the margins in the president’s vote.

Then it’s on to the nomination speeches. Incoming House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich., will nominate Johnson for president. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., will nominate House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Anyone else can then include someone’s name in the nomination.

The House then takes a roll call of the elected representatives in alphabetical order. Each Member stands up and responds verbally, calling out their choice by name. Reps. Alma Adams, D-N.C., Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., and the aforementioned Aguilar are the first names outside the bloc.

(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

But legislators can vote for whoever they want. That includes people who are not members of the House. That’s why votes have been cast over the years for the late Gen. Colin Powell, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., former Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, and former U.S. Comptroller General , David Walker.

This is what Johnson – or anyone else – must do to win the presidency:

The winning candidate must obtain an absolute majority of all members who vote for a candidate by name.

So let’s say there are 434 members and they all vote for someone by name. The magic number is 218. If Johnson gets the votes of all 219 Republicans, he wins. If Johnson gets 218 votes, he also wins. But 217? No dice. Under those circumstances, Johnson would have potentially edged Jeffries, 217-215, with two votes for other candidates. But the “most votes” does not win. 217 is not an absolute majority of House members voting for someone by name. The House must take ANOTHER vote to elect a Speaker.

Fox is told there are between 12 and 17 Republicans who could vote for someone besides Johnson. And some Republicans are cautious about their votes.

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Here’s something to watch: the members who vote “present.”

Instead of voting for someone besides Johnson, some Republicans may protest by simply voting “present.” A “present” vote does not count against Johnson.

So let’s do some hypothetical calculations here:

Let’s say that 434 deputies voted. Jeffries wins the support of all 215 Democrats. Three Republicans vote “present.” That is, do not vote for any candidate by name. Johnson gets 216 votes. It has the most votes. But the most important thing is that only 431 deputies voted for someone by name. 216 is an absolute majority of 431. 434 does not matter in these circumstances. So Johnson becomes spokesperson.

But there is a serious danger in too many Republicans voting “present.”

Consider this scenario:

All 215 Democrats vote for Jeffries. But five Republicans vote “present.” Johnson records 214 votes. 429 members voted for someone by name. The magic number here is 215. Guess who the Speaker is? Jeffries. He obtained an absolute majority of all deputies who voted for a candidate by name.

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

As they say in the movies: “You play a very dangerous game, Mr. Bond.”

With such a narrow margin in the House, Republicans They are absolutely playing with fire if they get too cute halfway through. Yes. Some conservatives may not want to re-elect Johnson as president. But they certainly don’t want Jeffries.

That’s why it’s hard to say what will happen on Friday afternoon. If the House hesitates too long, this could delay the certification of the Electoral College vote on Monday. The House and Senate must meet in a Joint Session of Congress on January 6 to certify the election results. Without speaker of the House? No joint session.

But something else is likely to happen if this drags on. Johnson loyalists and traditional Republicans are fed up with right-wing ideologues, the Freedom Caucus and other independent workers. Expect an all-out brawl between those two factions if Republicans fight to elect a president.

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And as we wrote before, what is past is prologue.

A protracted battle for the presidency serves as a prologue to the infighting that lies ahead among Republicans over governing. Not to mention the implementation of a single point of President-elect Trump’s agenda.