Can House conservatives remove Boehner as Speaker? Not likely.
No House Speaker has ever been removed from office mid-Congress. One reason is that Speakers have the right to choose who will be recognized to make a motion from the floor. Without that recognition, a bid to remove a Speaker goes nowhere.
House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio responds to reporters about the problems in passing the Homeland Security budget because of Republican efforts to block President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, on Feb. 26, 2015. Many GOP conservatives are unhappy with Boehner's leadership on this issue, but a bid to remove him as Speaker faces formidable procedural hurdles, which accounts for why it has never been done.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
As rumors swirl and fade about John Boehner’s removal from the speakership, it’s a good time to clarify a few things about House process and its history.
No speaker has ever been removed from office mid-Congress. If members want to remove a speaker from office, they would need to make a motion to declare the chair vacant. That motion has never succeeded.
That includes Speaker Cannon (R) of Illinois. Several news outlets have said the motion to remove the speaker was invoked against Cannon. That’s not accurate. Cannon’s “overthrow” did not remove him from office. Rather, he was “overthrown” because his power as Speaker was significantly curtailed. In addition to being Speaker, Cannon was the chair of the Rules Committee and was also responsible for assigning all members and chairs to each standing committee of the House. Both of these tools gave him exceptional power to control House business. On March 17, Rep. George Norris (R) of Nebraska offered a simple resolution to strip both powers from Speaker Cannon on a week that many of Cannon’s allies were missing from Congress, largely due to St. Patrick’s Day.
After the resolution passed two days later, Cannon, to the surprise of practically everybody in the chamber, entertained a motion to declare the office the Speaker vacant. That motion failed. In other words, Republicans did not want to remove Cannon from office. They just didn’t want him exercising as much power as he had during his tenure.
The surprising part of this story is not that Cannon was not removed. The surprise was that Cannon entertained a motion that could remove him from office at all. House rules lean heavily in the Speaker’s favor. This is why Boehner will likely remain Speaker in the 114th unless he voluntarily steps down.
Speakers have the right of recognition. They choose who will be recognized to make a motion from the members on the floor. Without the Speaker’s recognition, members can’t do much of anything. Speakers can also actively ignore members they do not want to make a motion. If the Speaker does not like the reason the member has sought recognition, he or she can simply refuse to recognize them. Without recognition, even a privileged motion goes nowhere. This makes removing the Speaker through the motion to declare the office vacant highly unlikely because the Speaker or his designee would have to allow the motion to be put before the House in the first place.
Procedurally, the more likely scenarios would involve intense collusion between Republicans and Democrats over the course of several votes. While it’s possible, I don’t believe Pelosi, Democrats, or the faction that wants a new Speaker are willing to go to those lengths. Though if it did happen, you’d be watching one of the more exception episodes in House history.
Joshua Huder publishes his Rule 22 blog at http://rule22.wordpress.com.