You Should Take Matt Gaetz’s Plan to Make Trump the Speaker of the House Seriously and Literally

Authored by newrepublic.com and submitted by samplestiltskin_

At the start of each Congress, members elect the speaker by majority vote. Representatives have invariably chosen one from among their own ranks for the last 231 years. But there is nothing in the Constitution or the House rules that says they must choose one of their own to serve as speaker, much as there isn’t a rule that says a dog can’t play basketball. This wasn’t really an issue for most of the republic’s history because nonmembers generally didn’t have the influence or power to win over a majority of House members’ votes. Also, it’s just … pretty weird to have someone serving in Congress who wasn’t elected to it. Still, basic democratic norms have never been a Trumpian priority.

Earlier this summer, one House Democrat introduced the “Mandating That Being an Elected Member Be an Essential Requirement for Speakership Act of 2021,” the rare piece of legislation that would actually do what its name says. Whatever the bill’s merits, its existence essentially concedes that a Trump speakership would be lawful under the status quo. An open question, at least for me, is whether Speaker Trump could vote on legislation on the House floor like a duly elected representative, or whether he would function more like the nonvoting delegates sent by D.C. and the territories. It’s hard to predict how the courts would decide that question or whether they would (or could) decide it at all.

Some variations of the Speaker Trump proposal involve him running for a House seat in his now-native Florida, which would allow him to become speaker through more traditional means. As Politifact noted when discussing a right-wing Speaker Trump meme, he currently meets the constitutional requirements to run for a House race in that state. If he doesn’t want to run right now, he has plenty of time to change his mind: The filing deadline isn’t until June 2022. Given the loyalty of Trump’s base and the supine approach that most GOP elected officials have toward him, it’s not an impossibility.

Either way, you might be asking yourself, why would it matter if Trump becomes speaker? It’s one thing if he’s president and controls an entire branch of the federal government; it’s quite another if he’s just one among 435 House members. Some Democrats might even find it tactically beneficial. “The idea of a Trump speakership also, of course, hands Democrats an argument for 2022,” The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake hypothesized on Wednesday. “Trump was an unpopular president, and to the extent this remains in the conversation, Democrats can use it to raise money and warn about what a GOP House might look like.”

style752 on December 9th, 2021 at 12:51 UTC »

WHY THE FUCK IS MATT GAETZ NOT IN JAIL YET?

I thought his partner in crime spilled all the beans to the Feds. Who is sitting with both thumbs up their ass while this pedo fuck plays power-broker for the GOP? This is fucking ridiculous, I hate this place.

Edit: My first silver! Thank you.

I'm glad others share my outrage and I'm encouraged to hear his accomplice's sentencing is soon. Hopefully Gaetz sees charges shortly thereafter... I hate using that word when it comes to justice for powerful sociopaths.

Edit 2: Damn I wasn't expecting all that! Y'all are too kind.

CasterOfDice on December 9th, 2021 at 12:06 UTC »

Yep. This would ensure that no legislation gets passed, not even absolutely critical things like basic government funding.. It would ensure the collapse of the United States government.

So of course republicans are going to rally around it.

samplestiltskin_ on December 9th, 2021 at 12:00 UTC »

Now consider how this process might play out after the 2024 election if Biden defeats Trump to win re-election. What if Speaker Trump, claiming once again that the election was stolen from him, simply refuses to convene that session? There is no other mechanism to count the Electoral College votes, and without a count, the rest of the process breaks down. The current terms of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would expire at noon on January 20, 2025. Under the Twentieth Amendment, control of the executive branch would then pass to the acting president for as long as the House refuses to count the electoral votes or until the next election is held in 2028. And under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the acting president in this scenario would be Speaker Donald Trump.