2011 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election

2010 House elections

Democratic had held the House majority for the previous two congresses, with their leader Nancy Pelosi serving as speaker.^[1]

The November 2010 elections were the first midterm election of Democrat Barack Obama's presidency and the first election held under redistricted maps drawn after the reapportionment that followed the 2010 census. The election saw the Democrats lose their House majority to Republicans by losing 63 seats.^[2] This was the biggest midterm-election seat change since 1938.^[3]

Process and conventions

The speaker of the United States House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The House elects its speaker at the beginning of a new Congress (i.e. biennially, after a general election) or when a speaker dies, resigns or is removed from the position intra-term. Since 1839, the House has elected speakers by roll call vote.^[4] Traditionally, each party's caucus or conference selects a candidate for the speakership from among its senior leaders prior to the roll call. Representatives are not restricted to voting for the candidate nominated by their party, but generally do, as the outcome of the election effectively determines which party has the majority and consequently will organize the House.^[5] Representatives that choose to vote for someone other than their party's nominated candidate usually vote for another member within the party or vote "present".

Moreover, as the Constitution does not explicitly state that the speaker must be an incumbent member of the House, it is permissible for representatives to vote for someone who is not a member of the House at the time, and non-members have received a few votes in various speaker elections over the past several years.^[6] Nevertheless, every person elected speaker has been a member.^[5]

To be elected speaker, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes cast, as opposed to an absolute majority of the full membership of the House – presently 218 votes, in a House of 435. There have only been a few instances during the past century where a person received a majority of the votes cast, and thus won the election, while failing to obtain a majority of the full membership. At the time, it happened most recently in January 2015 (114th Congress), when John Boehner was elected with 216 votes (as opposed to 218). Such a variation in the number of votes necessary to win a given election might arise due to vacancies, absentees, or members being present but not voting. If no candidate wins a majority of the "votes cast for a person by name," then the roll call is repeated until a speaker is elected.^[5] Multiple roll calls have previously been needed only once since the American Civil War; they last occurred in 1923 and would not occur again until 2023.^[7] Upon winning election the new speaker is immediately sworn in by the Dean of the United States House of Representatives, the chamber's longest-serving member.^[8][9]