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THEORY: Constitutional Provisions

The Framers of the Constitution were apparently relativelyunconcerned with who would lead the houses of Congress on the floor(that is, who would manage legislation through each chamber on aday-in/day-out basis). The Constitution only contains two referencesto officers of each house of Congress, thus:

The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and otherOfficers...

[Article I, Section 2, clause 5a]

The Senate shall choose their other Officers [other than theVice President, the constitutional President of the Senate], andalso a President pro Tempore, in the Absence of the VicePresident, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of theUnited States.[Article I, Section 3, clause 5]

The section first quoted (that relating to officers of the House ofRepresentatives) was reported out of the Committee on Detail of theConstitutional Convention in Philadelphia on 6 August 1787 and adoptedby the Convention without comment or dissent on 9 August; this has ledto much speculation about just what kind of Speaker of the House theFramers intended: a non-partisan Speaker on the British model? or aSpeaker who- like the same officer in the colonial assemblies andnascent State Legislatures- openly wielded his gavel to the advantageof the faction[s] which controlled the chamber and to the detriment ofhis/their political enemies?? Some constitutional historians havesuggested that- as the Framers were familiar with the latter type and,further, viewed the popularly elected House as the repository of the"excited political passions of the People"- they intended anovertly partisan Speakership; but other scholars- noting the attemptsto thwart faction in the Federal system the Framers were creating (seenmost clearly in the creation of the Electoral College system to electthe President)- have argued that the Speaker was intended to benon-partisan and to stay, more or less, "above the fray". Itis also quite possible that the Convention instinctively knew that agiven Speaker would be whatever the House of the particular Congress hewould be serving would want him to be (partisan or no) and left it atthat.

The section dealing with the officers of the Senate was, at least tosome extent, a somewhat different matter: the same Committee on Detailthat produced the section relating to officers of the House alsoreported out a provision that the Senate, likewise, choose itspresiding and other officers and- just as with the similar Houseprovision in Art.I, Sec.2, cl.5- this, too, was adopted without commentor dissent by the Convention on 9 August 1787. But then the Conventionitself threw the proverbial "spanner in the works" with itsdebate over, and eventual adoption of, the Electoral College system ofelecting the President (recounted elsewhere on this website): two menwould be voted for President by each Presidential Elector and,ultimately, two men would be elected- a President and a Vice President;the Vice President had to be givensomething to do and he was,therefore, made constitutional "president of the Senate" by avote of the Convention on 7 September 1787. Now that the power of theproposed Senate to choose its own presiding officer had been taken fromit, the section about Senate officers had to be reworked by theCommittee on Style which was, by then, working the document into afinal draft (the Convention would adjournsine die on 17September!) and what emerged was the present Art. I, Sec. 3, cl. 5,in which the Senate was specifically authorized to choose- along withits other (unstated) officers- a "PresidentproTempore" who would preside (or, in eventual practice,authorize which Senator of the Majority party would preside) when theVice President was otherwise busy.

There has been some speculation among historians (though not nearlyas much as has been devoted to the Framers' intent re: the role of theSpeaker of the House) over the role intended for this PresidentproTempore: was he intended to be to the Senate what the Speaker wasto be to the House (whateverthat was- see above)? for example,when the Administration didn't need to have the Vice President presentin the Presiding Officer's chair for its own political purposes, wouldthe Presidentpro Tempore- being one of the Senate's own- beenseen as one to guide legislation through the Senate on behalf of thatfaction/Party which controlled it?? It is, of course, much moreprobable that the Committee on Style merely recognized that- duringabsence of the Vice President or a vacancy in that office-someone should be designated, ahead of time, to preside (toavoid nasty fights on the Senate floor over who should wield the gavel)and then just left it at that.

PRACTICE: the House of Representatives

The earliest Speakers of the House were, in the main, non-partisan-regardless of the intention of the Framers of the then-still newConstitution: in part, this was due to the primitive state of nationalParties in this early period (essentially whatever "factions"existed in the House during the early Congresses coalesced into more orless loose coalitions of "Administration" [pro-policies ofthe Washington Administration] and "Opposition" [againstthose same policies] members) but it was also in part because those inthe House seem to have purposely opted- at least at first- to not havethe type of "factional" Speaker found in the lower houses ofthe legislatures of their home States. Most of those serving in thenew Federal Government- in whatever capacity- honestly felt that theywere embarking on something new, something that could yet prove itselfto be above the petty politics of State and local governance: theSpeakers chosen during the first three Congresses, as well the mannerin which they exercised their authority as the House's presidingofficer, seem to show this.

There was no "leadership" as such in the earliestCongresses: each bill introduced in the House had its "floormanager" (pretty much the Congressman who introduced theparticular piece of legislation-- for example, James Madison ofVirginia was the person who drafted and then introduced the firstAmendments to the Constitution that eventually became what we Americanscall "the Bill of Rights" on the floor of the House of the1st Congress; of course, those who supported his efforts clearlyapproved of his actually doing this [while Madison's famous notes tothe Constitutional Convention of 1787 would not be published for nearlyfifty years, it must have been known- at least to some- that he hadtaken these notes and he must have been seen as someone who could wellreconcile the Amendments being proposed- themselves based on Amendmentssuggested in appendices to the Instruments of Ratification of theConstitution added by the Ratifying Conventions of several States- tothe work of those who had attending the Constitutional Convention inPhiladelphia]) but there was, as yet, no "legislativeprogram" put forth by a stable working Majority or anything thatwe, today, could call a "Party agenda". The leadership ofthe political factions in the House favoring the goals of theWashington Administration wasn't even a member that body (nor even inthe Senate): it was pretty much Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton[!], acting on his own theory that this officer was the closest thingWashington could have to a "prime minister" (while Washingtonwas clearly not above having Hamilton push the financial proposals ofthe Administration- most notably, the creation of a Bank of the UnitedStates, the General turned President was not about to let it be saidthat he was not at the helm of his own Administration: Hamilton's ideaof a Cabinet officer as an American "Head of Government" was,in the main, strongly rebuffed and, ever since Washington's tenure,Presidents of the United States have been their own "primeminister"!)

Partisanship, nevertheless, came to the Speaker's chair in the wakeof the development of the Federalist and "old" RepublicanParties as the 1796 Presidential Election loomed: whenpro-Administration Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, hitherto more or lessnon-partisanly presiding over the House of the 4th Congress- a Housecontrolled by the Opposition, cast two crucial votes which carried theday for the Washington Administration trying to get funding in order tobegin to implement Jay's Treaty, any notion that the Speaker of theHouse would always remain above politics ended once and for all.Still, although Speakers would- from now on, except under extraordinarycircumstances- represent the Majority Party in the House, it would notbe until Henry Clay of Kentucky was Speaker during the early 19thCentury that a person holding that office would first begin toaggressively push his Party's legislative program through the House; inthis sense, the Speakers, beginning with Clay, became- in effect- theearliest form of "House Majority Leader". Throughout themiddle years of the 19th Century, this was to be an important part ofthe Speaker's role, though how effective it was depended largely on howbig was the margin re: seats in the House for the Majority, as well ashow dynamic was the personality of the Speaker in the first place: theability of subsequent Speakers to emulate Clay tended to blow "hotand cold" from Congress to Congress.

The late 19th Century would see the development of modern-styleHouse leadership: by the post-Reconstruction era, one can begin to seea nascent "Minority Leader" emerging in the House- one almostalways identified with the Minority's losing candidate for Speaker (attimes, a former- and/or future- Speaker himself, had his Party been- orwould his Party yet be- the Majority), which only made sense given thatthe Speaker of the House was still, at least in theory (where thepolitical landscape of the House membership did not permit this inpractice),de facto "Majority Leader". The successionof Speakerships from those of Democrats John Carlisle and Charles Crispthrough that of Republicans Thomas (known as "Czar") Reed and"Uncle Joe" Cannon- from 1883 through 1911 (a sequenceinterrupted only by the somewhat less-imposing Speakership ofRepublican David Henderson [1899-1903])- was the "furnace" inwhich modern Congressional Leadership (inbothhouses, sincewhat was done in the House would eventually influence the Senate) wasto be forged.

Carlisle and Crisp, Reed and Cannon- while from different Parties(as well as differing factions within those Parties)- shared a commonidea that the Speaker could be of his Party, yes, yet still- whennecessary- remain above it: but also that the Speaker should seek toimpose his own political vision upon the whole House, not merely be theleader of his Party in that body, and that- if the Speaker had to, attimes, ride roughshod over Congressmen of his own Party to do so- thenso be it! The result was to make the Speaker of the House somethingmore than a mere functionary of the legislative process, turning himinto a national leader nearly as visible as the President of the UnitedStates itself (a position a dynamic Speaker of recent times- a"Tip" O'Neill or a Newt Gingrich- might still command,particularly when the President was of the Party other than theMajority in the House [as was the case with both men aforementioned]);of course, it helped this cause that the Speaker was not, in any directway, tied to the Administration (as was the constitutional president ofthe Senate, the Vice President) and, back in this period, also presidedover the only house of Congress directly elected by the People(Senators were still chosen by State Legislatures in the late 19thgoing into the early 20th Century).

With the Speaker- in the 1880's- now putting himself forth assomething other than a mere Party leader in the House, there was a needfor an actual Party floor leader- a true Majority Leader as an officerseparate from the Speaker. At first, this function was primarilyexercised by the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (sincethis was the committee which handled the bulk of the so-called"Bills of Revenue" and, per Art. I, Sec. 7, cl. 1, thiswas solely the bailiwick of the House, this was a very powerfulposition) but, in 1899, Speaker Henderson specifically designated aHouse Majority Leader (Sereno Payne) to act as his "agent" onthe House floor (allowing Henderson to publicly distance himself fromthe Party leadership- when he felt it expedient to do so); the officeof Majority Leader, separate from that of the Speaker, has existed eversince.

The Minority Leader, meanwhile, continued (as he almost always yetcontinues) to be the losing candidate for the Speakership put forwardby the Minority Party but, at the same time as the Majority Leaderfirst emerged as a formal officer of the House, so did the MinorityLeader- this potential "Speaker-in-waiting", to this day, arecognized officer of the House. Also in 1899, the Majority firstchose a "Whip" (a term already, by then, of long use in theBritish Parliament, itself deriving from the term used to describe theman whose job it was, during a foxhunt, to keep the hounds fromstraying); the Minority followed suit toward the end of that sameCongress (the 56th). The job of these Whips- besides acting as floorleader in the absence of their respective Party's leader- hastraditionally been to keep his or her Party's leader apprised of whois- and who is not- toeing the Party line as a floor vote looms;Majority Whips tend to be of the same faction within the Party as theMajority Leader and Speaker (since it is the Majority that has thepower to push through their legislative agenda: thus, everybody must beon- more or less- the same "page"), while Minority Whips areoften of a different faction of the Party than the Minority Leader(which might explain why, although moving from Minority Leader toSpeaker if and when the Minority becomes the Majority seems at leastsomewhatde riguer, moving from Minority Whip to Majority Leaderis not nearly so automatic [many Minority Whips have remained Whipswhen their Party has become the Majority]).

During the 61st Congress, there was a revolt on the part of manyrank-and-file House Republicans against "Uncle Joe" Cannon,the last of the so-called "czar" Speakers: in the ensuing1910 Midterm Elections, the Democrats took control of the House andChamp Clark (who was actually much more interested in pursuing the 1912Democratic Presidential Nomination [in what proved to be a losingcause]), who had been Minority Leader, became Speaker. But the realpower in the House was now exercised by the new Majority Leader, OscarW. Underwood, who also chaired the Ways and Means Committee (thusmerging that powerful House committee with the leadership post) and, byextension, the Democrats' Committee on Committees (which was made up ofthat Party's Ways and Means membership). Clark- though now Speaker-had not chosen Underwood in the manner Henderson and Cannon had chosenthe Republican Payne: rather, Underwood was chosen Majority Leader bythe Party Caucus and Underwood himself used that fact of rank-and-filesupport to assert his authority over Clark as the Democrats' trueleader in the House; Underwood's successor, Claude Kitchin, wouldcontinue do the same thing during the remainder of Clark's Speakership.

Meanwhile, the House Republicans who had first turned on ex-SpeakerCannon now finished the job, putting forth James Mann as their losingcandidate for Speaker in the new 62nd Congress and, thus, making himMinority Leader. From now on, Democratic Leaders and Whips would bechosen by that Party's Caucus, while Republican Leaders and Whips wouldbe chosen, first, by the Republicans' Committee on Committees(their members of Ways and Means) and then, after 1923, by theirown Party's Conference (as the GOP titled its House party"caucus"). The Majority Leader would, from now on, be viewedas the principal "front-runner" for the Speakership should avacancy in that office, so long as his Party remained the Majority,need to be filled; meanwhile, the Minority Leader would continue to beviewed ashis Party's "Speaker-in-waiting". All topHouse officers- of both the Majority (including the Speaker) andMinority- are, to this day, so chosen by the rank-and-file Housemembership of each Party.

Frederick Gillett, who became Speaker with the Republicans havingregained control of the House as a result of the 1918 MidtermElections, tried to revert somewhat to the more "above thefray" or "judicial" Speaker much more common prior tothe late 19th Century but he would turn out to be the last to do so.His successor, Nicholas Longworth, re-established the Speaker as hisParty's true leader in the House- all while still keeping the office inthat position of visible national leadership it had held (except,perhaps, during the Clark/Gillett era) since the beginning of the eraof the "czar" Speakers; though the efficacy of theSpeakership as a post of national leadership has since varied fromCongress to Congress- depending largely on the dynamism of thepolitical persona of a given Speaker (contrast, for example, thedynamic Sam Rayburn with his successors, John McCormack and CarlAlbert), as well as (so noted earlier) whether or not the MajorityParty in the House is also the Party holding the White House- thisnational leadership role of the Speaker of the House remains to thisday.

PRACTICE: the United States Senate

The Senate's experience with the evolution of its leadership wassomewhat different from that of the House. In the early days,Senators- chosen by State Legislatures- were viewed (and, indeed,viewed themselves) as "Ambassadors" to the Federal Systemfrom a second level of Sovereignty within that very system; inaddition, unlike the House, where Party discipline was more easilyenforced through sheer numbers (the House was always larger in sizethan the Senate) as well as rules which limited speeches and debate,the Senate's laxer rules regarding length of speeches and its verydeliberative nature (as a quintessential "second chamber" ofa bicameral legislature) tended to promote individuality and made theupper house that much less amenable to the whip of Party discipline (toa certain extent, this is still true of the Senate today- even thoughthe People of the States, and not their legislators, have long electedits members, thereby reducing the "ambassadorial" role).

In addition, there were no top echelon officers of the Senate whocould emulate the role of Speaker as Party leader in the House firstseen during the Speakerships of Henry Clay. Particularly after theadoption of the 12th Amendment mandating that Presidential Electorsvote separately for President and Vice President in 1804, the VicePresident- though constitutional president of the Senate- waspolitically tied to the governing Presidential Administration; therewas, thus, no way for the Vice President to assert a leadership rolefrom the presiding officer's chair, nor would the Senate- jealouslyguarding its prerogatives under the Separation of Powers doctrine(which it had already used to shoot down attempts by PresidentsWashington and Adams to use it as a kind of "advisorycouncil" a-la the Governor's Councils of Royal Provinces incolonial days)- have allowed this to happen even had the 12th Amendmentnever been ratified.

The Presidentpro Tempore- being one of the Senate's own-might have yet emerged as the Senate's version of the Speaker of theHouse (thus becoming a kind of early "Senate MajorityLeader") but for the fact that the Senate took the provisions ofArt. I, Sec. 3, cl. 5 quite literally: for the first century underthe new Constitution, the Senators would only choose a PresidentproTempore when the Vice President was, indeed, literally absent; oncethe Vice President returned to the chamber to take up the gavel, theofficial service of the Presidentpro Tempore was considered tohave ended. It is true that, as the 19th Century wore on, the sameperson tended to be elected Presidentpro Tempore in the courseof a given session of Congress whenever one was needed (one could arguethat the evolution of the office towards permanent status had alreadybegun); also, the office was made part of the succession to thePresidency during a vacancy in the Vice Presidency- the theory beingthat, in such a case, the Presidentpro Tempore was "actingPresident of the Senate" (the origin of the somewhat famous mythsand legends surrounding Senate Presidentpro Tempore David RiceAtchison allegedly napping through his "term" as "actingPresident of the United States" because 4 March 1849 happened tofall on a Sunday [stories later promoted by Senator Atchison himself],the legal and constitutional hurdles to this story having any semblanceof validity notwithstanding) and, for a time in the mid-19th Century,the Presidentpro Tempore was even given power to name membersof Senate standing committees. But the very Latin name of his office-Senate President "for the time being"- probably did not lendthe office much hope of ever having a leadership role.

By 1890, Vice Presidents were no longer regularly attending sessionsof the Senate to preside (though some would- well into the 20thCentury- continue to do so), the beginning of the practice of the VicePresident showing up only when a close vote might need a tie-breaker inthe Senate to bail the Administration out; in that year, the Presidentpro Tempore was made a permanent position by statute (the Senatehad long ceased electing a new Presidentpro Tempore wheneverone was needed anyway: since the Senate- unlike the House- is acontinuing body, two-thirds of its membership returning to a newCongress without having to have been re-elected, a Senator electedPresidentpro Tempore would be seen as the automatic person tofill that office until either he ceased to serve in the Senate or asuccessor was elected in his place). Since 1945, the PresidentproTempore has automatically been the senior-most Senator of theMajority Party and his "election" by the Senate is more orless perfunctory; as a result, the office has become more or lessceremonial (the Presidentpro Tempore simply designating, at thestart of each day, who shall preside in his stead [assuming the VicePresident isn't around to act as president of the Senate, ofcourse]).

With neither the Vice President of the United States nor the SenatePresidentpro Tempore able to assert leadership over the Senate,the Senate was either rudderless or subject to the control of a"cabal" surrounding a powerful Senator or two of the MajorityParty. The last such "cabal" was that of Senators WilliamAllison and Nelson Aldrich in the very late 19th into the early 20thCentury; when Allison died in 1908- followed by Aldrich's leaving theSenate in 1911- that "cabal" lost its influence. Just afterAldrich's retirement, both Parties formally named Party floor Leadersfor the first time; two years later, when their Party gained control ofthe Senate, the Majority Democrats also named the first Senate Whip.Two years after that, the Minority Republicans named their first Whipand the Senate leadership organization was, by 1915, as complete asthat of the House.

In fact, the Senate leadership system essentially copied that of theHouse and many of the same observations- noted above- regarding theroles of Leaders and Whips, whether Majority or Minority, in the Houseapply pretty much to these same officers in the Senate. The chiefdifference is that the floor Leaders in the Senate- unlike those in theHouse- are not "presiding officers-in-waiting" (although afair number of Senate Majority Leaders and Whipshave becometheir Party's nominee for Vice President: including Charles Curtis,Charles McNary, Alben Barkley, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey; Senateleadership has not, by the way, proven to be a very good launching padfrom which to be President- Bob Dole, in 1996, was the only personnominated for President after having run for that nomination whilestill the Leader of his Party in the Senate; this does not augur wellfor Tom Daschle, who has been mentioned as a potential Democraticpresidential candidate in 2004!)