From eighth grade civics through college government courses to nearly three decades each of working in the House and then the think tank world, I mistakenly believed that speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives could only vote to break a tie.
My longstanding misunderstanding was shattered last month when, on April 12, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) voted to make, not break, a tie, thereby defeating a major amendment offered to the FISA authorization, 212-212 (tie votes defeat a measure or amendment).
That development prompted me to look at other roll call votes in recent times. I was startled to discover that Speaker Johnson is a frequent voter. For instance, of the 88 roll call votes cast from March 12 through May 1, 2024, Speaker Johnson voted 59 times (67 percent), and refrained from voting on 29 occasions (33 percent). Most of the outcomes were nowhere near being a tie. I am told by a knowledgeable source that Speaker Johnson’s predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), also voted often as Speaker in this Congress.
This revelation prompted me to look more carefully at the wording of the rule on Speakers’ voting and its history. In the first Congress, in 1789, the rule read: “In all cases of ballots by the House” (now a largely obsolete voting procedure), “the Speaker shall vote; in other cases, he shall not vote, unless the House be equally divided, or unless his vote, if given to the minority, will make the division equal, and, in case of such equal division, the question shall be lost,” as happened with the FISA amendment cited above.
That original House rule on Speakers’ voting closely tracks the Senate rule which is embedded in Article I, section 3, of the Constitution which reads: “The Vice President of the United States shall be the President of the Senate but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided.”
Both the original House rule and the Senate’s constitutional provision were derived from the British House of Commons’ rule that the Speaker shall be a neutral presiding officer, only voting to break a tie. Speakers of the House of Commons must also resign from their party and not run again on a party label. In the U.S. House, on the other hand, the Speaker is a neutral presiding officer when in the chair, but otherwise the leader of the majority party.
According to the footnotes contained in the “House Rules & Manual,” two attempts were made in 1833 and 1837 to amend House rules to require the Speaker to vote at all times. Both efforts were defeated, the former by a roll call vote of 96-122, the latter by voice vote. The main arguments made against that rule change were that, (a) speakers could not explain their votes from the chair; and, (b) the change would result in both the Speaker and the House becoming much more partisan.
In 1850, the House changed the rule on Speakers’ voting to read as follows: “He shall not be required to vote in ordinary legislative proceedings, except where his vote would be decisive, or where the House is engaged in voting by ballot, and in all cases of a tie vote the question shall be lost.”
As the footnote to the rule explains, the Speaker was granted “the same right to vote as other members.” It should be noted, though, that members are required to vote while the Speaker’s votes are discretionary. The footnote also informs us that the Speaker’s name does not appear on the voting roll from which members’ names are called, meaning if speakers do not vote, they are not listed as “not voting.”
The footnote in the most recent Manual, published at the beginning of the current 118th Congress, states that the right of the Speaker to vote on any matter has “historically rarely been exercised.” Speakers McCarthy and Johnson have blown through that historical precedent of past speakers’ reticence to vote unless their vote would be decisive.
One can surmise that the new practice in this Congress of speakers voting most of the time relates to Republicans’ razor thin majority in which any two GOP defectors can defeat their leadership if Democrats vote unanimously in opposition. At the least, the Speaker’s votes send a strong signal to colleagues of the leadership’s formal position on a critical matter.
Looking back on the history of the rule, it is ironic that its first iteration in 1789 coincides with my long-time mistaken belief that the Speaker was prohibited from voting except when that vote would be decisive. I wish I could claim that my original misinterpretation of the Speaker’s voting status today derives from my failure to realize that the 1789 rule had been changed in 1850 to give the Speaker discretion in voting, but I can’t. I hadn’t bothered to read either version, and had no reason to until now.
There is a tendency to coast on shorthand misperceptions until a jarring change in conditions forces us to take a closer look. A new precedent has been set in this Congress for more frequent voting by speakers. It will likely be followed in future congresses, regardless of which party is in control.
Don Wolfensberger is a 28-year congressional staff veteran, culminating as majority chief of staff of the House Rules Committee in the 104th Congress. He is author of, “Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial” (2000), and, “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays” (2018). The views expressed are solely his own.
