In all the complaints – some valid, some not – about the current veteran Democratic leaders, essentially no one questions that Nancy Pelosi always will remain a de facto party leader in the House as long as she serves in Congress (regardless of her title). She enjoys majority support to lead the caucus, shepherded the Democrats to their most significant legislative accomplishments in a half-century, and appears prepared to focus the caucus on key priorities like maximizing voting opportunities and combating climate change.
Any move to sideline Congresswoman Pelosi from leadership in the 116th Congress seems stunningly shortsighted at a time when the increasingly depleted Democratic Senate appears incapable of offering more than token resistance.
Unfortunately, the upstarts sabotaging the caucus clearly want a win that leaves them victorious in name, so the question quickly emerges: how can progressives minimize continued party discord without sacrificing either Leader Pelosi or the progressive priorities supported by her throughout her distinguished career (and rarely embraced by Reps. Ryan and Moulton).
The House rules offer an ingenious solution, one that also puts the Democratic Party’s literal best speaker in that official position but maintains the needed House leadership structure: the Speaker of the House does not need to serve in Congress.
Per the House Leadership rules summarized here, the duties of the Speaker encompass appointments of Speakers pro tempore, who possess the full power of the elected Speaker to administer and delegate the position’s responsibilities as they see fit. The Speaker even could appoint a different presiding officer for the State of the Union if desired. Nothing in the rules requires a newly-elected Speaker to execute any responsibilities beyond an official move to delegate those duties.
No living Democrat retains more admiration or respect than a certain unemployed former President who currently lives only a few miles from the Capitol and probably could spare an hour during the first week in January to appear in the House chamber. No Democratic House member who didn’t want a well-funded primary opponent would dare oppose him in a vote for Speaker.
Plus, given the significant number of Americans who wish his Presidency had continued into a third term, few Democrats will object to his official position as second-in-line in the order of succession (nor does the Constitution or any Amendment list any qualifications for Speaker or prohibit his return to the Presidency as an unelected official in the event the two people ahead of him vacate their offices).
As Leader Pelosi already has secured her legacy by previously serving as the first female Speaker , nothing in her public comments indicates a preoccupation with the title Speaker, as opposed to simply a desire to resume duties which she previously executed in such an exemplary fashion.
Is this a just solution given Congresswoman Pelosi’s key role in the Democrats’ return to the majority? Of course not, but she, more than almost anyone, remains aware of political realities – and she already stated a previous willingness to step aside if the 2016 election resolved in a different outcome.
To resolve all these issues to the greatest satisfaction of the most relevant parties, the House Democrats should elect Barack Obama (D-USA) as Speaker of the House, and as his first official act, he can appoint Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as Speaker Pro Tempore.
In that role, she can spend the next two years continuing her lifelong mission to help as many people as possible while also schooling the less experienced members of the next generation of House leaders – few of whom remain from the last time she served as Speaker – in how to run the House to the maximum benefit of the American people.
Twenty years younger than the current House Democratic Leaders, Speaker Obama also offers America the potential to serve for additional decades as an unquestioned party leader of significant esteem who still can continue his current pursuits while also enjoying a fundamentally ceremonial new role that nevertheless gives him the right, duty, and formal platform to represent the Democratic Party by speaking publicly about the country’s fortunes wherever and whenever he desires.