(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



What happens if a party loses its House of Representatives majority during a term? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-03-12  

With the imminent departure next week of Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado (who previously had announced he would serve out his term— guess that was too much trouble for him) the question occurred to me— what happens if a party loses its House majority during a term?

The Republicans are damn close to doing so. Buck’s leaving will take them down to 218, with 3 vacancies. One of those vacancies is Kevin McCarthy’s seat. There’s a special election to fill that seat, on March 19th, next week. I don’t know what the Dem prospects are in that election, but it doesn’t really affect my underlying question.

Say a Dem wins McCarthy’s seat. That takes the Republicans down to 218, right at the majority. Lord knows that accidents happen, people get tied up in something that forces them from office, any number of things could happen that would take the Republicans down to 217, or lower. So my question is—what happens then?

Would there need to be a new election for House Speaker? Or does a Speaker serve out their term of Congress, no matter how the makeup of that Congress changes? I don’t recall such a situation ever coming up before, and I’m interested in hearing what others more knowledgeable than me have to say about it.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/12/2229045/-What-happens-if-a-party-loses-its-House-of-Representatives-majority-during-a-term?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/