Neighbours Canada and the United States both recently experienced upheavals over who should be the Speaker of their house of elected representatives—and the U.S. situation has yet to be fully resolved—but the ramifications for political life in the two countries are in completely different ballparks.
“If there is one thing I know, it is that nobody pays good money to go see the referee. They go to see the stars: you, the players on the ice.”
Going through the order of the day, presiding over ceremonies, and making sure members of Parliament don’t swear or refer to each other by name capture routine duties of the House speaker in Ottawa.
It’s a different picture south of the border, where a bench-clearing baseball brawl could describe the current struggles over who controls the coveted, powerful position.
Those infamous brawls typically involve opposite teams, but this week’s events in D.C. were the result of intense infighting on the Republican side, with a small conservative faction making a power play.
Mr. Gaetz has charged that Mr. McCarthy failed to respect the agreement that propelled him into the position, which he obtained after a 15-round voting marathon in January that involved at least one intra-party physical altercation as tempers flared.
“Kevin McCarthy couldn’t keep his word,” Mr. Gaetz told reporters on Oct. 3. “He made an agreement in January regarding the way Washington would work, and he violated that agreement. We are $33 trillion in debt. We are facing $2.2 trillion annual deficits.”
There was small support for Mr. Gaetz’s motion from the Republican side, with only eight representatives voting in favour. The vote passed 216–210 with support from the Democrats.
“It is now the responsibility of the GOP members to end the House Republican Civil War,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries remarked after the vote.
Political Power
The House Speaker position wields significant power in the United States, setting the political agenda, overseeing committee assignments, and making deals with the opposition.As a spokesperson for the majority, the U.S. House Speaker is allowed to be political, unlike his counterpart in Canada, though the individual also shares similar responsibilities such as guiding floor debates.
Whereas the Canadian House Speaker rarely makes the news, the U.S. House speaker is almost the daily centre of attention along with the U.S. president, for which he is the second in line of succession after the vice-president.
What got former House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota in hot water was not a political move. He took the fall for inviting and paying tribute in the Commons to Yaroslav Hunka, who fought in Ukraine during World War II with a unit of Hitler’s Waffen SS.
Before becoming the first Speaker to resign in over half a century, Mr. Rota’s time in the role was appreciated by his peers. Former Tory MP Derek Sloan said he should be remembered not for the latest controversy but for standing up to the government on the Winnipeg laboratory documents scandal.
Outside North America
The power granted to the U.S. House Speaker is a feature of the American system that is not common in other Western democracies.Many countries follow variations of the U.K. model of the Westminster system of parliamentary government, including Canada, where the Speaker of the House is independent and oversees debates.
The position also has the power of referral to appoint three members to the Constitutional Council, in charge of reviewing the constitutionality of legislation but separate from the role of a supreme court.
