Speaker of the House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Speaker of the House is a political term referring to a number of people:
- In the United Kingdom and Canada, the Speaker of the House of Commons is the individual elected to preside over the elected House of Commons. In the UK, it may also erroneously be used as "Speaker of the House of Lords" when in fact that title is Lord Speaker.
- The current Speaker of the House of Commons is John Bercow. He is Member of Parliament for the constituency of Buckingham since being elected in 1997. Until his election as speaker, he sat as a Conservative Party member, and had served in the Shadow Cabinet under former Conservative leaders Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. On 22 June, 2009, he was elected as the 157th Speaker of the House of Commons and so became the first Speaker to be elected by an exhaustive ballot. He is also the first Jew to ever hold this position.
- In the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives presides over the Lower House of Congress, the House of Representatives. In the U.S. this post is the highest-ranking in Congress, is second in line to the Presidency, and is the third highest-ranking national office overall.
- Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, was re-elected to this post at the beginning of the 111th Congress in January 2009. She represents California's 8th congressional district and has been Speaker since January 2007.
- A number of state legislatures also have speakers. For instance, the Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives is Dave Hunt.
