What do the speaker and congressional leaders do?

#What the speaker does

The Constitution says only that the House “shall chuse their Speaker.” The House historian describes the job as presiding officer, party leader and the House’s administrative head. House rules, as of the 119th Congress (2025–2026), assign specific duties. The speaker keeps order, controls the Hall of the House, signs bills and subpoenas, decides questions of order subject to appeal, and refers bills to committees. The speaker can appoint a member to preside and does not have to vote in ordinary proceedings unless the vote would be decisive. The speaker also comes next after the vice president in the line for acting as president.

#How the House picks and replaces a speaker

Each new House elects a speaker by roll call. Each party’s members usually choose a candidate first, though a member may vote for anyone. Winning takes a majority of votes cast for a person by name, which can fall short of 218 when members are absent or answer “present.” The House historian lists 16 elections that took multiple ballots. The longest ran 133 ballots, from December 3, 1855, to February 2, 1856.

A resolution can declare the office vacant, and on October 3, 2023, the House adopted one, H. Res. 757. In the 119th Congress, such a resolution gets privileged status, which puts it ahead of most other business, only if a majority-party member offers it with eight majority-party cosponsors.

#House party leaders

The majority leader is the party’s floor leader, a separate office since 1899 and elected by party members since 1911. The minority leader is the minority party’s floor leader and its counterpart to the speaker, and works to protect the minority’s rights. Both are chosen every two years in secret ballots of their party caucus or conference. House.gov describes the whips as helping leadership manage the party’s legislative program.

#Senate leaders

The Constitution makes the vice president the president of the Senate, with a vote only to break a tie. The Senate chooses a president pro tempore, and since the mid-20th century that has been the senior majority-party senator by tradition. The Constitution does not mention floor leaders. Senate party caucuses began regularly naming them in the 1920s. Since 1937, the presiding officer has recognized the majority leader first and the minority leader second, ahead of any other senator seeking to speak. The Senate’s history says the majority leader, in consultation with the minority leader, is principally responsible for setting the legislative agenda.

#The 1910 vote on the speaker’s power

Speakers once held far more formal power. The speaker had chaired the House Rules Committee since 1858, and that committee decided which bills reached the floor. Until 1911, the speaker alone appointed members to standing committees. On March 19, 1910, a coalition of Democrats and progressive Republicans voted 191 to 156, with 37 not voting, to enlarge the committee and remove Speaker Joseph Cannon as its chairman.

A resolution to vacate the speakership followed the same day and failed, 155 to 192. So the House cut the office’s power while keeping the person in it. CRS reported in 2017 that the speaker does not sit on any standing committee.