A professor of law and taxation. Test test p. The book manuscript, the applicants of national the United States and the 20th century. An Important Mission of the center is promoting the senate and the house of representatives and advancing the history of congress. This Research Series helps us engage fully that the mission is being done. For those that have written significant books ons history of congress. Today we hear about a very significant book on the history of congress. Charles stewart gave a marvelous talk. Electing the senate and direct democracy before the 18th amendment. And the battle over who would succeed the speaker of was finally dieing down and charles graciously agreed to return to discussion the history of the speaker of the house. He has given todays talk, the enticing title speaker battles, then and now. It was coauthored with jeffrey jenkins. Bidding for the senate and the rise of government. Charles along time friend of the center is the distinguish ed professor at m. I. T. Hoe is also a fellow. There is also a wonderful dex book and the indecember pensive volume of committees and the United States congress. Thank you very much for being here today with us, charles, and letting us host you. We should have a few minutes from q and a after the presentation. Before you ask a question, please raise your hand so we can pass the microphone and you can be heard. Thank you, charles. So thank you, richard. It is great to be here. Again, as richard was saying a few months ago i was going to be giving a talk about Senate Elections right as john boehner was swept off of the stage and i suggested to richard that well, maybe we should talk about speaker elections. But you can come back next year, and when i was here last time i had to say that, and i will repeat it this time, that it is a thrill to be here. My first book was about budget reform and it was written in this building into this was in the early 1980s back when you got off as i mentioned last time, you just high tailed it as fast as you could across the street. It was a very different neighborhood 30 or 40 years ago. So in any case it is really great to be here if is also really interesting in these talks to be reminded that although in my life as a congressional historian i do my work because i love the stories and i find it really interesting. And i have helped to build a sub field of congressional history in the field of political we love these stories and they have not been told. We can complain about history, some of us, these days if we would like. But the neat thing is i discovered that the books have become relevant. We talked about the passions of the 17th maemt, and how elections happen, and when i got into that project i didnt realize there would be a so it is a, might be a current topic. So i started to think about writing about the leadership, and there was other interest that i was talking about and they have some currency itself, so what im going to be talking about is how and why do they and im going to talk about the book that was done for us. And while i would have preferred a play by play announcement, it turns out that that it might be useful to the degree to which they share features with the past and to the dreen to which they really, one could easily make bad comparisons to the past as well. So my interest in and by the way, i should just note that for those of you really interested in this, and we talk about boehner retaining his seat. And the older stories that i will be telling you about. So if you just koogle them you can find these on the Washington Post site. So my interest in speakership battles and interest in elections came as a student. But i discovered there had been battles before the civil war for the speakership. This is the cover of the book. This is the celebration in the election of nathan yen banks. And i discovered that it is quite common not only to have uncertainty about who the speaker might be, but there could be battles on the house floor, and it just seemed really cool. Exactly the sort of thing you want to take on after ktenure, not before. So i started to piece together the history, and it turned out that it was not as exciting of an election at Nathaniel Banks. So it turns out that it used to be very, very common not just the famous cases of nathanian banks, but very common to have multt pl ballots for elections and real hon toast goodness fights. And i will come back to that. Then when i started the speaker of the house, fast toward to the senate for some of you this is more pleasant. But when i started the project if you were to fastforward to the present you would see a different story. You would see a kabuki theater set of performances on the convening of every house of representatives every two years where someone leading the Majority Party will nominate someone for speaker and someone would nominate someone for speaker, and there would be a vote and surprise surprise, the ds would vote for the ds and the rs for the republican, and everyone would go off and have drinks and celebrate and be happy. Rather what would happy is a series of resolutions that are in short order. The officers of the house, and very soon after that the committees. Very, very simple. And there would be caucuses ahead of time to nominate the two parties, but it would be two leaders, but it could be well known who they would be. And if there were disagreements, and there have been disagreements and fights for leadership, but they have all been contained within the party, within the caucus. So once the caucus decides things move on. That was the world basically for everybody in this room, in our life times, that was basically the story. Nancy pelosi getting closer to our book being done, a decade later, she started to run into trouble and i will come back to this, i hope i will have time,ly have time, i will make time for it, but many of you recall that after the hit that the democrats dook in n 2010, and in the run up to that election, there was active talk among many democrats, especially democrats, that nancy pelosi has to go. There was a rebellion in the party that she survived bun null the less if the democrats had held the house in 2010 the story could have been very, very difficult. By the time we finished, john boehner had been speaker and storm crowds were on the horizon. Here you go, here is you know, his second election as speaker. And other people got a bunch of votes so the whole world this was even before last year when a Tea Party Group started to circulate a petition to declare the chair of the house vacant. So this was, it didnt happen, of course. Paul ryan got to be speaker. But that would have been quite different. A lot of work had been done behind the scenes. There was a big chance that if ryan had not taken the position it could have been chaos. We have not seen that in awhile. So it is a new world and what i want to come back to is the degree to which the really old world can help to inform the new world. Okay . So very quickly let me give you a overview of what happens in this book which, by the way, is the last 450 book ever to be published in Political Science. We start in the earliest years with the speakership being decided in contests that are quasi partisan. Political parties grew up in the early period of the republic. But in the earliest few decades,ly give some specifics in just a bit, there was not caucuses in the way that we understand them now. And so there is often times uncertainty even when one of the parties had a majority. But who would the speaker be . And once they were decided it was not determined who would be on the committees. Obviously and early in the period speakership contests became structured around partisanship and around idol y ideology. So this is late when the really fun fights happen. So in these circumstances there are still informal caucuses. It was not always clear what the expectations were. And none the less, it became partisan. The really important thing, what most of us lived through, this, because after the civil war there was interesting timing. Organization in the house became very, very regular. It was regular in a way that jeff and i refer to this as a cartel. By which not only did the Majority Party control the offices, but they expected to control the house. And that defended on there being certainty that they would go to the defense of the speaker. That was a world that was built up in the period from the civil war up until the speakership. And basically a three decade period. So it grows and matures. So we discover in the process that the speaker interprets the sorry we look at a knock down drag out fight about the speakership. What we is it covers is that there was other offices, and they were as important as the speakership and in some ways more important. They include the printer, the clerk, the sergeant at arms, and the chaplain. So there is a lot of interesting stuff. So we talk about the government, and the conglomeration of offices are the eye of martin van buren. So it is not just speaker. This is not a vision test. This is a table of contents, there is a bunch of appendices, so those that look at the book that are interesting in the era, we have blow by blow chapters. And we talk about these fights, and if youre interested in, you know, all of the balloting and the houses that i told you about, we have the numbers and the sources. We have gone through and collected sources and numbers. About where all of the speakers have come from. Relying an data sources. The various recordings, the journals, the debates, as well as the party and other nupss in this period. So it is primarily a documentary study. So let me just very quickly ly probably skip over the Political Science part, doing an over view, another slightly more detailed overview of the speaker and the elections, they are probably talking at clerks and reactions. They talk about the problem that john boehner had. And why study this is there is a number of questions about studying speakership fights. Some of them are just purely historical. Just empirical interesquestions are interesting. There are still questions remaining about the evolution of party government. Parties are not in the communication. And nitting that together i have, by the way, one of my little movements being part of the presidency. And i want to build. I think there is meat here. And finally this is the political sciency question. But it is a really hard question. Embedded in how we elect speakers is a type of election that were about to see in cleveland. And that Election Form is majority requirement. Okay . So entry barriers. How do those get resolved if no one has a majority. Speakership is the same thing. To get elected you need a majority of the chamber. Anyone can be nominated. You can vote for anybody, there is a dead llock, how do you resolve it. A couple possible unifying stories. Let me give you more of the pathology of the period. You can sbraek it down, the first period is the preinstitution period. There is usually one or two ballots. This is the number of ballots, we dont know, its not even in the journal how many ballots. So we know who the speakers were, instoformal nomination. I would not say it is lackadaisical, but after the 12th congress. So henry clay is one of the great monumental figures in the institutional develop m of the house of representatives into clay comes in and makes a number of institutional changes to turn the house into kind of a version that are standing committees, strong speaker controlling the floor, those sorts of things. During this period claye allows people to see the mavalue of a strong providing officer. However, clay is able to get elected speaker because of the personality, maybe, i dont know. There is a lot of reasons. He always gets elected peaker so easily. He comes and goes. He has gamblining debts. And when he leaves he leaves for instance in the middle of the 16th congress and taylor is elected and it takes 22 ballots to elect his replacement. Clay comes back and barber, the next congress, 12 ballots. Taylor, again, two ballots. So you know there is no guarantee that things will be resolved really quickly. Before 1839 ballots for speaker was secret ballot. In 1939 the house starts voting the way they do now. They do a vote check. Live voice, out loud. And that changes a lot. If youre party leader you can observe this. And this period is one that has the many, many deadlocks. Some of the most famous ones. So you can see when gcob was elected, 133 ballots. And on and on, okay . Twice the 31st congress and the 41st congress, probably the only time in American History, you can recall if you read your constitution that the house could not do that, right . They cant adjourn unless the senate says its okay. So they never but imagine th this, on what became the civil war. After the civil war, it didnt really change. You dont see many of these speakers, no more multiballot affairs. They start to nominate speakers at formal caucuses. It becomes a biden caucus. Then there is a question about whether or not the new arrangement would stick and it does. And were off to the races. After 1991, so, just to talk about the tran six for a second, speaker reed with an important moment in history of congress when speaker reed basically codifies by force of personality, theory of government, and they really koz if i the floor by the Majority Party leadership. So you know have this mindlbund. They work out their problems privately. They come to an agreement about who will lead. The van kicked get good compete assignments and that is basically the form and the system that we still have right now. So after 1891 it is pretty much one ballot when there was a progressive stallworth split. Nine to elect gillett. That is seen as being the most par tloallel to what boehner experienced. But other than 1923 caucuses have made nominations and they have gone through with the Majority Party winning, okay . What is this . This is not from oklahoma these days. These just a visual in the book. Let me explain it to you. You dont need to know the details to get the importance of the visual. This line right here reflects how many seats Majority Party has in the house of representatives from the First Congress up into the 112th congress. The solid line is the fraction of votes received by the top vote getter. The first round of voting for the speak er. That indicates that much times they could not get a ma yourty vote for a single person. You notice that things start to get calm around 1870. And fact that you dont the line not getting up totally to one is not because of defections, but usually because of absences. Things like that. This is a slightly different graph, but this is the boehner problem and the ryan problem that kind of put it in context. It is the biggest die vvergence. So this is a big deal. A really big deal, okay . Im going to skip over, and you can just believe many that they were really important and interesting. Or you can buy the book and find out about that. Thunder sr. Is a visualization to kind of show visually where the conflicts are. So each column is a congress from the first down to the 115th. And this row is oops shows us what happened . Oh. There we go. When speaker elections kind of blew up when clerk elections blew up, when print e elections blew up and you can see this comes up to the 1850s and then lots of blowing up. All up and down the line starting with the 37th congress. Only one colored, and thats, cell, and thats 1923. So things are really, really different. I will also skip over voeche, except if you want to read the slide you may while i talk. This is a great example of unintended consequences and reforms in congress in history. The intention of veev avoeche over come reneging on elections in the election of subsidiary officers. Clerk and printer, when this really became an issue. So van buren and other Party Leaders decided solution to reneging on promises was to open up voting in public. So we can observe. In the short term it worked wonders. We got really a high spike in Party Loyalty in these elections. A problem. So the newspaper editors also started this thing and citizens started noticing. Right at the moment that the nation is beginning to get divided along slavery and other issues. It and so back in the olden days, you might be, if you were from the south, you might be able to vote for someone from the north. And then claim to your constituents, hmm. Must have been somebody else that voted noor g ed for that g. It wasnt me. In a heightsed ideological environment, much, much harder to put together coalition in parties and becomes a hoa s a w other thing. Except for getting data. I like getting data. Over 115 elections for speaker in american politics. There are 9 that i think are particularly worth noting. Im not going to go through all the details here. But just note that just really, really quickly theres a couple of general patterns here. The first one that i would note is the election of 1839, which took 11 ballots over two days and Robert Hunter ended up being elected speaker. The story here was that going in to the election nobody quite knew which party had a majority, to begin with. But layered on top of this, there was an infamous disputed election in new jersey, which elected their members at large. And it would be the outcome of this, that disputed election that would determine whether the whigs or democrats had majority. It took two weeks just to decide what to do with that disputed election. The democrats eventually won that fight and then it took another two weeks to decide who was going to be speaker. Okay. Hunter, who gets elected, gets elect because democrats although they have majority are not very good at counting votes. So hunter was a whig. Although the democrats had a majority. So this is the outcome here, simple vote counting problem. For 1849 and 1855, these are the real donnybrooks. 61 ballots over three weeks, hal cobb eventually elected. 34th congress, 113 ballots over two months. And in which Nathaniel Banks was elected. The gist of these elections were that all of these these two were three cornered affairs, and if other congresses had been basically closely allied, or the numbers close, they also would have been three quarter affairs by which i mean there were whigs, or some opposition to democrats. You had the democrats. Then the free soil party. Antislavery, and then the democrats and whoever was opposed the democrats had northern and southern wings. So you would basically have this divisions between party and then over slavery, and, you know that is inherently an unstable mix in a majority voting. And in both of these cases the house eventually decided to select their speaker through plurality vote. Only time in history. Thats the only way they could get out of the conundrum. And in 36, now coming into the civil war, pennington from new jersey gets elected. Here its actually kind of interesting. I mean, its very, very different and much more, actually much more easy to understand. By 36, slavery was 36 congress, slavery was basically the issue and everyone was along a continuum about how strongly you felt about slavery with democrats basically a proslavery party by then. Republicans, Opposition Party a dog stew of other parties not democrats are raid against slavery. And here the issue ended up being that a group of, lets call them republicans, just to make it easy, who were not quite as antislavery as the others. Started playing chicken. They would vote for the democrats. And a series of battles. In an order to move the Republican Party kind of more to the left, away from the anti antislavery movements. The democrats noticed this. And unbeknownst to republicans on one day there were these, like, six guys playing chicken voting for democrats trying to play a mind game on the republican leadership. Democrats with a few of the american party, which is pivotal here, they all ganged up and voted for the same democrat and almost almost grabbed speakership away from majority. Ended up not happening. Pennington ends up getting the, getting the speakership. He is a more moderate republican than the person that republicans had been trying to get to be speaker. 37, congress is really important. Because this breaks the pattern of airing dirty laundry on the floor. What happens in the 37 congress, this is right as the civil war is starting. Republicans come in to town. They decide not to have a caucus. But what they agreed, leadership agreed to do, there would be a ballot, whichever republican on the house floor, whichever republican gets most votes, on the second ballot, republicans all vote for him. Okay . So groh comes in, gets most votes. Not a majority. However, on the very next move, the fellow who came in second and i will, thats frank blair. Actually the son of one of the printers, who we saw a few decades ago. Enough people who had voted for blair changed their votes so that groh gets majority, and no multiballot affair. Okay . That kind of knocks the the lights out under multiballot affairs. So from that time forward, the question becomes after the civil war, whether the caucuses will hold on the floor. The first real task becomes in oh, by the way. Ip should mention, its 1865 when the first time both democratic and Republican Caucus both come to the floor and make a nomination. So you can maybe time the modern era of 1865. 1876 is the First Congress when democrats regained control after the civil war. A question whether democrats would do what republicans did, resolve things with the caucus, givous goodies those vanquished and go to the united. They did. 47 and 52, caucus fights with the Republican Party and the Democratic Party that, in which the parties were divided in three, four, five, sevenway contests. Where there was a question. I mean, you know you know, people were just so ticked off end of both of these contests there was a question whether the losers would come and vote for the winner on the floor. And they did in both cases. Okay . This was the biggest test. The stress test up until 1891 when, so thats the stress test. Really, the last time the whole system fell apart was in 1923, and just to give you a really quick overview, because we have probably about five more minutes of me talking and then questions. 1923, you will recognize as being in a period in which the Republican Party was divided between stalwarts, conservatives, called stalwarts by then, basically conservatives, Largest Group of the party and progressives. And the republicans had taken a shellacking in the 1922 election. And so the progressives ended up being, there are about 24 of them. There was only a 14vote majority for republicans. They wanted the leadership of the Republican Party to be more open. And they demanded this of the republican leadership. Nicholas longworth, who eventually got a building named after him said, no way. You do what i say. And then progressives said, okay. Fine. See ya on the floor. And basically there was a game of, of just staring. The staring contest for three days and eventually progressives won. Of course, the threat, kind of behind the door, that the progressives could conceivably go over and organize the chamber with the democrats. Culturally they never would have. Theres a lot of reasons why you wouldnt expect that to happen, but that was there, possible, ideologically possible. Eventually won, got changes to the house rules. 24 elections better for republican republicans. Progressives no longer and took everything back. Punished progressives. Had a committee assignment, you were taken off that committee. In the 24 election also if you supported the progressive candidate, youre out of the party. If you dont vote for me, youre out of the party. So by 26 all progressives had back in the party. And they came over. Okay. So, and i would say that was the period we would say thats the period where this practice of who you vote for for speaker determines which party youre in. Really begins. That norm begins there. If you dont vote for the speaker candidate youre not in the party. Get someone else to give you committee assignments. Okay. So very quickly, theres two types of stealmates. Three corner stalemates before the civil war, big party, little party, ogged long, some major dimension and third party in there, like the free soils who want to do something else. So whereas theres another pattern that we saw with progressives. We saw a few times in the antebellum period. Two parties and what we call the pivotal insurgence by the progressives. Okay . Those are the two. So so pelosis problem, use a few graphs but tell you what these graphs are intended to say. Pelosi nancy pelosi had problems i mentioned earlier in the 2010 election with the socalled blue dog democrats who ran against her in the general. Now, the democrats had their own shellacking in 2010. So it wasnt like she was nominated for spooker but end of the day revolt ghent her continued leadership in the caucus. Lost 34 vot 43 votes against her in the caucus and 11 voted against her on the floor for speaker. Voted for schueler and others. This showsiedologically using a common measure of ideological, this is the left this is the right republicans over here. Red dots are where the people who voted against pelosi were. The most conservative democrats. Interesting thing here is that this is the ideological location of everybody who left the congress in the 2010 election on the democratic side. This is intended to remind me to remind us that one of the things the 2010 election did, remove more conservative democrats from the democratic caucus. The democrats had organized in 2010 i think pelosi would have been in deep trouble or democrat wos have been in deep trouble. Okay . John boehner, we all know, had problems. This is a similar picture to this one. Which shows the ideological location of everybody who voted against boehner. Its on his far right. Certainly an ideological mapping to boehners problems. Okay . Ryans problems. This is so so this is paul ryans problem. And this is thanks to keith poole and his blog from a few daysation. Keith did an interesting plot when he plots every member of the house of the house, ds democrats, rs republicans. He produces an willedology, these are liberals these conservatives. How many votes members got in the last election, and poole does the following exercise. He says, what if this is just what if this is as bad an election of republicans as people can match jn not saying it will be, but what if . So he says, what happens if theres just a, a sevenpoint swing away from the Republican Party in 2016 for house elections . If so then these republicans lose. Okay . Now, this would be an extreme swing. Republicans still have majority but might only be like ten, ten seats. Look at who stays. The further the right you are the more likely you are to stay. Okay . So this so ryans best hope is still not going to be happy times. When it comes to organizing. But what he doesnt say is that, know, if things get even better for the democrats, and theres some miracle that democrats take the house, the democrats who come in are likely to be conservative democrats. So nancy pelosi or whoever the democratic nominee is going to be is going to be also not in a good shape either. Because of these ideological battles. Just to wrap up. Considering the past. Thinking about the future in the next few years. Think about the current conflicts over the speakership. There is no evidence so far that members want to upset what ive called, what i call organizational cartel. That is, no evidence that members want to really give up the system where the parties organize things internally. The question is whether they can keep the system going together. I think theres an argument that if you just kind of look at the types of very about strauct str these on to the current conundrums to democrats and republicans democrats have the bigger problem. Because the democrats, the democrat whose would defect from a nominee are conservative democrats. They could placably walk over to the republicans and organize with the republicans. Not that it would happen, but they can make that credible threat. Whereas tea party republicans, what keith poole calls the suicide caucus, his terms, not mine. They have nowhere ideologically to go. They cannot credibly say if you dont capitulate were work with the democrats to organize. Its more likely that the Republican Caucus is going to be like the democrats used to be. You know . Remember the old saying . Not a member of an organized political party, im a democrat. Now its true of the Republican Party and may in fact end up being the case. Democrats have more to lose on the floor. Some other things to think about, though, is that some of the ways in which the president really is different from the antebellum period these two points. Presently, no force in american politics. The three cornered contests the most vexing. So if there were a third force, like donald trump starts his own party, then thing koss get really, really nasty. But there isnt, and actually election laws in states make it really hard for third parties to come along. Finally, the party rules. This is a little inside baseball but really important i think. Party rules are really different now. Back in the olden days nominations were made the night before the congress convened. Now, especially republicans, actually both democrats and republicans now meet right after the election to decide who theyre going to nominate for speaker and have two months to figure this out. Republicans furthermore have a rule which says that to nominate well start balloting. Have a bunch of people who want to be speaker, take a vote, person on the bottom dropped off. And vote again. Person on the bottom, dropped off. They actually have a rule that eventually gets down to a twoperson contest and pick somebody. So there are rules very, very different than in the past. Finally, i just to mention back to the brokered convention. We may have a trial run at oldstyle nomination speaker fight in politics in the, in cleveland this summer, because as i mentioned before, a brokered convention in many ways is the same thing as a speakership problem. So, thank you. Happy to take questions. [ applause ] raise your hand if you have a question. A fascinating talk. Im again wondering about some of the comparative situations here. Im thinking of the british system where you also have obviously greater stakes. The person who gets voted on is not just the speaker but it the prime minister, but there is not just that you organized the house of commons with that election. You also determine policy. Right. And how far do you actually have quality government in the American Congress where you may organize the house but you still dont have assurance you can get your policy through . Im thinking of my particular area, tax policy. There are lots of cases where both the chairman of the ways and means and the House Speaker want something, but the parties, they demanders simply dont vote for it. How much power do the parties actually have . Not as much as in parliament systems. I should mention that the very first paper i wrote in, when i started this research now about 20 years ago had the title the inefficient speaker. An illusion to badgett, i guess, who wrote on history of the english constitution called the system you just described the efficient speaker. Turns out the interesting thing about intellectual history. Same time ang lophil politics are coming together. Its clear van buren wanted the congress to be a binding caucus on policy and he tries it and fails. There ends up being times in the 18 1890,s, 1920s, seen more recently trying to create binding congresses and sometimes a flash in the pan like in the teens in democrats but go away. A glean in van burens eye is one part of the van buren plan that never got never got enacted, but Everything Else did. And we could talk, you know, at length about that, but certainly van buren wanted to go there and couldnt get it. Yes . If i can have a followup. On resigning speakership. Speaker boehner resigned speakership. Could either of them survived given their particular personalities and political ideas . Could they have survived without resigning . Right. And could they have been effective in the house of representatives . Yeah of course tom tom reid was a little before my time, but you know, i mean, so reids problem was, was with the administration. Right . Disagreement about policy. Whereas boehner seems to me in some ways was similar. That is the party was divided about policy, but seemed to be a bit more of an inside baseball type of thing. You know, i dont i wasnt on the hill at the time. So i dont know if boehner could have survived, but it does strike me he didnt want to survive and that was probably, probably good enough. Actually i dont have a good, i dont have a good aens nswer tot question. And the speaker [ inaudible ]. Question on clay being elected spooker as a freshman. Yes. Elected speaker very first dap he was a member of the house. Keep in mind he had been speaker of the Kentucky Legislature and had been a u. S. Senator a couple times. Wasnt exactly a neophyte. Likewise, pennington was elected speaker in his first term as well. Although pennington had been the governor of new jersey and, in fact, i didnt get into the details, but, although he was a neophyte in the house of representatives actually he was the key player in this, disputed election case involving new jersey when hed been governor of new jersey. He was well aware of kind of organizational things in the house. Clay was definitely a different guy. Special guy. Going to ask you [ inaudible ] so seems like a lot of what were talking about today is centralized power. Fascination with the speakership a lot of power centralized in the office. Topdown structure. Wasnt necessarily always the case. Committees have also been incredibly powerful throughout the history of the house as speakers have delegated powers to individual chairmen. 19th century in particular, how powerful in your opinion, was the office of the speaker . Especially kind of in this well, up to, when clay becomes speaker and especially after clay becomes speaker . Yeah. I mean, thats a whole other book and, in fact, we address some of that in our book. Ill say a couple of things. First of all, i think youve described well what kind of conventionally was believed by the house. I think theres a lot of truth to it. Having said that one of the things striking looking at history is that members act as if, even during the period we know this observationally that the committee sometimes will just do what just wildly unpredictable things. That the speaker elections proceed as if the speaker is a dictator. Its really kind of striking. Even when you know. In fact, a little bibliography here. James sterling young wrote the Washington Community a famous book in congressional history and has a great chapter, section, about henry clay and says, clay is seen as being the father of all, of american parliamentary power but he got they wiped the floor with him so many times. Lost so many things. Couldnt stack committees to save his life. All sorts of failures yet held up as being the strong speaker in this period. Maybe why he kept getting reelected. He actually was a weak speaker, but there is this yes. So youre right. Observationally committees are weak, but theyre fighting tooth and kind of, tooth and nail over this position. Either theyre deluded or there are things still worthwhile in being speaker, as meg brooks once said. Good being king. And i think if nothing else, you did get some things as speaker. Oh. I believe our time is about expired. We want to give charles another really round of applause for a really informative presentation. Thank you for attending. [ applause ] weeknights this month we feature American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, a look back at a union prisoner of war camp during the u. S. Civil war in elmira, new york, where almost 3,000 confederate p. O. W. S died. The author of hellmyra the unions most infamous p. O. W. Camp of the civil war talking about conditions in the prison and some of the officers in charge. That starts at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. Youre watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan3 explore our nations past. Cspan3, create kraed by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Each week American History tvs american artifacts explores the histories of the United States flew objects. Up next we visit capitol hill to talk to house historian Matthew Wasniewski and