WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is facing a threat a few of his Republican predecessors can relate to: members of his own party vowing to oust him from power.
While Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., became the first speaker ever voted out of office last October and John Boehner, R-Ohio, bowed out amid threats of a potential ousting in 2015, it was a Republican speaker more than 100 years ago who first faced an intraparty revolt against his leadership.
Joseph Cannon, known as “Uncle Joe,” ruled the House from 1903 to 1911 and is now the namesake of one of the Capitol’s office buildings. During his term, the Republican from Illinois clashed with the growing progressive movement within his party; a tension that boiled over into a floor fight over the future of the speaker’s role.
With Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., saying she will force a vote next week on deposing Johnson, here is a look back at how Cannon took on his own Republican rebels in 1910 by calling for a vote to oust himself.
‘Czar’ Cannon’s total control
While the U.S. Constitution specifically names the job of House speaker, it only states that the House “shall chuse their Speaker.” That’s it. As a result, the job’s responsibilities have developed and morphed over time depending on who has wielded the gavel.
By the time Cannon came to power, the speakership had been transformed from that of a presiding officer to a powerful party leader. The speaker named all of the committee chairmen and chaired the Rules Committee himself, which directs the flow of legislation to the House floor.
Cannon’s control was so notoriously ironclad that he was referred to as “Czar” Cannon. In his 1964 book “Mr. Speaker: Four men who shaped the United States House of Representatives,” biographer Booth Mooney tells of a constituent who asked his representative for a copy…
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