The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, commonly known as the speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the House and is simultaneously its presiding officer, de facto leader of the body's majority party, and the institution's administrative head. Speakers also perform various other administrative and procedural functions. Given these several roles and responsibilities, the speaker usually does not personally preside over debates—that duty is instead delegated to members of the House from the majority party—nor regularly participate in floor debates.
H. William DeWeese is an American politician who is a former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. A member of the Democratic Party, DeWeese served as the 135th Speaker of the Pennsylvania House from 1993 to 1994. After five years of investigation by Republican State Attorney General Tom Corbett, he was indicted in December 2009 on six charges of conflict of interest, theft and criminal conspiracy on accusations that two members of his staff used state resources to campaign for political office. The trial began January 23, 2010. He was re-elected in 2010 despite the charges, but was convicted of five of the six felony charges on February 6, 2012.
John Michael Perzel is an American politician and member of the Republican Party. Perzel represented 172nd Legislative District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1978 until 2010. From April 2003 to January 2007, he served as House Speaker. He lost his bid for re-election to Democrat Kevin Boyle in 2010. Perzel was convicted in August 2011 of a variety of corruption related charges and, in March 2012, was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Alfred W. Taubenberger is an American politician and businessman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as an at-large member of the Philadelphia City Council from 2016 to 2020.
Keith R. McCall is a former Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives who represented the 122nd District from 1982 to 2011. He served as the Speaker of the House during the 2009–2010 legislative session.
Brendan Francis Boyle is an American politician serving as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing a district in the Philadelphia area since 2015. Since January 2023, he has served as Ranking Member of United States House Committee on the Budget. He represented the 13th district from 2015 to 2019, serving much of northeast Philadelphia and most of suburban Montgomery County. Since 2019, he has represented the 2nd district, which includes the northeastern fourth of Philadelphia. Boyle represented the 170th district in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 2009 to 2015.
Thomas R. "Tom" Caltagirone is a former Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He represented the 127th District and was the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the Gaming Oversight Committee.
Timothy L. Pesci was a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He represented the 60th legislative district from 1989 to 2000.
Robert Richard Guzzardi is an American attorney, real estate developer, conservative financier, and political activist. He is best known for his efforts to elect "reform Republican" candidates to the Pennsylvania General Assembly after the 2005 Pennsylvania General Assembly pay raise controversy.
The 1863 United States Senate election in New York was held on February 3, 1863, by the New York State Legislature to elect a U.S. Senator to represent the State of New York in the United States Senate.
The 1880–81 United States Senate elections were held on various dates in various states, coinciding with the presidential election of 1880. As these U.S. Senate elections were prior to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, senators were chosen by state legislatures. Senators were elected over a wide range of time throughout 1880 and 1881, and a seat may have been filled months late or remained vacant due to legislative deadlock. In these elections, terms were up for the senators in Class 1.
Kevin J. Boyle is an American politician serving as a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and current minority Chairman of the PA House State Government Committee. He is the state Representative from Pennsylvania House District 172, which covers parts of Northeast Philadelphia. Boyle was elected to the House of Representatives in November 2010 when he ran against 32-year incumbent and former Speaker of the Pennsylvania House John Perzel. Boyle is the younger brother of United States Representative Brendan F. Boyle and together they are the only set of brothers to serve simultaneously in Pennsylvania's House of Representatives in its 300-year history.
David Oh is an American attorney and politician who served as a Republican member of the Philadelphia City Council from 2012 to 2023. He was the first Asian American elected to the city council.
Edward "Ed" Neilson is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party. In April 2012, he won a special election to represent the 169th District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. In May 2014 he won a special election to serve as an at-large member of Philadelphia City Council replacing outgoing councilmember Bill Green. In August 2015, he won a special election to represent the 174th District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
The 2016 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania were held on November 8, 2016, to elect the 18 U.S. representatives from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, one from each of the state's 18 congressional districts. The elections coincided with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the House of Representatives, elections to the United States Senate and various state and local elections. The primaries were held on April 26.
The 1951 Philadelphia municipal election, held on Tuesday, November 8, involved contests for mayor, district attorney, all seventeen city council seats, among other offices. Citywide, the Democrats took majorities of over 130,000 votes, continuing their success from the elections four years earlier. Richardson Dilworth, who had been elected district attorney in 1951, was elected mayor. Victor H. Blanc, a city councilman, was elected district attorney. The Democrats also kept fourteen of seventeen city council seats, losing one district seat while gaining another, and kept control of the other citywide offices. The election represented a further consolidation of control by the Democrats after their citywide victories of four years earlier.
On October 29, 2015, during the 114th United States Congress, an election for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was necessitated by the impending resignation of John Boehner, set for October 30. Boehner was the first speaker to resign in the middle of a Congressional term since Jim Wright in 1989.
1959 Philadelphia's municipal election, held on November 3, involved contests for mayor, all seventeen city council seats, and several other executive and judicial offices. Citywide, the Democrats took majorities of over 200,000 votes, continuing their success from the elections four years earlier. Richardson Dilworth, who had been elected mayor in 1955, was re-elected over Republican nominee Harold Stassen. The Democrats also took fifteen of seventeen city council seats, the most seats allowed to any one party under the 1951 city charter. They further kept control of the other citywide offices. The election represented a continued consolidation of control by the Democrats after their citywide victories of the previous eight years.
On January 3, 2019, the first day of the 116th United States Congress and two months after the 2018 U.S. House elections, the incoming members of the U.S. House of Representatives held an election for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. This was the 126th U.S. speaker election since the office was created in 1789.
At the opening of the 118th Congress, the members-elect of the U.S. House elected in the 2022 midterms held an election for speaker of the House, marking the 128th U.S. speaker election since the office was created in 1789. It began on January 3, 2023, and concluded in the early morning hours of January 7 when Kevin McCarthy of California, leader of the House Republican Conference, won a majority of votes cast on the fifteenth ballot. After the longest speaker election since the December 1859 – February 1860 U.S. speaker election, McCarthy won the speakership by making concessions to Republican Party hardliners, who had refused to support him through several rounds of voting for not being sufficiently conservative.
