How the last vote to remove a House speaker backfired on the GOP

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted from the House speakership Tuesday, a day after hard-right Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) called for a vote to vacate the post.

In recent history, several speakers have resigned amid intraparty threats of a vote on their ouster - notably John A. Boehner in 2015 and Newt Gingrich in 1998. But the House had never removed a speaker, and it hadn’t held a floor vote on removing a speaker in well over a century.

In 1910, Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Ill.) faced an intraparty revolt that, while unsuccessful, hardened divisions that paved the way for a Democratic takeover.

Unlike McCarthy, whom lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to delight in calling “weak,” Cannon was accused of being a tyrant, according to writer Booth Mooney in “Mr. Speaker: Four Men Who Shaped the United States House of Representatives.”

As a young Illinois lawyer, Cannon had been inspired to pursue a life in politics after hearing Abraham Lincoln speak in 1860. Over his many years in the House, he served Republican leaders loyally, so when he finally ascended to the speakership in 1903, he expected the same kind of fealty.

He doled out committee chairs to friends and controlled what legislation - and what amendments to that legislation - could be debated on the floor. If a House rule didn’t work in his favor, he simply changed it, since he was also the chairman of the House Rules Committee. If a Democrat or insufficiently loyal Republican asked to speak, Cannon would ignore him until he gave up.

Some of his colleagues called him “Czar Cannon,” though he preferred the nickname “Uncle Joe.” Yes, Uncle Joe.

During one meeting where lawmakers complained about his iron grip, Mooney wrote, Cannon dramatically opened his jacket and shouted, “Behold Mr. Cannon, the Beelzebub of Congress! Gaze on this noble manly form - me, the Beelzebub! Me, the Czar!”

He also sometimes compared himself to Jesus.

All of this happened before the party realignment of the mid-20th century, so Democrats were considered the more traditional party and Republicans the more modern one. Plus, a wing of the Republican Party, led by President Theodore Roosevelt, was increasingly liberal, pushing for radical stuff like income tax, food regulations and allowing women to vote. Cannon was not among them. Sure, he was happy to reduce postage costs for the common man, but making sure food wasn’t poisoned was a bridge too far.

By 1910, with Roosevelt out of the White House and his successor, William Howard Taft, proving powerless against Cannon, Democrats and liberal Republicans became so frustrated that they briefly united.

The plan was complicated and, unless you’re one of those folks who reads Robert’s Rules of Order for fun, kind of boring. Basically, they used procedural moves to trick Cannon into allowing “progressive” Republican Rep. George Norris (R-Neb.) to speak, and when he did, he made a motion that would have stripped Cannon of his seat on the Rules Committee.

For days, Cannon and his allies used every parliamentary trick they could to delay the vote, and for days, the alliance of “insurgent” Republicans and Democrats beat them back. Finally, on March 19, 1910, the House voted to strip him of his Rules power by a vote of 191 to 156. More than three dozen Republicans voted against him.

Cannon told the lawmakers that despite the humiliation of losing the vote, he would not resign unless a “motion to vacate the speakership” passed. It was the legislative equivalent of “say it to my face.”

Even Norris, saying he had already achieved his goal, lost his stomach for confrontation. The motion to vacate was defeated, 192 to 155.

Cannon continued as speaker, and Republicans remained split, helping Democrats seize control of the House in the midterm elections a few months later. Then, in 1912, Roosevelt ran as a third-party presidential candidate to oust his own successor, Taft, splitting the Republican vote and handing Democrats the White House, too.

Norris, the leader of the revolt, went on to a storied career in the Senate, generally regarded as one of the best ever. Cannon’s name, if not his reputation, has also survived the passage of time; the Cannon House Office Building is named after him.