The Speaker is elected by an absolute majority of members. Fudge for Speaker!

  Fudge

"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 United States Constitution. The Speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the House of Representatives, and is simultaneously the House's 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. Neither does the Speaker regularly participate in floor debates.

The Constitution Savedoes not require the Speaker to be an elected member of the House of Representatives, although every Speaker thus far has been.[3] The Speaker is second in the United States presidential line of succession, after the Vice President and ahead of the President pro tempore of the Senate."  wiki

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Well pilgrims, if I were king of the GOP I would want a different Speaker than Pelosi elected, one whom a lot of the Democrats in the House would not want.  IOW the GOP should want to elect a divisive Speaker as a present to an already fractured Democratic Party.  One might argue that this would call for the election of Pelosi, but she is a potent organizing and fund raising force and defeat this time might remove her as a factor in national politics.

Fudge is a long serving Democrat political pro from a solidly Democrat and majority Black Ohio urban district. She does not seem to have ever had a non-government job.  She clearly is a product of identity politics in the Cleveland-Akron area.  She has had six terms in the House and has served on many committees although it is not clear to me that she has chaired any.  She is what the Brits would call a back-bencher and is unlikely to become a serious national political figure.

The Democrats are committed to identity politics.  Pelosi herself yesterday declamed that Al "Tawana" Sharpton has "saved" America.  Does she not think that the time has come for a Woman of Color to be speaker?

The Speaker must be elected by an absolute majority of the members of the House (218).  The only quorum possible is the whole House including members not present.  218 is the magic number.  The Speaker need not be a member of the House although that has never happened.

It is usually true that opposition members of the minority party do not vote in this election for members of the majority party but it need not be so.  In this case the possibility for the GOP to disrupt Democrat unity should be enticing.  pl 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Fudge

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