5 January—One of two big questions today is, what dirty back-room deals is Kevin McCarthy making with the fascist wing of House Republicans and perhaps even moderate Democrats to get himself elected Speaker of the House of Representatives?

The other big question is, in the event McCarthy will have been elected Speaker (at this writing, he’s still crawling around, sniffing out votes to buy), what dirty back-room deals will he have made to slither into the Speaker’s chair?

No matter what happens with McCarthy’s tilt at the coveted speakership, no matter who ultimately gets the chair, it’s certain that the Capitol Clowns aren’t considering—aren’t doing anything for the benefit of—their constituents, the mere voters, the people who put and keep them in office time after time after time—except as a way to buy votes and keep their influential and lucrative jobs.

Like it or not, that’s the way of the political world. Do I really think that congressmen, elected representatives of the people, would throw their constituents under the bus? Is that a serious question?

It’s not generally known that the Speaker doesn’t have to be a member of the House. While the Constitution clearly says “the Speaker pro tempore must be a Member of the House,” all it says about the Speaker is that “the House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers.”

Of course, the Speaker always has been an elected representative. So it’s pretty safe to assume that James Madison and the elves who helped him draft the Constitution pretty safely assumed that the House would draw its presiding officer from among its own. Right? They do stick together, after all. But it wasn’t quite that bad back then. Well, it was really very bad, in many ways worse than it is today. So we shouldn’t assume anything.

As for the Speaker being second in line to roll into the Oval Office should the presidency come vacant for any reason, that’s not addressed in the Constitution. After the Vice President, it leaves filling the job with an “Officer” (which poses questions) to the “Congress” (which poses questions).

The Presidential Succession Act of 1792 established that after the Veep, the Senate President Pro Tempore (the longest-serving member) was ahead of the Speaker of the House. The Presidential Succession Act of 1945 reversed that order.

Cutting to the current order of succession, then, after the Speaker of the House and Senate President Pro Tem, we get to the appointed cabinet secretaries in order of creation of their departments: Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security.

Believe it . . .