Current Event: A New Speaker of the House

Paul Ryan, a Republican representative from Wisconsin, became speaker of the United States House of Representatives. The speaker is the leader of his or her political party in the House, as well as the presiding officer. He or she ranks next after the vice president in order of presidential succession. Ryan, age 45, has represented Wisconsin’s 1st District since 1999. He was his party’s nominee for U.S. vice president in 2012. Ryan and his running mate, Mitt Romney, lost the election to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Ryan succeeded Ohio Republican John Boehner as speaker. Boehner, who had been the speaker of the House since 2011, retired from Congress.

Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, became speaker of the United States House of Representatives in 2015. (Credit U.S. House of Representatives)

Objective:

The United States Congress makes the nation’s laws. Congress consists of two bodies, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both bodies have about equal power. The people elect the members of Congress. The 100-member Senate consists of 2 senators from each of the 50 states. The House of Representatives, usually called simply the House, has 435 members. House members, or representatives, are elected from congressional districts of about equal population into which the states are divided. A new Congress is organized every two years, after congressional elections in November of even-numbered years. Voters elect all the representatives, resulting in a new House of Representatives. About a third of the senators come up for election every two years. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore various people and institutions of the United States government.

Words to know:

• John Boehner
• Congress of the United States
• Government of the United States
• House of Representatives
• Barack Obama
• Republican Party
• Paul Ryan
• Senate
• Speaker
• United States Capitol

Discussion Topics:

1. James Garfield is the only sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives to be elected president. Ask your students to name some people who were alive in 1880 when Garfield was elected. (Students might say Susan B. Anthony, George Washington Carver, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud, Mohandas Gandhi, Geronimo, Ulysses S. Grant, V. I. Lenin, Karl Marx, Claude Monet, Florence Nightingale, Banjo Paterson, Louis Riel, Theodore Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Mark Twain, Vincent van Gogh, and Queen Victoria.)

2. In Australia and some other countries people are required to vote or they may be fined. Ask your students to debate, “All people who are of voting age should be required to vote in federal elections.”

3. Ask your students to debate, “People who are elected to any office should have a limit to the number of terms they can serve.”