Don’t you have to be, like, I don’t know, an ELECTED FUCKING REPRESENTATIVE to be speaker???
Interestingly, no. There’s never been one who wasn’t, but there’s no actual law that says so. Some people floated the idea of appointing Donald then impeaching and convicting Biden and Harris on some bogus charge (or assassinating them, but that was usually an unsaid “wink wink, nudge nudge”) to get him back in. Musk should be out of the line of succession for President at least if it does happen though since unless I’m mistaken the “natural born citizen” part of the requirements still stands
By convention, not by law
The Constitution does not explicitly require the speaker to be an incumbent member of the House of Representatives, although every speaker thus far has been, and as a member the speaker also represents their district and retains the right to vote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives
This is one of those Air Bud moments where they point out that there’s no rule saying an unelected person CAN’T be speaker…
One problem with government is that there are lots of unspoken rules that have been followed as tradition but never formalized.
