The Reading Clerk of the United States House of Representatives reads bills, motions, and other papers before the
House and keeps track of changes to legislation made on the floor. During the vote for
Speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** I ...
at the beginning of each
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
, or when the electronic voting system fails, the clerk calls the roll of members for a
recorded vote
Deliberative assemblies – bodies that use parliamentary procedure to arrive at decisions – use several methods of voting on motions (formal proposal by members of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action). The regular me ...
.
Traditionally, the reading clerks are appointed by the leaders of the majority and minority parties. For instance,
Paul Hays was appointed by the then-Minority Leader
Robert H. Michel
Robert Henry Michel (; March 2, 1923 – February 17, 2017) was an American Republican Party politician who was a member of the United States House of Representatives for 38 years. He represented central Illinois' 18th congressional distric ...
, for the Republican party. Beyond this procedure for appointment, the party status has no significance.
Reading clerks work for the Office of Legislative Operations, one of nine offices that fall under the jurisdiction of the
Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.
List
Democratic
Republican
References
External links
Brief snippet about the role on the House's official siteCSPAN'S "Capitol Questions" regarding the role
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reading Clerk Of The United States House Of Representatives
Employees of the United States House of Representatives