Word: speakership
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Newt Gingrich included a constitutional amendment to limit politicians to 12 years in both the House and the Senate in his 1994 Contract with America. But it was one plank of the contract that even Gingrich couldn't push through the House: it failed two months into Gingrich's speakership 227 to 204. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority (at that time 290 votes were needed) plus a two-thirds majority in the Senate and it must be ratified by two-thirds of the states - making any changes to the current system unlikely in the near future...
More than anyone on Capitol Hill, Pelosi has staked her reputation on the bill, which would require a 17% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2020 from 2005 levels and about an 80% reduction by midcentury. A failed vote could be devastating to her embattled speakership. Pelosi spent much of Wednesday and Thursday cajoling her members on the phone, in meetings, on the House floor during votes, even following a member into the Speaker's lobby - the domain of the press - to make her case in full view of a pack of reporters. She also met with seven GOP moderates...
...explicit discrimination has receded in the last two decades, culminating in the elevation of an African-American to the Presidency, a woman to the House Speakership and a black woman to the galactic dominance known as being Oprah Winfrey, those who study the effects of racism and sexism have had to cope with a difficult question: If discrimination is less powerful, why do some groups in society continue to fare worse than others? Has bias merely become better hidden, or are there other forces at work...
...another sign of strains in the Texas GOP that Bush will find upon his return home, Midland's second most famous politician, conservative Texas house speaker Tom Craddick, was recently ousted from his leadership position. A 38-year veteran of the state legislature, Craddick assumed the speakership in 2003, the first Republican since Reconstruction to do so. He went on to play a key role in the infamous Tom DeLay-orchestrated mid-decade redistricting battle, which shifted the balance of power in the congressional delegation to the Republican side. Ruling with an iron fist, he alienated a small group...
...With Republicans holding only a two-seat margin in the statehouse, 11 of the disaffected Republicans crossed the aisle and joined the 74 house Democrats to oust Craddick from the speakership as the state legislature convened last week. The new speaker, San Antonio Republican Joe Straus, is a moderate scion of an old Republican family with ties going back to John Tower and George H.W. Bush. The Straus victory is evidence of a shift in the GOP power base as urban voters gain a larger voice. Royal Masset, a longtime Texas Republican analyst, says the GOP will continue to fare...