politics

On the bright side, he can't claim executive immunity or pardon himself if he was selected to be Speaker, since the legislative branch does not confer the same level of such protections, and he wouldn't be able to campaign as much, since he would have to do actual work.

On top of that, he would have a much smaller megaphone, much less power, and he would be a live-in distraction for the true believers in Congress.

Basically, he'd have to successfully assassinate two members of the executive branch who are around and guarded by numerous people at all times.

yeah.. but A LOT of those guys are now in prison too.

My State of Colorado doesn't care about the court, we are going to ban him from the ballot.

You can't deny it's a distinct possibility.

Then he just needs to appoint himself as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and become the President of the Senate to fulfill his dream of running the entire government.

Our former prime minister actually did something like this. He secretly appointed himself as health minister, finance minister, industry minister, home affairs minister and treasurer. It was quite a big scandal that only came out after the election that kicked out his government and threw a lot of ministerial decisions made during that time into legal doubt, though nothing ended up coming from it.

Morrison was a lazy shit and only used his secret ministerial powers a few times, he just wanted to have the power for himself. His stated reason was "in case the existing ministers became incapacitated by COVID", but we already have assistant ministers that could fill in if that happened.

Not yet

Ignites lightsaber

This was the first article I was able to find, as the question has apparently come up as recently as after John Boehner vacated the position: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/can-outsider-be-speaker-house-n441926

" The Constitution is silent on that question, saying simply, "The House of Representatives shall chuse (sic) their Speaker and other Officers."

The Clerk of the House agrees with the office of the House Historian, which says the speaker "has always been (but is not required to be) a House Member."

Most historians and legal experts who've looked at this issue conclude the founders simply assumed the speaker would be drawn from among elected members.

"It would have been unthinkable for the most populous house not to have its leader be part of the representatives who were elected by the people," says David Forte, a constitutional scholar at Cleveland State University.

"Nothing fits that would make the speaker anything other than a member of the house," except for the Constitution's silence on the issue, Forte says, noting that the Articles of Confederation said members of Congress shall have authority "to appoint one of their members to preside." "

Gotta love how the vagueness of the Founding Fathers is cause for serious debate after they just assumed something was obvious.

Good point.