Kevin McCarthy and a History of Prior US House Service of Newly Elected Speakers

The 19 speakers elected since the turn of the 20th Century averaged nearly 24 years of service in the chamber before their first day as speaker – nearly three times that of McCarthy

The retirement announcement by John Boehner last Friday that he would resign his position as Speaker of the House on October 30th as well as his seat in Congress was quickly followed by reports documenting the rapid rise to the top by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California who is the favorite to win the speakership next month.

When McCarthy was elected majority leader after Eric Cantor’s primary loss last June, Smart Politics was first to report that McCarthy was the least tenured floor leader in the history of the House of Representatives by more than a year at 7 years, 6 months, and 29 days.

And now McCarthy is the favorite to become the least tenured speaker since Georgia Democrat Charles Crisp in 1891.

On the day of Boehner’s exit, McCarthy will have served 8 years, 9 months, and 27 days in the chamber (3,222 days) which is 21 more days than Crisp had under his belt when he took over for Maine Republican Thomas Reed after the GOP lost nearly 100 seats in the 1890 midterms.

Overall, McCarthy would actually rank just outside the top half in terms of prior U.S. House service should he become speaker.

Of the 53 U.S. Representatives to serve in the position, 27 had more experience than McCarthy upon first becoming speaker while 26 had less.

Despite that statistic, the election of McCarthy to House Speaker would certainly be a reversal of more than a century of House practice.

A Smart Politics analysis finds that the last 19 speakers elected in the 20th and 21st Centuries from Republican Joseph Cannon in 1903 through John Boehner in 2011 had served an average of more than 23.5 years in the chamber (8,617 days) prior to their first day as speaker.

That is nearly three times the length of McCarthy’s tenure heading into the October vote.

By contrast, the 34 speakers elected in the 18th and 19th Centuries had served an average of just shy of seven and one-half years (2,722 days) prior to their first day as speaker.

The speaker who had the longest wait before ascending to the chamber’s top leadership position was Massachusetts Democrat John McCormack.

McCormack had served 33 years, 2 months, and 4 days (12,118 days) when he became speaker in January 1962 nearly two months after the death of Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas during the 87th Congress.

McCormack is one of eight House members who waited for more than a quarter-century in the nation’s lower legislative chamber before becoming speaker – all doing so in the 20th Century from the 1900s to the 1980s.

After McCormack, the congressman with the second longest tenure before becoming speaker is Texas Democrat Jim Wright (January 1987) at 32 years and 3 days.

Other members logging in more than 25 years before winning the post are:

• Texas Democrat John Garner (December 1931): 28 years, 9 months, 3 days
• Illinois Republican Joseph Cannon (November 1903): 28 years, 8 months, 5 days
• Illinois Democrat Henry Rainey (March 1933): 28 years, 5 days
• Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn (September 1940): 27 years, 6 months, 12 days
• Massachusetts Republican Frederick Gillett (May 1919): 26 years, 2 months, 15 days
• Tennessee Democrat Joseph Byrns (January 1935): 25 years, 9 months, 30 days

From the 18th and into the late 19th Century, the position wielded notably less power than it does today, and speakers were significantly less seasoned upon their first day on the job in this leadership post.

Including the House’s first speaker – Pennsylvania Federalist Frederick Muhlenberg, who won the speakership 28 days into the 1st Congress – a total of nine U.S. Representatives had less than five years of service under their belt when they became speaker:

• Kentucky Jeffersonian Republican Henry Clay (November 1811): 8 months (though Clay had also previously recorded two brief stints in the U.S. Senate)
• New Jersey Republican William Pennington (February 1860): 10 months, 28 days
• Connecticut Federalist Jonathan Trumbull (October 1791): 2 years, 7 months, 20 days
• Virginia Whig Robert Hunter (December 1839): 2 years, 9 months, 12 days
• Massachusetts Know-Nothing/Americanist Nathaniel Banks (February 1856): 2 years, 10 months, 29 days
• South Carolina Jeffersonian Republican Langdon Cheves (January 1814): 3 years, 19 days
• Ohio Republican Joseph Keifer (December 1881): 4 years, 9 months, 1 day
• New Jersey Federalist Jonathan Dayton (December 1795): 4 years, 9 months, 3 days

Length of U.S. House Service Prior to Becoming Speaker

Rank	Speaker	State	Party	1st Day as Speaker	Years	Months	Days	# Days
1	John McCormack	MA	Democrat	Jan 10, 1962	33	2	4	12,118
2	Jim Wright	TX	Democrat	Jan 6, 1987	32	0	3	11,691
3	John Garner	TX	Democrat	Dec 7, 1931	28	9	3	10,505
4	Joseph Cannon	IL	Republican	Nov 9, 1903	28	8	5	10,475
5	Henry Rainey	IL	Democrat	Mar 9, 1933	28	0	5	10,233
6	Sam Rayburn	TX	Democrat	Sep 16, 1940	27	6	12	10,058
7	Frederick Gillett	MA	Republican	May 19, 1919	26	2	15	9,571
8	Joseph Byrns	TN	Democrat	Jan 3, 1935	25	9	30	9,436
9	Tom Foley	WA	Democrat	Jun 6, 1989	24	5	3	8,920
10	Carl Albert	OK	Democrat	Jan 21, 1971	24	0	18	8,784
11	Tip O’Neill	MA	Democrat	Jan 4, 1977	24	0	1	8,767
12	Joseph Martin	MA	Republican	Jan 3, 1947	21	9	30	7,975
13	Nicholas Longworth	OH	Republican	Dec 7, 1925	20	9	3	7,584
14	John Boehner	OH	Republican	Jan 5, 2011	20	0	2	7,307
15	Nancy Pelosi	CA	Democrat	Jan 4, 2007	19	7	2	7,156
16	William Bankhead	AL	Democrat	Jun 4, 1936	19	3	0	7,032
17	David Henderson	IA	Republican	Dec 4, 1899	16	9	0	6,119
18	Champ Clark	MO	Democrat	Apr 4, 1911	16	1	0	5,873
19	Newt Gingrich	GA	Republican	Jan 4, 1995	16	0	1	5,845
20	Linn Boyd	KY	Democrat	Dec 1, 1851	14	8	27	5,386
21	Samuel Randall	PA	Democrat	Dec 4, 1876	13	9	0	5,024
22	Thomas Reed	ME	Republican	Dec 2, 1889	12	8	28	4,656
23	Joseph Varnum	MA	Dem-Rep	Oct 27, 1807	12	7	22	4,618
24	Denny Hastert	IL	Republican	Jan 6, 1999	12	0	3	4,386
25	Nathaniel Macon	NC	Dem-Rep	Dec 7, 1801	10	9	3	3,930
26	James Polk	TN	Jacksonian	Dec 7, 1835	10	9	3	3,930
27	Galusha Grow	PA	Republican	Jul 4, 1861	10	4	0	3,775
—	Kevin McCarthy	CA	Republican	Oct 30, 2015*	8	9	27	3,222
28	Charles Crisp	GA	Democrat	Dec 8, 1891	8	9	4	3,201
29	James Orr	SC	Democrat	Dec 7, 1857	8	9	3	3,200
29	Schuyler Colfax	IN	Republican	Dec 7, 1863	8	9	3	3,200
31	Michael Kerr	IN	Democrat	Dec 6, 1875	8	9	2	3,199
32	John Jones	VA	Democrat	Dec 4, 1843	8	9	0	3,197
33	Theodore Sedgwick	MA	Federalist	Dec 2, 1799	8	0	6	2,930
34	Theodore Pomeroy	NY	Republican	Mar 3, 1869	7	11	27	2,921
35	John W. Taylor	NY	Dem-Rep	Nov 15, 1820	7	8	11	2,813
36	John Bell	TN	Jacksonian	Jun 2, 1834	7	2	29	2,647
37	Philip Barbour	VA	Dem-Rep	Dec 4, 1821	7	2	15	2,633
38	Robert Winthrop	MA	Whig	Dec 6, 1847	7	0	27	2,583
39	Howell Cobb	GA	Democrat	Dec 22, 1849	6	9	18	2,485
40	Andrew Stevenson	VA	Jacksonian	Dec 3, 1827	6	8	29	2,465
40	John Davis	IN	Democrat	Dec 1, 1845	6	8	27	2,465
40	John Carlisle	KY	Democrat	Dec 3, 1883	6	8	29	2,465
43	John White	KY	Whig	May 31, 1841	6	2	27	2,280
44	James Blaine	ME	Republican	Mar 4, 1869	6	0	0	2,192
45	Jonathan Dayton	NJ	Federalist	Dec 7, 1795	4	9	3	1,739
46	Joseph Keifer	OH	Republican	Dec 5, 1881	4	9	1	1,737
47	Langdon Cheves	SC	Dem-Rep	Jan 19, 1814	3	0	19	1,115
48	Nathaniel Banks	MA	American	Feb 2, 1856	2	10	29	1,065
49	Robert Hunter	VA	Whig	Dec 16, 1839	2	9	12	1,017
50	Jonathan Trumbull	CT	Federalist	Oct 24, 1791	2	7	20	964
51	William Pennington	NJ	Republican	Feb 1, 1860	0	10	28	334
52	Henry Clay	KY	Dem-Rep	Nov 4, 1811	0	8	0	245
53	Frederick Muhlenberg	PA	Federalist	Apr 1, 1789	0	0	28	28

* Projected start date if Rep. McCarthy runs and is elected. Table compiled by Smart Politics.

Some future speakers had particularly rocky pathways to securing this leadership position.

To date, seven of the 53 speakers saw their service in the chamber interrupted by a failed reelection bid prior to becoming speaker.

While it may seem inconceivable today that a U.S. Representative could lose his or her seat, win it back, and then eventually ascend to the speakership, such a pathway was not infrequently traveled with four of the six speakers from 1903 to 1933 all having a failed congressional reelection bid on their political resume.

The seven members of the U.S. House who suffered a reelection loss before becoming speaker are:

• Democrat John Davis of Indiana (1840 loss): elected speaker in 1845
• Democrat Linn Boyd of Kentucky (1836): speaker in 1851
• Democrat Michael Kerr of Indiana (1872): speaker in 1875
• Republican Joseph Cannon of Illinois (1890): speaker in 1903
• Democrat Champ Clark of Missouri (1894): speaker in 1911
• Republican Nicolas Longworth of Ohio (1912): speaker in 1925
• Democrat Henry Rainey of Illinois (1920): speaker in 1933

While Representative McCarthy is the odds-on favorite to follow Boehner next month as the 54th House Speaker, he will face at least a few GOP opponents, with at least one running from the right.

McCarthy would be the third U.S. Representative from a Western state to win the speakership, joining Washington’s Tom Foley in 1989 and California’s Nancy Pelosi in 2007.

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