Talk:Speaker of the United States House of Representatives/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Eligibility of non-members

@Drdpw: The phrasing here was more precise and detailed than the current revision and not overly so, and rephrasing the first sentence to note that "non-members have received votes in speaker elections in recent decades" is fundamentally inconsistent with the remainder of the section. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:55, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

I see that you have restored your edit. Why throw out my carefully worded edit because you do not like a detail you think is misplaced in the paragraph? It sounds like you are saying "my edit is better than yours". You could have simply refined my edit. Drdpw (talk) 02:25, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Why throw out my carefully worded edit because you do not like a detail you think is misplaced in the paragraph? What detail do you think I believe is misplaced? As far as I can tell, your edit is less detailed and rephrased the content to be less specific.

• Your edit: "Every speaker of the House since 1789, has been a sitting House member. Article I, Section II, Clause 5, of the U.S. Constitution, concerning the choosing of a speaker, does not, however, explicitly state House membership as a requirement; and non-members have received votes in speaker elections in recent decades."
• My most recent edit: "The Congressional Research Service has noted that while membership in the House is not an explicit requirement to be constitutionally eligible to be Speaker under the House Officers and Impeachment Clause of Article I, Section II, no Speaker has ever been a non-member and no non-member received a single vote in an election for Speaker until 1997."

Your edit's wording does not reflect that non-members have received votes in Speaker elections ONLY in recent decades and suggests that this may have occurred in the past when the CRS reports cited clearly state that it did not. My edit's wording makes this unambiguous. It is also better to identify the source of factual assertions being made in the text where it would not be overly detailed than to not do so because many readers may not bother looking at the footnotes and references. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:17, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@Drdpw: You have provided no reason as to why your edit's less precise and less detailed wording is preferable. I am not saying "my edit is better than yours". -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 18:48, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@Drdpw: I'd add that your most recent reversion of the Eligibility of non-members section still does not reflect that no non-members received votes prior to 1997 per the CRS reports, just that they have occurred since. As I noted before, your preferred wording is less precise than mine is. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 18:54, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

A new idea: There may be a better place to make that point. Add a brief paragraph to the 'Selection' section noting that: Since 1997, the practice of voting for the party's official nominee has been weakened somewhat. Votes for candidates other than the party nominee have even gone to non-members, something unheard of prior to 1997. Drdpw (talk) 19:57, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Add a brief paragraph to the 'Selection' section noting that: Since 1997, the practice of voting for the party's official nominee has been weakened somewhat. Votes for candidates other than the party nominee have even gone to non-members, something unheard of prior to 1997. That's not warranted by the sources and a false an inaccurate characterization of the history. As the CRS reports note, members are not required to vote for the nominee of their caucus, and the "Selection" section is about the general procedure for electing the Speaker rather than the question of whether non-members are eligible to be elected and serve as Speaker (the latter of which is the subject of the "Eligibility of non-members" subsection).

As the Speaker elections article notes, House members have voted for other candidates in their caucus rather than the caucus nominee (or voted present) many times before 1997 and sometimes in considerable numbers, but never for a non-member. As the CRS reports and the Speaker elections article note, votes for non-members beginning in 1997 has only been a scattering of votes. If anything, the Speaker elections history only justifies restoring the wording of my edit to the Eligibility of non-members subsection with a qualification noting that votes for non-members have only included such scatterings, since that is more related to the question of whether non-members are eligible to be elected and serve as Speaker rather than the general procedure of electing the Speaker. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:53, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@Drdpw: Just for clarification: the "scatterings" have always been 4 votes or fewer. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:03, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@Drdpw: Per WP:BRD, at present it is unclear to me what your concerns are at this point since I have responded to your concerns here on the talk page and have clearly articulated why I do not believe that your reversion or proposal is warranted based on the sources cited. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 18:55, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

It is unclear to me what your concern is regarding the current first sentence, which is simply a rephrasing , in order to create two sentences where you had one. The current second sentence, "As noted by the Congressional Research Service, non-members have, on multiple occasions since 1997, received votes in speaker elections." is supported by the CRS documents cited. I cannot find where either CRS document draws the conclusion that "no non-member received a single vote in an election for Speaker until 1997." The subject isn't even touched upon in either report, except as footnotes, and those footnotes simply demonstrate that non-members have received votes in speaker elections on multiple occasions since 1997. Drdpw (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2023 (UTC)