Ex-Michigan lawmaker Amash isn’t in Congress, but still wants to be speaker of the House – By Arpan Lobo (Detroit Free Press) / Jan 3, 2023
Former west Michigan U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, a Libertarian who maligned the state of national politics before retiring from his House seat in 2020, is launching an improbable bid to become speaker of the house despite not being an elected member, something that’s never happened before.
There’s no explicit rule mandating the speaker has to be a current member. In 2021, a Democratic lawmaker introduced a bill to create such a requirement, but that legislation never became law.
“I’m not a current member of Congress, but I do know what’s at stake. I’d gladly serve as speaker of the House for one term to show people the kind of legislative body we can have if someone at the top actually cares about involving every representative in the work of legislating,” Amash, of Cascade Township, said in a long Twitter thread. He also touched on the need for legislative reforms and criticized Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the expected Republican frontrunner for speaker of the house.
