Pipe dream Amendment:

[Gaugamela]

If, after twenty days from the start of a new session of the House, or after a speaker resigns or is removed from the speakership for whatever reason, the House has failed to elect a speaker, the Vice President shall act as speaker with full powers to conduct House business, until such time as a majority of House members elect a speaker of their choosing.

This seems like a perfectly reasonable provision to me, but we all know that any new Constitutional Amendments are a total pipe dream for the foreseeable future. The purpose of this amendment is to prevent a few self-promoting nihilistic anarchists from shutting down the government through petty maneuvers, which is where I see the current situation headed.

[ananda]

1. OMG, I like this.

Make it so.

[NotHardly]

2. That kind of thing would help actually ensure the Congress governs

[Wounded Bear]

3. The VP is already President of the Senate. She's kind of busy, y'know...nt

[StoolPigeon]

4. Exactly

And it would probably create some kind of conflict of interest.

[Gaugamela]

6. Please see my reply (#5) to the comment you agreed with. I don't see any

conflict of interest with the VP’s role as president of the senate, but if you do please feel free to spell it out. Of course, an additional purpose of this “amendment” is that it would incentivize the House to select a speaker.

[StoolPigeon]

7. To clarify

I only stated there would "probably" be a conflict. It may be just my opinion, but I believe that no one person should preside over both houses of Congress. It's too much power.

Anyhow, the question is moot as this is never going to happen.

[Gaugamela]

8. True. That's why I called it a pipe dream.

[Gaugamela]

5. The Vice President is notoriously a job without a job description. Being speaker

would be a huge benefit to the President’s agenda. I imagine most VPs would love the assignment, as it would give them something of substance to do.

So, other than staying out of trouble to avoid impeachment and waiting around for the president to need a replacement, vice presidents are really obligated only to occasionally cast a tie-breaking vote. This means that the great majority of the time, vice presidents have no real job to do.

John Adams, the first U.S. vice president, once complained to his wife that the vice presidency was “the most insignificant Office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived.” However, not all have been upset about such inactivity. Woodrow Wilson’s vice president, Thomas Marshall, quipped after he retired: “I don’t want to work … [but] I wouldn’t mind being Vice President again.”

https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-vice-president-do-152467