Comment by dragonwriter
2 years ago
> My understanding of how US congress works is that you have to serve for decades in order to land the most influential positions -
The current Speaker of the House, the highest ranking position in Congress and the second in line of Presidential succession, has been in Congress for 6 years.
Except for the President Pro Tem of the Senate, which traditionally goes to the longest-serving member of the majority party, most positions of authority or influence just require the support of either the majority or minority party caucus; longevity is correlated with that, but not a requirement in itself.
The current speaker of the house is a huge exception to how this usually works.
The preceding Speaker had been in Congress for 16 years (note: also not "since the late 1980s"), but had also been in caucus leadership positions all but the first two, and was #3 in the party caucus arte four years. Yeah, the current Speaker is ane extreme case, but it's simply not the case that position is simply a function of longevity normally.