Heath, The House of Representatives elects the speaker of the house on the first day of every new Congress. Each party nominates a candidate. There is usually some degree of consensus within each party’s leadership as to who the favored candidate will be. Whoever receives a simple majority of the votes is elected. The new Speaker is then sworn in by the Dean of the House, the chamber’s longest-serving member.

In modern practice, the Speaker is chosen by the majority party from among its senior leaders, either when a vacancy in the office arrives, or when the majority party changes. It is usually obvious within two or three weeks of a House election who the new Speaker will be. Previous Speakers have been minority leaders (when the majority party changes, as they are already the House party leader, and as the minority leader is usually their party’s nominee for speaker), or majority leaders (upon departure of the current speaker in the majority party), assuming that the party leadership hierarchy is followed. In the past, other potent candidates have included chairmen of influential standing committees. so maybe if everyone contacted their Representative in the House and the other Republican Representatives and asked them to choose someone with cojonies to oppose Obama they might choose someone else.