The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
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The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, commonly known as the speaker of the House or House speaker, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the United States Congress. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section II, of the U.S. Constitution. By custom and House rules, the speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the House and is simultaneously its presiding officer, de facto leader of the body's majority party, and the institution's administrative head. Speakers also perform various other administrative and procedural functions. Given these many roles and responsibilities, the speaker usually does not personally preside over debates—that duty is instead delegated to members of the House from the majority party—nor regularly participate in floor debates.
The Constitution does not explicitly require the speaker to be an incumbent member of the House of Representatives, although every speaker thus far has been. If an incumbent member, the speaker also represents their district and retains the right to vote. The speaker is second in the United States presidential line of succession, after the vice president and ahead of the president pro tempore of the Senate.
This article lists the heads of state of Yugoslavia from the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kingdom of Yugoslavia) in 1918 until the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992.
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a hereditary monarchy ruled by the House of Karađorđević from 1918 until World War II. After the war, SFR Yugoslavia was headed first by Ivan Ribar, the President of the Presidency of the National Assembly (the parliamentary speaker), and then by President Josip Broz Tito from 1953 up until his death in 1980. Afterwards, the Presidency of Yugoslavia assumed the role of a collective head of state, with the title of President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia rotating among the representatives of the republics and autonomous provinces that composed the Presidency. However, until 1990 the position of leader of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was usually the most powerful position, most often coinciding with the President of the Presidency. With the introduction of multi-party system in 1990, individual republics elected their own heads of state, but the country's head of state continued to rotate among appointed representatives of republics and autonomous provinces until the country dissolved two years later.
The chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress is the presiding officer of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC), which is the permanent body of the National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislature of China.
The chairman is formally nominated by the Presidium of the NPC during a session and approved by the delegations of the NPC, though in reality is chosen within the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The chairman presides over the work of the NPCSC and convenes and presides over its meetings. The chairman is assisted by the vice chairpersons and secretary-general of the NPCSC, who together makeup the Council of Chairpersons. A vice chairperson may be delegated to exercise some of the chairman's powers by the chairman. In the case that the chairman becomes incapacitated, NPCSC temporarily elects one of the vice chairpersons until the chairman is able to resume their work or a new chairman is elected by the NPC. The position holds reserve constitutional powers under the 1982 revision of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. As stipulated in Article 84 of the Constitution, should both the president and vice president become incapacitated, and the National People's Congress is unable to elect a timely replacement, the chairman of the NPCSC will act as president. The chairman leads the Leading Party Members Group of the NPCSC, which is responsible for the implementation of CCP Central Committee policies in the NPCSC.
In South Africa, a provincial legislature is the legislative branch of the government of a province. The provincial legislatures are unicameral and vary in size from 30 to 80 members, depending on the registered voting population of the province.Each legislature is chaired by a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker.
The Lord Speaker is the presiding officer, chairman and highest authority of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The office is analogous to the Speaker of the House of Commons: the Lord Speaker is elected by the members of the House of Lords and is expected to be politically impartial.
Until July 2006, the role of presiding officer in the House of Lords was undertaken by the Lord Chancellor. Under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the position of the speaker of the House of Lords (as it is termed in the Act) became a separate office, allowing the position to be held by someone other than the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor continued to act as speaker of the House of Lords in an interim period after the Act was passed while the House of Lords considered new arrangements about its speakership.
Marco Antonio Rubio (/ˈruː.bi.oʊ/, ROO-bee-oh; born May 28, 1971) is an American politician, attorney, and diplomat serving as the 72nd United States secretary of state since 2025. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Florida in the U.S. Senate from 2011 to 2025. Rubio is also the acting national security advisor and acting archivist of the United States.
Rubio is a Cuban American from Miami, Florida, and attended law school at the University of Miami. After serving as a city commissioner for West Miami in the 1990s, he was elected in 2000 to represent the 111th district in the Florida House of Representatives. As the Republican majority leader, he was subsequently elected speaker of the Florida House; he served for two years beginning in November 2006. Rubio left the Florida legislature in 2008 due to term limits, and began teaching at Florida International University. In a three-way race, Rubio was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010. In April 2015, he launched a presidential bid instead of seeking reelection. He suspended his campaign for the presidency on March 15, 2016, after losing to Donald Trump in the Florida Republican primary. He then ran for reelection to the Senate and won a second term. Despite his criticism of Trump during his presidential campaign, Rubio endorsed him before the 2016 general election and was largely supportive of his presidency.
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the lower house and primary chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The current speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, was elected Speaker on 4 November 2019, following the retirement of John Bercow. Hoyle began his first full parliamentary term in the role on 17 December 2019, having been unanimously re-elected after the 2019 general election.
The speaker presides over the House's debates, determining which members may speak and which amendments are selected for consideration. The speaker is also responsible for maintaining order during debate, and may punish members who break the rules of the House. By convention, the Speaker is strictly non-partisan; accordingly, a Speaker is expected to renounce all affiliation with their former political parties when taking office and afterwards.
The speaker of the Croatian Parliament (Croatian: Predsjednik Hrvatskog sabora, literally the president of the Croatian Parliament) is the presiding officer in the Croatian Parliament, Croatia's legislative body.
Under Article 97 of the constitution of Croatia, the speaker of the Croatian Parliament is the only constitutional deputy to the president of Croatia and serves as acting president if the elected president vacates the office before the expiration of the five-year presidential term due to either death, resignation or removal from office (as determined by the Constitutional Court). In this case an early presidential election must be held within 60 days of the vacancy in the presidency having occurred and the speaker shall serve as acting president until the newly elected president is sworn in for a full five-year term of office.