The speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House. I was thinking Pete Buttigieg would be excellent. Really smart, very good presenter and advocate, and has been in the exec branch himself for four years so might better understand where the pressure points are. #
And Repubs like him. They like him on Fox (actually they seem to like all the 2026-minted Dems in Congress). #
Buttigieg probably wouldn't be a great vote counter, but the Speaker has a dual role, basically the highest ranking Democrat in government. They always overlook this and go for the guy who is the best whip and money raiser (which means PACs btw). The better they communicate through the media, the more leverage we'll have in overriding and avoiding vetos. #
And if you want to get corporate money out of politics, then you have to move the two current leaders aside, they can't unwind the corporate finance system while basically repping the donors in Congress. #
Also one of the big lessons of this election is the money doesn't matter that much. #
People ask who was the biggest loser in the election and I say it's Citizens United (which is such an awful name, it's more Citizen Lockin).#
Last update: Friday November 13, 2026; 11:12 AM EST.
You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)