“I have no doubt that if the House decides it’s wise, that you can develop a very solid system,” he said. “And I concur with the clerk, Cheryl Johnson, that she could easily develop and guarantee the integrity of that kind of a system.”
Gingrich, who served as speaker from 1995 to 1999, said a shift to remote voting would lead to three things: a concentration of power by leadership, the loss of relationships among rank-and-file lawmakers and a degradation of the quality of legislation produced by a decentralized legislature.
“I think when everybody else is out of town, the speaker and their staff become virtually a dictatorship,” he said. “They have all the power, they have all the ability to deal with the executive branch, to deal with the Senate, and it puts the average member at an enormous disadvantage.”
Gingrich acknowledged that part of his legacy was a significant concentration of power in the speaker’s office. He flexed his power over committees, abandoning the precedent of seniority and skipped over experienced members to appoint his own chairmen and slashed panel staffs, for example. But he warned that the speaker’s power is especially magnified when members aren’t mingling and sharing ideas among themselves that could potentially challenge the speaker.
Gingrich pointed to the elimination of proxy voting in committees under his leadership, saying the process left too much power with chairmen and diluted the power of rank-and-file members.
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House lawmakers agree that secure remote voting is possible, but implementation still divides - Roll Call
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