Dean of the United States House of Representatives

Representative John Dingell (D-MI), the current and longest-serving Dean of the United States House of Representatives, entered the House in 1955 and became Dean in 1995.

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The Dean is a symbolic post whose only customary duty is to swear in a Speaker of the House when he or she is elected. The Dean comes forward on the House Floor to administer the oath to the Speaker-elect before the new Speaker then administers the oath to the other members. The Dean does not preside over the election of the Speaker, unlike the Father of the House in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom and the Dean of the Canadian House of Commons.

Because of other privileges associated with seniority, the Dean is usually allotted some of the most desirable office space, and is generally either chair or ranking minority member of an influential committee.

It is unclear when the position first achieved concrete recognition, though the seniority system and increasing lengths of service emerged in the early 20th century. As late as 1924, Frederick H. Gillett was Dean, and also Speaker, before becoming a Senator. Modern Deans move into their positions so late in their careers that a move to the Senate is highly unlikely. When Ed Markey broke Gillett's record for time in the House before moving to the Senate in 2013 he was still decades junior to the sitting Dean.

The Deanship can change hands unexpectedly. In the 1952 election, Adolph J. Sabath became the first Representative elected to a 24th term, breaking the record of 23 terms first set by former Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon, whose service had been discontinuous, whereas Sabath's was not. North Carolina's Robert L. Doughton had not contested that election as he was retiring at the age of 89 years and two months, a House age record broken in 1998 by Sidney R. Yates, and again by current representative Ralph Hall in 2012. Claude Pepper, who died early in his final term in 1989, held the record for oldest winner of a House election until Hall broke it in 2012. However, Sabath died before the new term began and Doughton was Dean for the old term's final months before Speaker Sam Rayburn became Dean in the new Congress.

In 1994, Texas Democrat Jack Brooks was defeated by Steve Stockman in the year he was expected to succeed Jamie L. Whitten as Dean.^[1]

The second longest-serving current member of the house is John Conyers, coincidentally also a Democrat from Michigan, who has served since 1965.

List of Deans of the House

Years as Dean are followed by name, party, state, and start of service in Congress.

All the members of the First Congress had equal seniority (as defined for the purpose of this article), but Muhlenberg as the Speaker was the first member to be sworn in. Muhlenberg, Hartley and Thatcher were among the 13 members who attended the initial meeting of the House on March 4, 1789.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries some state delegations to the House were often not elected until after the term had begun. To avoid confusion, this fact is ignored in the list below.

• Hartley, Stanford, Williams, Kelley, Randall, Bingham, Payne, Jones, Cooper, Butler, Pou, Sabath, Rayburn, and Patman died in office.
• Vinson, Whitten, and Dingell entered the House to fill unexpired terms.
• Dingell has served as Dean longer than any other person: 700120000000000000020 years and 700122000000000000022 days.

See also

• Oldest living United States president
• List of oldest surviving members of the House of Representatives
• Dean of the United States Senate
• Longest living United States Senator
• Earliest serving United States Senator
• Oldest living United States governor
• List of members of the United States Congress by longevity of service

References

1. ^ Ron Hutcheson (July 25, 1994). "Texan in line as House dean – Jack Brooks has reputation as in-your-face politician". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. p. 1. 
2. ^ Boyd had previously served 1835–37