I've heard a couple of different talking heads mention, over the past couple of days, the notion that John Boehner has had to worry throughout the budget crisis about pleasing the Tea Party sufficiently to keep his job.

It had never occurred to me before that a sitting speaker could simply be ousted at any point, should a majority of the House become disenchanted with him, but I guess that does make perfect sense. Is anyone out there familiar enough with Congressional procedure to explain to me precisely how that would happen? Would one House member simply ask him call an up or down vote on the question of turfing him?

I am not the one to answer but I think you are right and I recall a point when their was discussion of this happening with Pelosi for a while (nothing serious but some what if type stuff)
But I doubt the Tea Party has anywhere near enough sway to cause any such thing nor do they have enough organization to force any such change (in my opinion), I think it's more a case of the Republican base is thinking more like the more rabid Tea Party people, while the majority has nothing to do with the TP, they sprung from those same feelings the majority had/have. As such they are more a barometer of some general feelings and have SOME power as well, the evangelicals have some power as well, the single biggest group are the Conservatives however and the conservatives think quite a bit like the TP (TPers being "ultra" conservative?)

Heck,
The Speaker is elected at the beginning of each session of Congress. Technically, all parties with representation in the House nominates a candidate to be Speaker. Then the entire House votes for who they want with the candidate with a simple majority being the winner. This means it is possible for the Speaker to not be a member of the majority party. That has happened a few times during the Antebellum period and again in the early 20th century.

I do not believe there is any method to remove him before the start of the next Session (a congressional session last two years). I based this on the fact that there was an attempt by some disgruntled Republican Congressmen to force Newt Gingrich to resign as Speaker but he refused. My understanding that once he refused the coup attempt fell apart. However, I would have to confirm there is no process.

However, it is possible for a Speaker to be stripped of powers by a revolt of his party caucus. This can happen a number of ways. The easiest is for those in revolt it just not vote for any bill the Speaker pushes. If he is unable to control his own caucus the opposition is not likely to support him so he becomes essentially ineffective.

Another way would be for the Rules Committee to change how things in the House work.

Thanks. I guess it makes sense that these folks I heard referring to Boehner losing his position very well may have had in mind his chances for re-election to the job at the start of the next session.

Archduke Russell John wrote:Another way would be for the Rules Committee to change how things in the House work.

For some reason the entire portion of this thought didn't post.

Another way would be for the Rules Committee to change how things in the House work. This Committee decides the general procedures of the day to day operation of the House. Right now, the Speaker has a lot of power over the Committeed which in turn give him a lot of influence in the general day to day running of the chamber, i.e. how long debate on a certain bill will be. However, the Rules Committee could change that by establishing new procedures. The current committee has I think 14 members. 9 R's and 5 D's. Five of the nine R's are all Freshmen members and I'm pretty sure at least 4 of them ran as Tea Party members. One of the senior members is also a member of the Tea Party Caucus. That makes at least 5 tea party members on the Rules Committee. If they were to join with the 5 Democrats in stripping the Speaker of power, they could do so.