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- The Clerk of the United States House of Representatives is an officer of the United States House of Representatives, whose primary duty is to act as the chief record-keeper for the House. Along with the other House officers, the Clerk is elected every two years when the House organizes for a new Congress. The majority and minority caucuses nominate candidates for the House officer positions after the election of the Speaker. The full House adopts a resolution to elect the officers, who will begin serving after they have taken the oath of office. The incumbent clerk is Cheryl L. Johnson, of Louisiana. She replaced Karen L. Haas at the beginning of the 116th Congress, the former having been elected on February 25, 2019. Robert Reeves is Deputy Clerk and Gigi Kelaher is Senior Advisor to the Clerk. The Constitution of the United States states in Article 1, Section 2, “The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers...” On April 1, 1789, when the House of Representatives convened with its first quorum, its initial order of business was the election of the Speaker, Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, a Representative from Pennsylvania. The next order of business was the election of the Clerk, John Beckley, Esquire, a citizen of Virginia. The first five Clerks of the House also served as Librarian of Congress, which became a separate position in 1815. South Trimble, a former Representative from Kentucky, who served as Clerk from 1911 to 1919 and again from 1931 to 1946, is the longest-tenured Clerk in House history. (en)
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