The first news of Speaker John Boehner’s reign
There is symbolic significance to this ceremonial choice.
I certainly wasn’t the the only one to notice how big John Boehner’s gavel was. Even Nancy Pelosi, who became minority leader, made a quip when she handed the gavel to the newly minted speaker of the house.
She said: “I now pass this gavel — which is larger than most gavels here, but the gavel of choice of Mr… speaker Boehner. I now pass this gavel and the sacred trust that goes with it to the new speaker.”
It is the gavel that John Beohner insisted on. The obvious significance is to suggest a lot of power, and as this npr article goes on to note Pelosi used a big prop gavel with respect to Health Care Reform. Significant here, possibly, is that the first item on the new House Republican Majority agenda was a Health Care Reform Repeal Act — the prop nature of which is told in the name given to it — the Republicans look to insert the phrase “job killing” wherever they can, and thus this measure was the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”.
The need for the gavel is shown, perhaps, in this conversation with Brian Williams:
BRIAN WILLIAMS: When you go home next, is there a sidewalk, a place, a person that’s kind of a talisman to grab onto? Again, talkin’ about strength and the new job?
JOHN BOEHNER: Well, I get strength every day just uh, going to my Facebook site.
Facebook, really? Is it just for building strength and getting that well of emotional support? Did he neglect to use it to alert Representative Sessions to the Swearing in Ceremony.