an extramarital affair. He opted to resign from the House, despite being urged to stay on by House Democratic leader Gephardt. Subsequently, the chief deputy whip Dennis Hastert was selected as speaker. The Republicans retained their majorities in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. The Democrats won a majority of seats in the 2006 midterm elections. On November 16, 2006, Nancy Pelosi, who was then minority leader, was selected as speaker-designate by House Democrats. When the 110th Congress convened on January 4, 2007, she was elected as the 52nd speaker by a vote of 233–202, becoming the first woman elected speaker of the House. Pelosi remained speaker through the 111th Congress, and served again during the 116th and 117th Congresses. 2023 election The most recent election for speaker was held January 3–7, 2023, at the start of the 118th Congress, two months after the 2022 House elections in which the Republicans won a slim four seat majority. Due to a division within the House Republican Conference, no one received a majority of the votes on the first ballot, necessitating an additional round of balloting for the first time since the 68th Congress, in 1923. After offering multiple concessions to the group of Republicans opposing him, Kevin McCarthy ultimately prevailed when the remaining six anti-McCarthy holdouts voted "present" on the 15th ballot, thus enabling him to surpass the requisite 50 percent threshold. In the end, this was the longest multiple-ballot speaker election since before the Civil War. Partisan role The Constitution does not spell out the political role of the speaker. As the office has developed historically, however, it has taken on a clearly partisan cast, very different from the speakership of most Westminster-style legislatures, such as the speaker of the United Kingdom's House of Commons, which is meant to be scrupulously non-partisan. The speaker in the United States, by tradition, is the head of the majority party in the House of Representatives, outranking the majority leader. However, despite having the right to vote, the speaker usually does not participate in debate. The speaker is responsible for ensuring that the House passes legislation supported by the majority party. In pursuing this goal, the speaker may use their power to determine when each bill reaches the floor. They also chair the majority party's steering committee in the House. While the speaker is the functioning head of the House majority party, the same