Sorry I took so long, guys.
While the Constitution outlines a position of Speaker, it does not outline (unless I'm missing something here)
how the Speaker is to be selected, deferring such authority to the Assembly itself. Thus, I see no problem with simply amending the SOAP to prohibit the Assembly from selecting the Lieutenant Governor as Speaker.
A provision to allow for the CJO to open up a vote for Speaker may require an amendment, however.
It seems as if you guys don't do it this way anymore,
but originally the Lieutenant Governor was the presiding officer of the Assembly rather than just a designated successor, and the Speaker only presided when the Lieutenant Governor was unavailable.However, soon there was established what I call the "Smid precedent", where the Speaker was the de-facto presiding officer. When Smid was appointed Lieutenant Governor, he was rather busy IRL and left most duties to the Speaker, cinyc. Lieutenant Governors came and went, but the idea of Speaker being the full-time presiding officer became vogue pretty quickly.
I do believe the Old Constitution had a provision to allow the Governor to assume the duties of the Lieutenant Governor in his absence (and thus open votes for Speaker) as Governor hantheguitarman did, but now I'm just ruminating outloud.
