# Thomas B. Reed Republican Speaker of the House from Maine (1889–1891 and 1895–1899), the "Czar" whose **Reed Rules** of 1890 ended the "disappearing quorum" — the minority tactic of sitting silent to deny a quorum — and gave the Speaker control over committee assignments and the calendar. The rules made the "Billion Dollar Congress" possible under [[Benjamin Harrison]]: the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]], the McKinley Tariff, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the Dependent Pensions Act all passed a House that could no longer be stalled. Reed is the origin of the modern majoritarian House and of the Speaker's procedural dominance that later Speakers inherited. He resigned from Congress in 1899 in opposition to the imperialism of the Spanish–American War and the annexation of Hawaii, having lost the 1896 Republican nomination to [[William McKinley]]. *Stub — expand with: the January–February 1890 quorum fight, the text and logic of the Reed Rules, the 1896 nomination contest with McKinley and Mark Hanna, the anti-imperialist resignation, and the through-line to Cannon, Rayburn, Gingrich, and the Hastert Rule.*