Government in the United States, National, State and Local Part 15

Newly elected senators are escorted to the Vice President's desk, usually each by his state colleague, and are sworn in individually.

_Adoption of the Rules._--After the administering of the oaths of office, the house adopts the rules of the preceding Congress for regulating its procedure pending the adoption of new rules. Usually this is a perfunctory performance and is carried through without opposition. At the opening of the sixty-first Congress, however, strong opposition was manifested toward the old rules and they were not readopted until important amendments had been made in them.

After the adoption of the rules each house appoints a committee to notify the other of its readiness for business, and the two then appoint a joint committee to inform the President of the United States that Congress is ready to receive any communication that he may be pleased to make. The message of the President is then laid before each house and the business of Congress proceeds.

=Quorum.=--The Const.i.tution provides that a majority of each house shall const.i.tute a quorum for the transaction of business, but that a smaller number may compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under such penalties as each house may prescribe.

_Old Method of Counting a Quorum._--For a long time the method of ascertaining whether a quorum was present was by a roll call. If the roll call failed to show the presence of a majority, the speaker ruled that no quorum was present, even though every member of the house was actually in his seat. In the course of time this rule came to be frequently abused by the minority for the purpose of preventing consideration of measures to which it was opposed. Thus in January, 1890, when the Republicans had only a slight majority in the house of representatives, the Democrats were able, owing to the absence of a few Republican members, to break a quorum and prevent consideration of important measures, by refusing to answer to the roll call. On a notable occasion in January, 1890, the roll call showed 161 yeas, 2 nays, and not voting 165, the 165 who refused to vote being Democrats who were opposed to the taking up of a certain measure which the Republicans desired to pa.s.s. Under the rules the roll call did not show a quorum present, though more than two thirds of the members were actually in their seats.

_The New Method._--The Republican majority therefore adopted a new rule, that members who were actually in their seats were to be counted by the speaker as present, no matter whether they voted or not. The action of Speaker Reed in enforcing this rule raised a storm of protest by the minority, but he courageously stood his ground. The new rule was readopted by the next Congress though the Democrats were then in the majority, and it has been continued ever since with the exception of one or two Congresses when the old rule was reverted to. Much of the business of Congress is really done, however, when there is no quorum present, this being permissible so long as the point of "no quorum" is not raised by any member.

=Open Sessions.=--The ordinary sessions of both houses are open to the public, though until 1794 the senate held its sessions in secret. When the senate goes into executive session, as it may do when it is considering nominations of the President to public office or is engaged in considering treaties, the galleries are cleared, the doors closed, and its deliberations are conducted in secret, though, the results of its transactions usually leak out in some way.

=Seating of Members.=--Until 1913 each member of each house was provided with a seat and a desk, but in that year the desks were removed from the house of representatives in order to bring the members nearer together.

Prior to that date, seats were a.s.signed to members by lot at the opening of Congress, but the leader of the minority party and one or two other members of long service were usually allowed to select their seats without resort to the lot. The Democrats are seated on the right of the speaker and the Republicans on the left. In the senate, each seat as it becomes vacant is a.s.signed to the member who first makes application for it to the presiding officer. The house chamber is so large that members in the rear seats are at a disadvantage, and speech making is carried on with difficulty. In 1913, however, this inconvenience was diminished by a reduction in the size of the hall by about one third of the floor s.p.a.ce.[32] The senate chamber is less s.p.a.cious, and debate can be conducted with much greater satisfaction and effectiveness. It would be a great advantage if the number of representatives could be reduced to 250 or 300 so as to make the house less unwieldy, but there is little probability that such a reform will ever be effected. If smaller in size, the house could transact its business with more dispatch, give more careful consideration to bills, and allow members a greater opportunity for discussion.

[32] Two large office buildings have been erected near the Capitol for the use of members of both houses.

=Committees.=--Obviously an a.s.sembly of more than 400 members cannot legislate effectively as a whole; its work must be done largely by committees. To some committee every measure and every pet.i.tion is referred, as are also the various recommendations of the President. In the sixty-seventh Congress (1921-1923) there were thirty-four standing committees in the senate and sixty in the house. Usually there are also several select committees, and occasionally a few joint committees. In the senate, the committees vary in size from three to sixteen members; in the house from three to thirty-five.

The most important committees in the senate are those on appropriations, commerce, finance, foreign relations, interstate commerce, judiciary, military affairs, naval affairs, and public expenditures. The least important are those on disposition of useless papers, University of the United States, and Revolutionary claims, since there is little or no business referred to them. The most important committees in the house are those on ways and means, appropriations, banking and currency, public expenditures, foreign affairs, interstate and foreign commerce, judiciary, military affairs, naval affairs, public buildings and grounds, rivers and harbors, and rules (twelve members now, formerly five). The least important is that on the disposition of useless papers.[33]

[33] There are obvious objections to a system in which legislation is necessarily framed to a large extent by committees. These objections are thus stated by Mr. Bryce in his "American Commonwealth":

1. It destroys the unity of the house.

2. It prevents the capacity of the best members from being brought to bear on any one piece of legislation, however important.

3. It cramps debate.

4. It lessens the cohesion and harmony of legislation by allowing each committee to go its own way with its own bills just as though it were legislating for one planet and the other committees for others.

5. It gives facilities for the exercise of underhand and even corrupt influence, and encourages "log rolling."

6. It reduces responsibility by dividing it among different committees.

7. It lowers the interest of the nation in the proceedings of Congress.

8. It throws power into the hands of the chairmen of committees, especially those which deal with finance and other great national interests.

The chief advantage of such a system is that it enables the house to deal with a far greater number of subjects than could be otherwise dealt with, and thus makes possible the dispatch of a vast amount of work, especially in killing off worthless bills.

_Method of Choosing Committees._--In the senate committee a.s.signments are nominally made by the senate itself, but in reality they are made by two committees on committees selected by a caucus of the members of each party, the recommendations of the two committees usually being accepted by the senate without debate. Both parties are represented on each committee, the dominant party, of course, being given a majority of the places. Thus on a committee of thirteen members, the majority party is usually represented by eight members and the minority by five; on a committee of seventeen, the numbers are eleven and six respectively, and so on.

In the house of representatives, from the beginning until very recently, all the committees were appointed by the speaker, a power which gave him great influence in shaping and determining the course of legislation, since he might const.i.tute the committees with reference to their friendliness or unfriendliness toward legislative measures that were referred to them for investigation and report. In making committee a.s.signments, however, the speaker was not entirely free to follow his own individual preferences. Thus the tradition of the house required that he must take into consideration the claims of members whose service had been long and distinguished, while political grat.i.tude led him to reward with desirable committee a.s.signments those to whom he was especially indebted for his election as speaker. Seniority of committee service was also taken into account when the chairmanship of an important committee became vacant, the next ranking member of the committee having a strong claim to be promoted to the vacancy. In 1911, however, the house, then controlled by the Democrats, adopted a rule providing for the election of all standing committees by the house; thus making the method of choosing committees the same as in the senate.

In the house, the chairmanship of every committee, whether important or unimportant, is given to a member of the dominant party, and of course also a majority of the other places on the committee, the proportion between the representation of the two parties being about the same as on the senate committees.

=Introduction and Reference of Bills.=--After the appointment of the committees the house is ready for the transaction of legislative business. Bills are introduced by sending them, indorsed with the name of the introducer, to the presiding officer's desk, where the fact of presentation is entered on the journal and the bill is given a number.[34] Thus the first bill introduced at the beginning of a new Congress is designated as "S. 1," if presented in the senate, and "H. R.

1," if presented in the house of representatives.

[34] Private bills are delivered to the clerk instead of to the speaker. The distinction between a public bill and a private bill is that the former deals with matters of general interest to the public, while the latter deals with matters of interest to a single individual or a small cla.s.s. An example of a public bill is one regulating commerce; an example of a private bill is one granting a pension to a particular individual, or settling a claim of a person against the government. A distinction is also made between a bill and a resolution.

A bill deals with matters of a more fundamental and permanent character, while a resolution deals with matters of a more temporary and transient nature. Resolutions are of two kinds: joint and concurrent. A joint resolution is pa.s.sed like a bill and requires the approval of the President but is cast in slightly different form and is used for making small appropriations, the creation of commissions, proposal of amendments to the Const.i.tution, resolutions to admit new states, ordering of printing, and the like. A concurrent resolution is used for expressing the opinion of Congress on some question of interest to that body alone and is not submitted to the President for his approval.

_Reference to Committees._--The next step is to refer the bill to a committee for consideration, and in the meantime it is printed and placed on the desks of members. Reference to the appropriate committee is usually made by the presiding officer, though the house may direct that it shall be referred to a particular committee.

Some idea of the ma.s.s of legislative projects referred to the committees may be gained from the fact that in the sixtieth Congress 27,114 bills and resolutions were introduced into the two houses, and that of these, 7,839 were reported by the committees to which they were referred. We have here a good ill.u.s.tration of the necessity of the committee system, since it would have been a physical impossibility for either house as a whole to have considered even slightly so many bills. The committees sift out of the ma.s.s of proposed legislation such measures as they think worthy of enacting into law, and report their recommendations to the house as a whole.

_Committee Hearings._--Committees charged with the consideration of important bills frequently hold public hearings at which interested parties may appear and present arguments for and against the measures under consideration. Thus the ways and means committee of the house in 1909 held public hearings at Washington for many weeks on the tariff bill, and scores of persons appeared to advocate lower or higher rates on various articles on which duties were to be imposed. Frequently members who introduce bills appear before committees and urge favorable action. The more important committees in each house have a regular day in each week for meeting, and a few of those in the house of representatives meet twice a week. Most of the committees, however, have no regular meeting day, being called together by their chairmen as occasion requires.

_Forms of Committee Action._--The committee to which a bill is referred may pursue any one of the following courses: (1) It may report the bill back to the house with a recommendation that it be pa.s.sed; (2) it may amend the bill and recommend that it be pa.s.sed as amended; (3) it may throw the bill aside and report an entirely new one in its place; (4) it may report the bill unfavorably with a recommendation that it do not pa.s.s; (5) it may "pigeonhole" the bill, that is, take no action on it at all, or report it so late in the session that no opportunity is allowed for its consideration. The latter method of disposal, sometimes called "smothering," is the fate that awaits the great majority of bills introduced into Congress. The "smothering" of bills became the subject of so much complaint among members recently that the rules were amended so as to allow members to demand that their bills be reported to the house for consideration. The house, of course, may at any time instruct a committee to report a bill for its action, but this is rarely done.

The report to the house is usually made by the chairman of the committee, or some one designated by him. Not infrequently the minority members of the committee also make a report opposing the recommendation of the majority. The committee system of legislation is so thoroughly established in Congress that a bill favorably reported stands an excellent chance of being pa.s.sed, while one adversely reported hardly ever pa.s.ses.

=Rules of Procedure.=--The Const.i.tution provides that each house may frame its own rules of procedure, though it requires certain things to be done in the interest of publicity and to insure a reasonable degree of careful deliberation. Thus each house is required to keep and publish a journal which must show how motions are disposed of and the vote for and against measures voted on. It also requires that on demand of one fifth of the members present the yeas and nays upon a measure shall be entered upon the journal. The purpose of this provision is to enable a small number of members to put the house on record so that the people may know how their representatives have voted on important measures.

_Filibustering._--This requirement serves a useful purpose, but it is sometimes taken advantage of by the minority in "filibustering," that is, in obstructing and delaying legislative proceedings. Thus a member may move to adjourn or to take a recess and ask that the roll be called and the yeas and nays on the question be entered upon the journal. If one fifth of the members join in the demand, the roll must be called and the process may be repeated indefinitely. On one occasion in the fiftieth Congress the house remained in session eight days and nights, during which time there were over one hundred roll calls on motions of this kind.

_The Rules of the House of Representatives_ have evolved gradually out of the experience of the house during its long existence, and have come to be so complex and elaborate that they are really understood by only a few of the members, princ.i.p.ally those who have had long experience in administering them. They have been revised from time to time, but except in a few particulars they are essentially what they were in 1880. They prescribe a certain order of business for each day's work, which, however, may be departed from by unanimous consent of all the members or by the adoption of a "special order" reported by the committee on rules.

_Committee of the Whole._--Revenue and appropriation bills are considered by the house of representatives in committee of the whole.

When the house goes into committee of the whole, the speaker leaves the chair and calls some one else to preside in his place, and the presence of 100 members const.i.tutes a quorum. Debate in committee of the whole is conducted rather informally, and greater freedom of discussion is allowed. It is when in committee of the whole that many of the lengthy speeches printed in the _Congressional Record_ are supposed to be delivered. In reality, however, only a small portion of these speeches are actually delivered, for members after addressing the house a few minutes often secure leave to print the remainder of their remarks.

Under this leave, members frequently print long speeches which have little or no relation to the subject under consideration but are intended for campaign purposes or for effect upon their const.i.tuents.

They are then franked through the mails to the voters throughout the district which the member represents.

If the bill is a private bill, it is called up for consideration on Friday, which is private bill day. Most of the private bills are reported from the committees on claims and on pensions. Six or seven thousand such bills are pa.s.sed by each Congress, and they const.i.tute about nine tenths of the entire number enacted.

_Suspension of the Rules._--The regular order of business may be departed from at any time on the demand of privileged committees like those on ways and means, appropriations, elections, rules, and a few others which have a sort of right of way in the house, because of the urgent character of the matters with which they deal. Furthermore, by unanimous consent, often granted, a particular member is allowed to bring up a bill for consideration outside the regular order. Finally, on two Mondays in every month and during the last six days of the session, the rules may be suspended by a two-thirds vote and measures to which there is little objection may be quickly pa.s.sed and thus the business of the house expedited.

=The Speaker and the Committee on Rules.=--No discussion of the procedure of the house of representatives would be adequate without a consideration of the part played by the speaker and the committee on rules in determining the course and character of legislation.

_The English Speaker._--The speakership is an ancient office inherited from England, where it originated in the fourteenth century, and is an outgrowth of the practical necessities of legislative procedure. The American speakership, however, differs widely from its English prototype. The speaker of the House of Commons has no such power in shaping legislation and controlling debate as does the American speaker.

He is in fact little more than a moderator with power to put motions, state questions, and preserve order and decorum in debate. He is entirely impartial, with no party prejudices.

_Powers of the American Speaker._--The American speaker, on the contrary, is not merely the presiding officer of the house, but he is an active party leader who seldom hesitates to give members of his own party every possible advantage in the course of debate. His right to appoint the committees of the house until 1911 gave him increased power over the shaping of legislation, because of the fact that the legislation of the house has come to be legislation largely by its committees. As has already been said, he gave the members of his own party all the chairmanships of committees, as well as a majority of the places on every committee, so that they easily controlled the work of the committees and hence of the house itself.

_Recognition._--Moreover, his power of recognition, especially before 1910, that is, the power to grant or withhold the right of discussion, enabled him to a large degree to prevent consideration of measures to which he was opposed and to cut off debate by members of the minority party, joined with the Democrats and brought about several amendments to the rules, one of which is designed to do away with the chief source of complaint in regard to the power of recognition.

_Committee on Rules._--Still another source of the speaker's power until 1910 was his control of the committee on rules. The committee consisted of five members, two from the majority, two from the minority, and the speaker, who was the fifth member. The speaker appointed his four a.s.sociates on the committee and thereby controlled its decisions. If he wished at any time to have the house take up a bill at the bottom of the calendar instead of one at the top, or in any other respect depart from the established order of procedure, he could call the committee together (it was the one committee that had the right to meet when the house was in session) and have it report what was called a "special order," to that effect--an order which the house usually adopted. The opposition to the power of this committee and more especially to its domination by the speaker led in 1910 to the adoption of a rule depriving the speaker of membership on the committee, increasing its size from five to eleven, and taking the appointment of the committee out of his hands. Since then it has been elected by the house, and is, it is a.s.serted, a more representative committee.

=Caucus Methods.=--It is a common practice for the representatives of each party to hold a caucus before the beginning of the debate upon an important measure, especially one of a political character, for the purpose of deciding what shall be the policy of the party toward the measure. Sometimes a rule is adopted by the caucus binding the members of the party to vote for or against the bill on the floor. Thus in 1913 caucuses of Democratic and representatives declared the tariff and currency bills to be party measures and pledged the members to vote for the bills without amendment. This practice has been criticized on the ground that where members have bound themselves to vote for a bill before it has been discussed on the floor, debate is useless since their minds are no longer open to argument. Perhaps a better procedure would be to hold the caucus after the discussion has terminated but before the final vote is taken.

=Final Stages of Procedure.=--The rules of the house of representatives restrict the time which may be occupied by any member in debating a measure to one hour, and this cannot be exceeded except by unanimous consent. If he chooses, he may yield a portion of his time to some other member. The chairman who reports the bill usually opens the discussion.

He is followed by the ranking member of the minority on the committee, and these are followed by other members of the committee in their turn.

_The Previous Question._--After the discussion has proceeded for a time, debate may be terminated and the house brought to a vote by means of the previous question, which is moved in the form, "Shall the main question now be put?" When ordered by the house it ends debate and brings the house directly to a vote. This is an effective method for putting an end to useless discussion of a measure and taking the sense of the house on its pa.s.sage. It is a common form of procedure in legislative bodies, though the senate, until 1917, had no way of limiting debate.

_Voting on Bills._--Questions on the pa.s.sage of bills are put by the speaker as follows: "As many as are in favor say _aye_"; "As many as are opposed say _no_"; the speaker determining the result by the sound of the voices. If there is a doubt as to which side has prevailed, a "division" is called for, in which case those in favor rise and are counted after which those who are opposed rise and are counted. If there is still doubt as to the result, "tellers" may be appointed to determine the vote, in which case those in favor of the measure file between the two tellers, who make a careful count, after which those opposed pa.s.s between them and are similarly counted. If one fifth of the members demand that a yea and nay vote be taken, the clerk must call the roll and record each member's vote, and the result is published in the journal so that the way in which a member votes may be known to his const.i.tuents and all others who may be interested.