US House TVIV: Watch me (Whip/nay nay)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US House TVIV: Watch me (Whip/nay nay)

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Torrannor posted:

Sorry, I meant "the requirement to have a Speaker before any other business can be concluded" doesn't seem to be part of the constituion.

This

to me doesn't necessarily mean "and the House cannot vote on anything else unless it has elected a Speaker". Although I guess people could interpret the "shall chose" as implying the House needs to follow this command of the constitution before doing anything else.

I'm not a lawyer but you got me curious. If I'm wrong about any of this, I'd be delighted to learn more.

I believe you are right that the Constitution does not require the House to choose a Speaker as its first order of business (it only establishes the position of Speaker and charges the House with selecting one). However, the requirement to take care of the Speaker's chair first doesn't come from House rules either. It's part of US law and alteration would require the whole legislative process, which cannot happen right now because of that law. The relevant section states:

quote:

At the first session of Congress after every general election of Representatives, the oath of office shall be administered by any Member of the House of Representatives to the Speaker; and by the Speaker to all the Members and Delegates present, and to the Clerk, previous to entering on any other business; and to the Members and Delegates who afterward appear, previous to their taking their seats.

Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/25

The quoted section is only marginally different from the wording in the first piece of legislation passed by the US Congress, way back in 1789: An Act to regulate the Time and Manner of administering certain Oaths. The text of the original 1789 act can (hopefully) be found here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Statutes_at_Large/Volume_1/1st_Congress/1st_Session/Chapter_1

AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Jan 4, 2023

# ¿ Jan 4, 2023 11:27

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 13:37

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

OddObserver posted:

I am confused at to how that is constitutional, given that "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings", and this seems to give the Senate and the President veto on the House of Representatives' rules .

I'm going to guess part of the argument is that these aren't House "proceedings" because the House currently has no membership. The law concerns how power shall be transferred from one legislative body to the next, not how it debates and passes legislation.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2023 14:33

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Seth Pecksniff posted:

I don't get why Spartz is waiting until the very end to vote present

I know she has a Senate primary coming up but it's a weird tactic since literally no one cares about this in the primary (probably)

She probably wants to ensure that her protest Present vote doesn't result in an unintended outcome. She can mostly know that when they first call on her, but there are still a good chunk of reps who come after her on the first roll call. What if, somehow, her Present vote left McCarthy or someone else 1 vote short of ending the whole thing? Then she looks really dumb and her protest vote just drags it out further. By waiting for the second call, she can look at a near complete tally and not leave things up to chance.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2023 21:30

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

smackfu posted:

Only 432 voters this time, so half is 216 and McCarthy had 214. Close!

Unless I'm missing something, the C-span vote count is wrong and is giving one extra vote to McCarthy. Trone (D), Buck, and Hunt (Rs) are not voting for various reasons (Buck and Hunt are out of town for medical/family reasons; don't know about Trone), and then there's the dead guy. That's 4 total absences from the 435 possible, leaving 431 named votes cast this time.

The WaPo vote tracker has it accurate.

AtraMorS fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jan 6, 2023

# ¿ Jan 6, 2023 19:28

AtraMorS: Feb 29, 2004; If at the end of a war story you feel that some tiny bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie

Piell posted:

Trone had scheduled surgery and is now back.
https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1611434437408919562

Thanks!

# ¿ Jan 6, 2023 19:56

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