Deschler-Brown Precedents, Volume 14, Chapter 30 - § 36. Casting Votes After the Roll Call; Effect of Announcement of Result

[Deschler-Brown Precedents, Volume 14,  Chapter 30]
[Chapter 30. Voting]
[C. Yeas and Nays and Other Votes of Record]
[§ 36. Casting Votes After the Roll Call; Effect of Announcement of Result]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[Page 11702-11706]
 
                               CHAPTER 30
 
                                 Voting
 
               C. YEAS AND NAYS AND OTHER VOTES OF RECORD
 
Sec. 36. Casting Votes After the Roll Call; Effect of Announcement of 
    Result

In General

Sec. 36.1 A Member may not be recorded on a yea and nay vote after the 
    result of the vote has been announced.

    On Mar. 29, 1962,⁽¹¹⁾ after a roll call vote on a bill 
(H.R. 10650) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, Mr. Carroll D. 
Kearns, of Pennsylvania, rose to address the Chair with the following 
statement:

        Mr. Kearns: Mr. Speaker, I was standing behind the rail 
    eulogizing our great Speaker after Drew Pearson's article about 
    him. I was here and qualify and vote ``no'' on the last vote.
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11. 108 Cong. Rec. 5432, 5438, 87th Cong. 2d Sess.
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        The Speaker: ⁽¹²⁾ The Chair regrets that the 
    gentleman cannot be recorded after the vote has been announced. The 
    gentleman can state for the Record that he would have voted ``no.'' 
    ⁽¹³⁾
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12. John W. McCormack (Mass.).
13. See also 87 Cong. Rec. 7075, 77th Cong. 1st Sess., Aug. 12, 1941.
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Effect of Presence in Chamber

Sec. 36.2 A Member who is present in the Chamber but fails to cast his 
    vote cannot be recorded after the announcement of the result.

    On July 18, 1967,⁽¹⁴⁾ after a roll call vote on a bill 
(H.R. 11456) making appropriations for the Department of 
Transportation, Mr. William L. Scott, of Virginia, rose and addressed 
the Chair as follows:
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14. 113 Cong. Rec. 19274, 19300, 90th Cong. 1st Sess.
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        Mr. Scott: Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
        The Speaker Pro Tempore: ⁽¹⁵⁾ The gentleman will 
    state it.
        Mr. Scott: Mr. Speaker, I was here when the vote was taken on 
    the final passage of the bill appropriating funds for the 
    Department of Transportation, and I intended to vote ``yea'' on 
    that bill.
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15. Carl Albert (Okla.).
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        Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I voted. My vote is not 
    recorded.
        Can I at this time, having been present on the floor, cast my 
    vote in the affirmative?
        The Speaker Pro Tempore: The Chair will advise the gentleman he 
    cannot do that, since the result on the vote has already been 
    announced.

[[Page 11703]]

Sec. 36.3 A Member who was in the Chamber but who did not respond 
    during a roll call vote may not be recorded after the Chair has 
    announced the result.

    On June 1, 1972,⁽¹⁶⁾ after a roll call ⁽¹⁷⁾ 
vote on a bill (H.R. 13918) to provide improved financing for the 
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Mr. Walter Flowers, of Alabama, 
made the following statement:
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16. 118 Cong. Rec. 19485, 92d Cong. 2d Sess.
17. The vote was conducted pursuant to Rule XV. See Rule XV, House 
        Rules and Manual Sec. Sec. 765-774(b) (1973).
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        Mr. Flowers: Mr. Speaker, on the last vote I was in the 
    Chamber, and desire to be recorded.
        The Speaker: Did the gentleman answer when his name was called?
        Mr. Flowers: No, Mr. Speaker, I did not. I did not realize the 
    rollcall had been completed.
        The Speaker: The gentleman cannot qualify after the result of 
    the vote has been announced unless he can state he answered.
        Mr. Flowers: Mr. Speaker, had I qualified I would have voted 
    ``yea.''

Unanimous-consent Requests

Sec. 36.4 After the announcement of the result of a vote, a Member may 
    not be recorded, even by unanimous consent.

    On Mar. 12, 1959,⁽¹⁸⁾ the House resolved itself into the 
Committee of the Whole for the consideration of a bill (S. 50) to 
provide for the admission of the state of Hawaii into the Union. 
Following debate thereon, the Speaker put the question on its passage, 
the question was taken; and (the yeas and nays having been ordered), 
there were--yeas 323, nays 89, not voting 22. The result of the vote 
was announced, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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18. 105 Cong. Rec. 4006, 4038, 4039, 86th Cong. 1st Sess.
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    Immediately thereafter, Mr. Clarence Cannon, of Missouri, initiated 
the following proceedings:

        Mr. Cannon: Mr. Speaker, I was in the well and I ask that my 
    name be recorded as voting in the affirmative.
        The Speaker: ⁽¹⁹⁾ The gentleman cannot be recorded 
    after the announcement of the vote unless he voted during the 
    rollcall.
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19. Sam Rayburn (Tex.).
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        Mr. Cannon: Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
    Record be revised. I was standing here in the well.
        The Speaker: The gentleman cannot be recorded by unanimous 
    consent, if he did not vote. If the gentleman voted and wants to 
    correct the Record and say that he is not recorded, he may do that 
    but he cannot be recorded as voting if he did not 
    vote.⁽²⁰⁾
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20. A similar request was also denied where a Member had remained in 
        his seat during the roll call, but was conferring with another 
        Member and neglected to vote. See 106 Cong. Rec. 10206, 86th 
        Cong. 2d Sess., May 12, 1960.

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[[Page 11704]]

Sec. 36.5 The Speaker has refused to recognize a Member for the purpose 
    of offering a unanimous-consent request that certain other Members 
    who were absent for a record vote on the preceding day be permitted 
    to have their votes recorded, belatedly.

    On Mar. 16, 1971,⁽¹⁾ the House voted to agree to the 
conference report on a bill (H.R. 4690) raising the public debt limit. 
A joint res-olution (H.J. Res. 465) making a supplemental appropriation 
for the Department of Labor was also passed on the same day. A number 
of Members, desirous of voting on both measures, were absent because 
they were under the impression that neither question would be put that 
day.
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 1. 117 Cong. Rec. 6742, 6746, 92d Cong. 1st Sess.
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    Accordingly, on Mar. 17, 1971,⁽²⁾ Mr. Leslie C. Arends, 
of Illinois, addressed the Speaker with the following request:
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 2. Id. at p. 6809.
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        Mr. Arends: At this particular time I have no intention of 
    pointing my finger at any one or of being personally critical. 
    However, let me state that last Thursday I was privileged to ask 
    the majority leader what the legislative program would be for this 
    week. He carefully informed me, after which I sent such notice to 
    the Members on our side of the aisle, just as they did on the 
    majority side.
        Particularly noticeable was this statement:
        ``Tuesday: Private Calendar. No bills.''
        At the bottom of the list there was no such statement that 
    conference reports could be called up at any time. All Members 
    relied on such information and accordingly 70 Members were not in 
    attendance for one reason or another when two rollcalls were taken. 
    Many of our Members have now called me, rather critical of the fact 
    that we had sent this information to them and they were not here.
        Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I want to at this time do something 
    unprecedented, very much unprecedented. I am now going to ask 
    unanimous consent of the House of Representatives to permit any 
    absentee yesterday, in view of the fact that they were misinformed, 
    to cast their vote on the two bills that passed this House 
    yesterday.
        The Speaker: ⁽³⁾ The Chair will not recognize the 
    gentleman for that purpose.⁽⁴⁾
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 3. Carl Albert (Okla.).
 4. For a comparable instance, see 94 Cong. Rec. 1008, 80th Cong. 2d 
        Sess., Feb. 3, 1948, where a Member similarly sought unanimous 
        consent to be recorded after announcement of the vote but 
        encountered objection thereto.
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Where Signal Bells Failed To Ring

Sec. 36.6 The Speaker has declined to recognize a Member

[[Page 11705]]

    seeking unanimous consent to be recorded after the result of a roll 
    call vote was announced--despite such Member's assertion that the 
    signal bells failed to ring in his office.

    On June 9, 1938,⁽⁵⁾ the House entertained consideration 
of a resolution (H. Res. 482) pertaining to a contested New Hampshire 
election in the 75th Congress. The resolution having been divided into 
its substantive clauses, the House agreed to the first resolve which 
denied the seat to one of the contestants and proceeded to vote on the 
second resolve which granted the seat to the other.
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 5. 83 Cong. Rec. 8660-62, 75th Cong. 3d Sess.
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    As with the first resolve, the yeas and nays were demanded on the 
second portion of the resolution, and the demand was supported by a 
sufficient number of Members. This resolve was also agreed to, and the 
result of the vote was announced.
    Shortly thereafter, Mr. Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, addressed 
the Speaker with the following statement:

        Mr. Fish: Mr. Speaker, the bells did not ring on the first roll 
    call.⁽⁶⁾ In view of that fact, I ask unanimous consent 
    that the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Knutson, and I may be 
    permitted to vote ``nay'' on the first roll call.
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 6. Mr. Fish was referring, here, to the roll call vote on the first 
        resolve.
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        The Speaker: ⁽⁷⁾ The Chair cannot entertain a 
    unanimous-consent request for that purpose.
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 7. William B. Bankhead (Ala.).
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        Mr. Fish: I want the Record to show we would have voted 
    ``nay.''
        The Speaker: The Chair will, of course, recognize the gentleman 
    to state how he would have voted had he been present.⁽⁸⁾
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 8. See also Sec. 41, infra.
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    Parliamentarian's Note: Electronic bell system error has never 
historically been held to constitute a permissible reason for failure 
to cast a particular vote in time. Prior to its amendment in 1969, Rule 
XV, as enforced, required that ``. . . a Member who had failed to 
respond on either the first or second call of the roll could not be 
recorded before the announcement of the result [citations omitted] 
unless he `qualified' by declaring that he had been within the Hall, 
listening, when his name should have been called and failed to hear it 
[citations omitted], and then only on the theory that his name may have 
been inadvertently omitted by the Clerk [citation omitted].'' 
⁽⁹⁾ As a result, there were several instances of Members 
seeking to

[[Page 11706]]

qualify after missing the call of their names on the ground that the 
signal bells in their offices failed to ring. The requests were denied, 
however, unless the circumstances fell within the confines of the 
narrowly-prescribed exception.⁽¹⁰⁾
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 9. Rule XV clause 2, House Rules and Manual Sec. 765 (1995).
10. See, for example, 103 Cong. Rec. 13365, 85th Cong. 1st Sess., Aug. 
        1, 1957; and 94 Cong. Rec. 7161, 80th Cong. 2d Sess., June 4, 
        1948.
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