[Deschler-Brown Precedents, Volume 14,  Chapter 30]
[Chapter 30. Voting]
[C. Yeas and Nays and Other Votes of Record]
[Â§ 41. Announcement of Member Pertaining to His Own Vote; Announcing How Absent Colleague Would Have Voted]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[Page 11723-11733]
 
                               CHAPTER 30
 
                                 Voting
 
               C. YEAS AND NAYS AND OTHER VOTES OF RECORD
 
Sec. 41. Announcement of Member Pertaining to His Own Vote; Announcing 
    How Absent Colleague Would Have Voted

    The practice in the House regarding a Member's announcement of how 
he would have voted had he been present on a record vote, where he was 
in fact absent, has changed during the last half-century. Such 
announcements are now routinely accepted by unanimous consent. 
Announcements on behalf of absent colleagues, on the other hand, are 
not entertained under current procedures used in the House. The 
precedents in this section illustrate this 
evolution.                          -------------------

Sec. 41.1 Under current practice, a Member may announce how he would 
    have voted when the roll was called had he been present to vote.

    On May 20, 1959,(7) having missed a roll call vote on a 
motion to suspend the rules and pass a bill (H.R. 7007) making 
appropriations for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 
Mr.

[[Page 11724]]

Robert R. Barry, of New York, made the following statement:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 7. 105 Cong. Rec. 8634, 8690, 86th Cong. 1st Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Barry: Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 46 I was unavoidably 
    detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.'' I ask 
    unanimous consent that the Record so indicate.
        The Speaker: (8) Without objection, it is so 
    ordered.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 8. Sam Rayburn (Tex.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        There was no objection.

Sec. 41.2 A Member may announce how he would have voted on a roll call 
    had he been present, but may not do so before the announcement of 
    the vote.

    On May 11, 1964,(9) the House agreed to a resolution (H. 
Res. 650) which provided that upon its adoption, the House would 
resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole for the consideration of 
a bill (H.R. 8986) to adjust the rates of basic compensation of certain 
officers and employees in the federal government, and for other 
purposes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 9. 110 Cong. Rec. 4905, 88th Cong. 2d Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Prior to the Speaker's announcement of the result, Mr. William M. 
Colmer, of Mississippi, made the following statement:

        Mr. Speaker, I was temporarily absent from the Chamber. I did 
    not hear the second bell ring, and I did not hear my name called. I 
    am very anxious to vote. Do I qualify?
        The Speaker: (10) Having in mind the statement just 
    made by the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi, the Chair is 
    reluctantly constrained to rule that he cannot vote; he does not 
    qualify.
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10. John W. McCormack (Mass.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Colmer: Mr. Speaker, a parliamentary inquiry.
        The Speaker: The gentleman will state it.
        Mr. Colmer: Mr. Speaker, under the rules am I permitted to 
    state how I would have voted had I qualified?
        The Speaker: Not at this particular time.

    After the Chair announced the result of the vote, Mr. Colmer then 
made a request as follows:

        Mr. Colmer: Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
    House for 1 minute.
        The Speaker: Is there objection to the request of the gentleman 
    from Mississippi?
        There was no objection.
        Mr. Colmer: Mr. Speaker, had I been able to qualify on the vote 
    just taken, I would have voted ``no'' on the resolution.

Sec. 41.3 The rules do not preclude a Member from announcing, after a 
    record vote on which he failed to answer, how he would have voted 
    if present.

    On June 27, 1957,(11) after a roll call vote on a motion 
to recommit

[[Page 11725]]

a bill (S. 1429) authorizing structural and other improvements on the 
Senate Office Building, Mr. Paul C. Jones, of Missouri, was recognized 
by the Speaker (12) and stated:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. 103 Cong. Rec. 10521, 85th Cong. 1st Sess.
12. Sam Rayburn (Tex.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Speaker, I was not in the Chamber when my name was reached 
    on the rollcall which has just been completed, although I was here 
    during a part of the debate and also before the rollcall was 
    completed. However, I cannot qualify to be recorded. If I had the 
    opportunity to vote I would have voted ``no.'' . . . The only 
    reason I make this explanation is to indicate that I was not absent 
    and have been engaged in official work in the interest of my 
    constituents during the entire day.

    Mr. Clarence Cannon, of Missouri, then rose and initiated the 
following proceedings:

        Mr. Cannon: Mr. Speaker, if the Speaker will permit a 
    parliamentary inquiry, there have been an increasing number of 
    announcements in the last few weeks by Members on how they would 
    have voted if present when the roll was called. May I ask the 
    Speaker as to the practice?
        The Speaker: The gentleman from Missouri raised that question 
    with the Chair the other day and stated that it was unparliamentary 
    for a Member who could not qualify to announce later on that had he 
    been here he would have voted yea or nay. Now, the Chair does not 
    know of any way that we could keep a Member from asking unanimous 
    consent to proceed for a minute or an hour and announce before a 
    bill was brought up how he was going to vote if he was present or 
    how he would have voted when the matter came up. So the Chair 
    cannot see any reason for not allowing Members to express 
    themselves how they would have voted or how they are going to vote. 
    If there is any rule of the House that that violates, the Chair 
    does not know anything about it.

    Parliamentarian's Note: The Chair's ruling remains viable as the 
current practice,(13) although Mr. Cannon, in his extensions 
of remarks, noted that such announcements were not permitted under the 
earlier practice:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
13. See Sec. Sec. 41.1, 41.2, supra.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Cannon: In response to the Speaker's inquiry, may I quote 
    from section 3151 of the Precedents of the House.

            3151. It is not in order after a record vote on which he 
        failed to vote for a Member to announce how he would have voted 
        if present.

        On February 6, 1915, Mr. John E. Raker, of California, rising 
    in his place, said:

            Mr. Speaker, I want to ask unanimous consent to make a 
        statement for a minute. I was here yesterday afternoon, but on 
        account of sickness in my family I was called out and could not 
        get back in time to vote on the motion to recommit the naval 
        appropriation bill. I returned, but too late to have my vote 
        recorded. If I had been here, I would have voted against the 
        motion to recommit.

        Mr. James R. Mann, of Illinois, made the point of order that 
    the statement was wholly improper.

[[Page 11726]]

        The Speaker sustained the point of order and said:

            The statement is out of order.

    Mr. Cannon continued his statement, pointing out an earlier ruling 
by Speaker Henry T. Rainey, of Illinois, in the 73d Congress, where the 
Chair quoted from Rule XV: (14)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. Mr. Cannon incorrectly attributed the ruling to Speaker Rayburn. 
        See 77 Cong. Rec. 2587, 2588, 73d Cong. 1st Sess., Apr. 28, 
        1933.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        After the roll has been once called, the Clerk shall call in 
    their alphabetical order the names of those not voting; and 
    thereafter the Speaker shall not entertain a request to record a 
    vote.

    Mr. Cannon continued:

        The rule is founded on sound policy. Such announcements may be 
    cited in contrast with others who failed to vote, as an inference 
    of less interest in the proceedings and less attention to the 
    question at issue.
        If one Member makes the announcement, critics may make it the 
    occasion of inquiry as to why other absent Members did not announce 
    a position on the vote.
        The pair clerks pair all Members who do not vote. Subsequent 
    announcement of how a Member would have voted if present 
    automatically places the Member, with whom he is paired, on the 
    other side of the question.
        Such practice renders Members less responsive to inconvenient 
    rollcalls, when their position can later be announced at a more 
    convenient time.
        No Speaker has ever held such announcements in order.

Sec. 41.4 Where a Member entered the Chamber too late to be recorded on 
    the question of overriding a veto, he stated the reasons for his 
    absence, entered his name on the pair list, and indicated how he 
    would have voted if he had been able to do so.

    On Feb. 24, 1944,(15) the House voted to override the 
President's veto of a tax revenue bill (H.R. 3687). Shortly thereafter, 
several Members received unanimous consent to address the House on the 
issue for a brief period of time. Among them was Mr. Chet Holifield, of 
California, who made the following request:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
15. 90 Cong. Rec. 2013, 2016, 78th Cong. 2d Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Holifield: Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to extend 
    my own remarks at this point in the Record.
        The Speaker: (16) Without objection, it is so 
    ordered.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
16. Sam Rayburn (Tex.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        There was no objection.
        Mr. Holifield: Mr. Speaker, I arrived on the floor after my 
    name had been called for a vote to sustain or reject the 
    President's veto on the tax bill. Due to an unavoidable appearance 
    before the State Department on an immigration matter for a 
    constituent, I arrived some 3 minutes late. In such a case the 
    rules of the House prohibit

[[Page 11727]]

    the Member qualifying for the roll-call vote. I immediately entered 
    my name on the pair list in favor of sustaining the President's 
    veto. If I had been present in time for qualification, I would have 
    cast my vote in favor of sustaining the President's veto.
        Parliamentarian's Note: Although the result of the vote had not 
    been announced when Mr. Holifield entered the Chamber, under the 
    prevailing rules of the day his failure to answer to his name when 
    it was called, precluded him from casting a vote. In order to do 
    so, he would have had to ``qualify'' by stating that he had been in 
    the Chamber, listening, when his name had been called and had 
    failed to hear it. These criteria were eliminated in 1969.

Announcements Pertaining to Absent Members

Sec. 41.5 The Chair stated that the practice of announcing how an 
    absent Member would have voted after a roll call vote is not a 
    proper practice under the established precedents.

    On Apr. 14, 1937,(17) the House having just passed a 
bill (H.R. 1668) by roll call vote, to amend the Interstate Commerce 
Act, the following exchange took place:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
17. 81 Cong. Rec. 3489, 3490, 75th Cong. 1st Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. [Clarence] Cannon of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, I was 
    unavoidably detained and was not in the Chamber at the time my name 
    was called. I desire to submit a parliamentary inquiry.
        The Speaker: (18) The gentleman will state it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
18. William B. Bankhead (Ala.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: Would I be entitled to recognition by 
    the Chair for the purpose of announcing how I would have voted had 
    I been present?
        The Speaker: Under a strict construction of the precedents the 
    Chair does not think the gentleman would be permitted to do so.
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: Under the same circumstance, Mr. 
    Speaker, would I be entitled to recognition by the Chair to 
    announce how a colleague would have voted had he been present?
        The Speaker: The Chair would make the same ruling in that 
    respect.
        In view of the fact the question has been raised by the 
    parliamentary inquiry of the gentleman from Missouri, the Chair 
    will state that a practice has grown up in the House, because no 
    objection has been raised by any Member, whereby when certain 
    Members fail to be present and answer to their names, some of their 
    colleagues undertake to explain how they would have voted if 
    present. This question has been raised several times in the past, 
    and it has been held uniformly that it is an improper practice. The 
    Chair, therefore, is inclined to adhere to the decisions heretofore 
    established.

Sec. 41.6 In response to a Member's inquiry, the Chair stated that it 
    possessed no authority other than that impliedly granted by 
    unanimous consent to recognize a

[[Page 11728]]

    Member for the purpose of stating how an absent colleague would 
    have voted.

    On Mar. 21, 1938,(19) Mr. Clifton A. Woodrum, of 
Virginia, addressed the Chair with the following parliamentary inquiry:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
19. 83 Cong. Rec. 3768, 75th Cong. 3d Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Woodrum: Mr. Speaker, a practice seems to have grown up of 
    late in the House of Members announcing how their colleagues would 
    have voted had they been present. Entirely without regard to these 
    particular cases, as to which I, of course, have no objection, this 
    was actually carried to the point a few days ago of permitting a 
    Member to have the Record corrected to show that had he been 
    present he would have voted in a certain way, and this particular 
    Member, although absent at the time under some sort of 
    misapprehension, actually voted on the matter.
        I wish to inquire, Mr. Speaker, whether under the rules of the 
    House there is any parliamentary authority for such announcements 
    being made in the House?
        The Speaker: (20) In reply to the parliamentary 
    inquiry of the gentleman from Virginia the Chair will state that 
    when a record vote is taken in the House only the names of those 
    who are present and voting or paired are shown in the Record.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
20. William B. Bankhead (Ala.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        There has grown up a practice of Members arising in their 
    places after votes are taken and asking unanimous consent to make a 
    statement with reference to how some absent colleague would have 
    voted had he been present. There is no authority for the Chair to 
    recognize a Member for that purpose except by unanimous consent. 
    The Chair, of course, when a Member rises for the purpose of 
    submitting such a unanimous-consent request, feels that in fairness 
    he should submit the matter to the House as a question of unanimous 
    consent. If any objection is made there is no parliamentary 
    authority for a Member to make such a statement.

Sec. 41.7 A point of order having been made earlier in the day against 
    the practice of Members announcing how absent colleagues would have 
    voted, if present, on a roll call vote, the Speaker declined later 
    the same day to recognize Members for that purpose.

    On Aug. 15, 1940,(1) the House voted on a joint 
resolution (S.J. Res. 286) to strengthen the common defense and to 
authorize the President to order members and units of reserve 
components and retired personnel of the Regular Army into active 
military service. The vote having been taken by the yeas and the nays, 
342 Members voted ``yea,'' 34 Members voted ``nay,'' and 54 Members did 
not vote.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1. 86 Cong. Rec. 10448, 10449, 10460, 10461, 76th Cong. 3d Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Shortly after the announcement of the result of the vote, the Chair 
recognized Mr. Joseph A.

[[Page 11729]]

Gavagan, of New York, who commenced the following exchange:

        Mr. Gavagan: Mr. Speaker, I announce that my colleagues the 
    gentlemen from New York, Mr. Celler----
        Mr. [Clarence] Cannon of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, I very much 
    regret to have to call attention to the rule against announcement 
    of how another Member would have voted if present.
        The Speaker: (2) The gentleman from Missouri objects 
    to the announcement of how the colleagues of the gentleman from New 
    York would have voted. Under the rule, such an announcement is not 
    in order.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 2. William B. Bankhead (Ala.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    A few moments later, the Speaker announced that ``the Chair will 
now recognize Members only for unanimous-consent requests,'' thereby 
prompting another brief exchange initiated by Mr. Gavagan, as follows:

        Mr. Gavagan: Mr. Speaker, under the right to submit unanimous-
    consent requests, I wish to announce to the House that my 
    colleagues----
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: I regret that I have to object, Mr. 
    Speaker. The proper method would be for the Member himself to later 
    speak or extend remarks giving his views.
        The Speaker: The gentleman from Missouri objects to the 
    announcement. . . .
        Mr. Englebright: Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
    proceed for one-half minute to make a short statement.
        The Speaker: Without objection, it is so ordered.
        There was no objection.
        Mr. Englebright: Mr. Speaker, I am authorized to state that had 
    Mr. Andresen of Minnesota, and Mr. Hope, of Kansas, been present 
    they would have voted ``aye''----
        The Speaker: The Chair cannot entertain that statement in view 
    of the objection made by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cannon) 
    earlier in the day, to other statements of that sort.
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: Mr. Speaker, it is not a matter of any 
    Member objecting but, under the rules, the Chair is not permitted 
    to recognize Members for that purpose.
        Mr. [Jesse P.] Wolcott [of Michigan]: Mr. Speaker, will the 
    gentleman yield?
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: I yield.
        Mr. Wolcott: May not the whip or the leader, or whoever is 
    charged with that responsibility obtain a minute to address the 
    House for that purpose by unanimous consent?
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: Unfortunately, the whips, like other 
    Members, are subject to the rules of the House. It is a rule which 
    has been observed for a hundred years, and, like every other rule 
    of the House, there is an excellent reason for its observance.
        In the first place, it places a Member on record by proxy. A 
    Member may not be recorded unless present and answering when his 
    name is called and a Member may not vote by proxy. Such 
    announcements in effect nullify both these provisions of the rules 
    and place Members on record on the announcements of a colleague.
        In the second place, such announcements flagrantly misrepresent 
    the position of other Members of the House.

[[Page 11730]]

    All Members who fail to answer on roll call are arbitrarily paired 
    without consulting their wishes or inquiring as to their attitude 
    on the question on which the vote is taken, and always without 
    their knowledge or consent as to with whom paired. Then for some 
    Member to rise on the floor at the conclusion of the vote and 
    announce that the Member with whom they are unwittingly paired 
    would have voted in the affirmative or the negative if present, 
    automatically places them on the opposite of the question although 
    they may have been emphatically pledged to their constituency to 
    the contrary. Again, such announcements are a reflection on all 
    Members who, through some unavoidable exigency, failed to vote on 
    the roll call, as they infer less interest in the proceedings and 
    less attention to the question at issue than that exhibited by the 
    Members whose position is announced by an assiduous, if not 
    officious, colleague. If such a practice should become general it 
    would impose on spokesmen for each delegation in the House the 
    nerve-wracking duty of seeing that every Member of his delegation 
    was accounted for in these announcements at the close of every vote 
    thereby contributing immeasurably to the confusion on the floor and 
    the delay in the proceedings of the House every time the roll was 
    called.
        Not the least objectionable feature of this violation of the 
    rules is its encouragement of delinquency. When a Member may enter 
    his appearance in and be placed of record in this manner he has 
    less hesitancy in absenting himself from the Chamber and the city. 
    Something like 40 Members were included in a recent announcement of 
    this character, and if it is extended to permit the whips on either 
    side of the aisle to thus round up their charges, it is easy to 
    foresee a situation in which a majority of the membership of the 
    House might leave their vote and their conscience in the keeping of 
    a colleague while they attend to more inviting matters. In fact, so 
    objectionable is the practice that the Chair has held that Members 
    could not be recognized even for the purpose of asking unanimous 
    consent to make such announcements.
        Mr. Wolcott: Will the gentleman yield further?
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: I yield.
        Mr. Wolcott: I am merely asking this question to clarify the 
    matter. I can see the gentleman's points, but is this a rule or a 
    tradition?
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: It is a practice of immemorial 
    standing. There are decisions by practically every Speaker of the 
    House since Mulhenberg to the effect that the Chair cannot 
    recognize for that purpose.
        Mr. Wolcott: It would not be violating any of the rules if the 
    whip on either side, for the purpose of announcing the votes, asked 
    unanimous consent to proceed for 1 minute for that purpose, would 
    it?
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: The Speaker is not authorized to put a 
    unanimous-consent request for that purpose. You cannot vitiate the 
    rule by indirection. It is a long-established rule that you cannot 
    do by indirection anything directly prohibited by the rules.
        Mr. Wolcott: That is why I asked if it was a rule or simply a 
    practice.
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: Both. The rules do not provide for it 
    and the

[[Page 11731]]

    practice of the House does not permit it.
        Mr. Wolcott: There is nothing in the written rules of the House 
    to prevent it, as I understand?
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: There is nothing in the written rules 
    of the House to permit it.
        Mr. Wolcott: But the gentleman is familiar with the rules. Will 
    he advise the House whether there is anything in the written rules 
    which prevents such announcement?
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: The gentleman remembers the statement 
    by the distinguished Member from Ohio, Mr. Longworth, at one time 
    Speaker of the House, in which he said that about half of the law 
    of the House was written and half unwritten, and that frequently 
    the unwritten was the more important of the two. And Speaker 
    Cannon, in passing on a point of order in a proceeding under 
    suspension of the rules, pointed out that the motion not only 
    suspended all rules but included in its scope the unwritten law and 
    practice of the House.
        Mr. Gavagan: The gentleman concedes that the written rules of 
    the House make no provision for the gentleman's objection to the 
    unanimous-consent request.

        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: The written rules of the House make no 
    provision for it. It is not permissible under the rules.
        Mr. Gavagan: I would like also to call the gentleman's 
    attention to a specific rule of this House which prevents Members 
    from voting standing here in the Well of the House; yet I have seen 
    the gentleman time in and time out violate that rule. From today 
    onward the gentleman will stand at his seat and vote.
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: I would like to have the gentleman cite 
    an occasion when I did so.
        Mr. Gavagan: I submit that repeatedly the gentleman has stood 
    in the Well of this House and voted.
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: The gentleman is mistaken about that.
        Mr. Gavagan: Unquestionably the gentleman is not mistaken, and 
    from today onward the gentleman from Missouri will vote from his 
    seat and not the Well.
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: The gentleman's memory is in error. I 
    positively have never violated that rule.
        Mr. [Vito] Marcantonio [of New York]: As I understand the 
    situation now, the gentleman from California asked and did receive 
    unanimous consent to proceed for one-half minute.
        Mr. Cannon of Missouri: A Member speaking under unanimous 
    consent cannot violate a rule of the House.
        The Speaker: The gentleman from California asked unanimous 
    consent to proceed for one-half minute. When he got to the point of 
    stating how certain Members would have voted, the Chair, under the 
    protest made by the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Cannon], said the 
    Chair could not recognize him for that purpose. There are a number 
    of precedents to sustain the Chair in this ruling.

Sec. 41.8 In the later practice, the Chair has repeatedly held that it 
    is not in order to announce or place in the Record a statement as 
    to

[[Page 11732]]

    how an absent colleague would have voted on a roll call, if 
    present--regardless of whether unanimous consent was sought or 
    whether another Member raised a point of order against the 
    practice.

    Parliamentarian's Note: In a series of rulings over a 13-month 
period between January 1941, and February 1942, the Chair 
(3) gradually delineated the parliamentary status of 
Members' announcements as to how certain absent colleagues would have 
voted on particular roll call votes. While the permissibility of such 
announcements had always been a matter of some doubt,(4) the 
trend of the Chair's rulings ultimately culminated in the determination 
that these announcements were improper, per se.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3. Speaker Sam Rayburn (Tex.), occupied the Chair in each of the 
        instances which follow.
 4. See Sec. Sec. 41.5, 41.6, 41.7, supra.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Thus, on Jan. 22, 1941,(5) Mr. Richard J. Welch, of 
California, made the following announcement:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5. 87 Cong. Rec. 243, 77th Cong. 1st Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California, Mr. Johnson, is ill 
    and confined to his room. Were he here, he would have voted ``yea'' 
    on the bill (H.R. 1437) authorizing additional shipbuilding and 
    ordnance manufacturing facilities for the United States Navy, and 
    for other purposes.

    Before any other Member could make a similar announcement, however, 
the Speaker stated:

        The Chair desires to make an announcement. The Chair a moment 
    ago recognized a gentleman to make an announcement of how an absent 
    Member would vote if he were here. The Chair did that because the 
    present occupant of the chair has not yet made a ruling upon the 
    matter. A statement like that is prohibited by the rules of the 
    House and the Speaker will hereafter recognize no Member to 
    announce how an absent Member would vote.

    Later in the year, after a roll call vote on a bill (H.R. 6159) 
making supplemental appropriations for the national defense, the Chair 
recognized Mr. John Taber, of New York, who sought unanimous consent to 
address the House for one minute.(6) There being no 
objection to his request, Mr. Taber proceeded to announce how certain 
absent Members would have voted on the preceding roll call. Mr. 
Clarence Cannon, of Missouri, then raised the point of order that Mr. 
Taber's announcements were out of order. A brief discussion ensued.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 6. 87 Cong. Rec. 9496, 9497, 77th Cong. 1st Sess., Dec. 5, 1941.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the course of that discussion, Mr. Earl C. Michener, of Michi

[[Page 11733]]

gan, noted that Mr. Taber ``was given the unanimous consent of the 
House to proceed for one minute; therefore he is permitted to say 
anything so long as he uses parliamentary language.'' Mr. Cannon, 
however, subscribed to a different point of view, noting that he 
wished:

        . . . there were some parliamentary way for this information to 
    be made available to the House at this time. But it is a rule of 
    long standing . . . and we cannot relax it for one and enforce it 
    for others. As a matter of fact, a point of order is not required. 
    It is the duty of the Speaker, and the practice of the Speaker to 
    enforce it just as he would enforce the rule against an explanation 
    of a vote during roll call or any other automatic rule of 
    procedure. . . .

    The Chair ruled that:

        . . . Even though the gentleman from New York [Mr. Taber] had 
    unanimous consent to proceed for 1 minute, when he began making the 
    explanation he did, the Chair must sustain the point of order under 
    all precedents.

    Three days later, on Dec. 8, 1941,(7) the House having 
just voted on a motion to suspend the rules and pass a joint resolution 
(H.J. Res. 254) declaring war on Japan, the Speaker made the following 
statement:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 7. Cong. Rec. (daily ed.), 77th Cong. 1st Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The Chair desires to announce that he has held in the past and 
    will hold henceforth that it is contrary to the rules of the House 
    for any Member to announce how an absent Member would vote if 
    present.

    In the second session of the same Congress, the Chair was again 
pressed to rule on this issue. After a roll call vote on a Navy 
Department appropriations bill (H.R. 6460), Mr. Fred C. Gilchrist, of 
Iowa, was recognized by the Chair, and posed the following question: 
(8)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 8. 88 Cong. Rec. 757, 77th Cong. 2d Sess., Jan. 27, 1942.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Mr. Speaker, would it be in order as a parliamentary regulation 
    for me at this time to ask if I might place in the Record a 
    statement which the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Jensen], who is absent 
    on account of illness, would have voted for the measure just passed 
    had he been present?

    The Chair neither relied on a point of order (9) nor 
felt compelled to address any unanimous-consent implications 
(10) in stating that:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 9. See Sec. 41.7, supra.
10. See Sec. 41.6, supra.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The Chair thinks it is positively against the rules and 
    practices for one Member to announce how another would have voted 
    had he been present.

[[Page 11734]]