[Deschler's Precedents, Volume 2, Chapters 7 - 9]
[Chapter 9.  Election Contests]
[C. Grounds of Contest]
[Â§ 9. Faulty Credentials; Citizenship]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[Page 1001-1003]
 
                               CHAPTER 9
 
                           Election Contests
 
                         C. GROUNDS OF CONTEST
 
Sec. 9. Faulty Credentials; Citizenship

    After presentation of a certificate of election to the Clerk, the 
Member-elect is usually administered the oath along with the other 
Members-elect, unless he is asked to step aside. Once sworn and seated, 
the contestee may benefit from a number of presumptions which must be 
refuted by the contestant (see Sec. Sec. 35, 36, infra). Hence, the 
possession of a certificate of election, issued by state authorities, 
declaring a candidate to be the winner of the election, is of great 
importance.
    A challenge to seating a Member-elect may also be based on his 
failure to meet the constitutional requirements as to citizenship, 
residence, or age for the office, and in that context is treated as a 
matter of ``exclusion'' and not as an election contest. (See Ch. 8, 
supra.)                          -------------------

Certificates of Election

Sec. 9.1 Where two persons claim a seat in the House from the same 
    congressional district, one having a certificate of election signed 
    by the Governor of the state, and the

[[Page 1002]]

    other having a certificate of election from a citizens' elections 
    committee, the House may refuse to permit either to take the oath 
    of office and refer the dispute to a House committee on elections.

    In the 1934 Kemp, Sanders investigation (Sec. 47.14, infra), both 
parties claimed credentials to the seat from the Sixth Congressional 
District of Louisiana. The Clerk transmitted a certificate of election 
of Mrs. Bolivar E. Kemp, signed by the Governor of Louisiana and 
attested by the secretary of the State of Louisiana, to fill a vacancy 
created by the death of her husband. The Clerk's letter also 
transmitted a certificate of election of J. Y. Sanders, prepared by the 
``Citizens' Election Committee of the Sixth Congressional District,'' 
to fill the vacancy. The House refused to permit either party to take 
the oath of office and referred the question of their prima facie 
credentials to the Committee on Elections.(8)
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 8. Certificates of election are also discussed in Ch. 8, supra.
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Sec. 9.2 There have been instances in which the House has permitted a 
    contestee to be seated pending the outcome of a contest brought 
    against him, notwithstanding the fact that he does not hold a 
    certificate of election signed by the Governor of his state.

    In Brewster v Utterback (Sec. 47.2, infra), a 1933 Maine contest, 
it was contended that the House should not recognize the prima facie 
right of a contestee to a seat by permitting him to take the oath 
absent a certificate of election. It was ruled, following earlier 
precedents, that the House may permit a Member-elect to take the oath 
of office after being ``satisfied [from the evidence] that the man was 
elected,'' though it appears that his election might still be in 
dispute.

Sec. 9.3 A certificate of election from a state Governor is only prima 
    facie evidence of election and may be rendered ineffective by 
    adoption of a House resolution referring the election contest to 
    the Committee on House Administration without seating either 
    candidate.

    In the 1961 Indiana investigation of the right of Roush or Chambers 
to a seat in the House (Sec. 59.1, infra), the House agreed, by a 
division of 205 yeas to 95 nays, to a resolution on the day of 
organization that referred the case to the Committee on House

[[Page 1003]]

Administration, and seating neither party to the dispute, although the 
Governor of Indiana had already certified Chambers as the winner with a 
12-vote majority of the 214,615 votes cast.

Citizenship

Sec. 9.4 A Member-elect who has not been a citizen for seven years when 
    elected or upon the convening of Congress may be challenged as 
    unqualified under the Constitution.

    In the 1933 investigation of the citizenship qualifications of a 
Member-elect from Pennsylvania, In re Ellenbogen (Sec. 47.5, infra), 
initiated by the filing of a memorial by an individual with the Clerk, 
the committee determined that the Member-elect, who was born in Vienna, 
Austria on Apr. 3, 1900, and was admitted to citizenship on June 17, 
1926, was qualified to take the oath of office at the time of the 
commencement of the second session of the 73d Congress on Jan. 3, 1934. 
The Member-elect, who had been a citizen for only six years and five 
months at the time of his election on Nov. 8, 1932, and for only six 
years and eight months at the time of the commencement of the first 
session of the 73d Congress on Mar. 9, 1933, had been a citizen for 
over seven and a half years at the time of the convening of the second 
session of the 73d Congress, thus satisfying the requirements of 
article I, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution.