[Deschler's Precedents, Volume 3, Chapters 10 - 14]
[Chapter 11. Questions of Privilege]
[B. Privilege of the House]
[Â§ 3. Effecting Changes in House Rules or Orders]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[Page 1588-1591]
 
                               CHAPTER 11
 
                         Questions of Privilege
 
                       B. PRIVILEGE OF THE HOUSE
 
Sec. 3. Effecting Changes in House Rules or Orders

Change in House Rules

Sec. 3.1 A question of the privilege of the House may not be raised to 
    effect a change in the rules of the House.

    On May 24, 1972,(10) during proceedings incident to the 
receipt of a report from the Committee of the Whole House on the state 
of the Union, Ms. Bella S. Abzug, of New York, as a ``question of 
privilege of rule IX'' submitted the following resolution:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. 118 Cong. Rec. 18675, 92d Cong. 2d Sess. For an additional example 
        see 79 Cong. Rec. 14667-69, 74th Cong. 1st Sess., Aug. 24, 
        1935.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                H. Res. 1003

        Resolved, That on May 24, 1972, at the hour of three forty-five 
    postmeridian the House shall stand in recess for fifteen minutes in 
    order that it may hear and receive petition for redress of 
    grievances relative to the war in Indochina to be presented by a 
    cit

[[Page 1589]]

    izen of the United States and further resolved that in order to 
    present such petition, the said citizen be permitted on the floor 
    of the House during such recess.

Mr. Hale Boggs, of Louisiana, then made the point of order that the 
resolution was not a privileged resolution. Following debate on the 
point of order, the Speaker (11) in his ruling on the point 
of order said:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Carl Albert (Okla.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The gentlewoman is out of order. The Chair cannot permit the 
    gentlewoman to speak out of order.
        The Chair has been very lenient in permitting the gentlewoman 
    to debate her point of order, but the point of order is obviously 
    in order.
        The gentlewoman undertakes to change the rules of the House or 
    to make an exception without unanimous consent and without a 
    special order of the House.
        The point of order is sustained, and the gentlewoman is out of 
    order.

Change in House Orders

Sec. 3.2 It is not in order by way of a point of personal privilege or 
    by raising a question of the privilege of the House to collaterally 
    attack an order properly adopted by the House at a previous time, 
    the proper method of reopening the matter being by motion to 
    reconsider the vote whereby such action was taken.

    On Feb. 13, 1941,(12) Mr. Clare E. Hoffman, of Michigan, 
rose to a question of the privilege of the House and submitted a 
resolution requesting the restoration to the Record of certain remarks 
made by him and Mr. Samuel Dickstein, of New York, during the previous 
day's proceedings. Such remarks had been deleted by the House pursuant 
to the adoption of a motion to expunge made by Mr. John E. Rankin, of 
Mississippi. Following debate, an inquiry was heard from Mr. Hoffman as 
to whether the Chair had ruled on the question of the privilege of the 
House. Responding to the inquiry, the Speaker (13) stated:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
12. 87 Cong. Rec. 979, 980, 77th Cong. 1st Sess.
13. Sam Rayburn (Tex.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The House would have to decide that, and, in the opinion of the 
    Chair, the House did decide the matter when it expunged the remarks 
    from the Record. The Chair thinks, under the circumstances, that 
    the proper way to reopen the question would be by a motion to 
    reconsider the vote whereby the motion of the gentleman from 
    Mississippi [Mr. Rankin] was adopted. The Chair is of the opinion 
    that inasmuch as the question raised by the gentleman from Michigan 
    was decided by a vote of the House on a proper motion, that he does 
    not now present a question of privilege of the House or of personal 
    privilege.

[[Page 1590]]

    Parliamentarian's Note: On the legislative day of Oct. 8, 
1968,(14) after repeated quorum calls and other delay 
pending approval of the Journal, a motion was adopted ordering a call 
of the House upon disclosure of the absence of a quorum. Thereupon 
another motion was adopted (before the quorum call commenced) directing 
that those Members who were not then present be returned to the Chamber 
and not permitted to leave until the pending business (approval of the 
Journal) be completed. No point of order was raised against that 
motion, although it was agreed to by less than a quorum, and no motion 
to reconsider was subsequently entered against the motion. 
Subsequently, during the continued reading of the Journal, Mr. Robert 
Taft, Jr., of Ohio, as a matter both of personal privilege and of the 
privileges of the House, moved that he and all other Members in the 
Chamber who had been there at the time of the last quorum call be 
permitted to leave the Chamber at their desire. While the Speaker 
(15) declined to entertain the motion as a question of 
privilege based upon Mr. Taft's contention that under the Constitution 
and rules the freedom of Members who were present should not be 
restricted, the specific argument was not made that the order had been 
agreed to by less than a quorum or that it was directed only to the 
attendance of absentees and not to those present in the Chamber. This 
precedent does not, then, stand for the proposition that an improper 
order of the House or the manner of execution of an order of the House 
can never be collaterally attacked as a matter of the privilege of the 
House--it merely suggests that the proper contention was not made when 
the question of privilege was raised.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. 114 Cong. Rec. 30214, 30215, 90th Cong. 2d Sess. (calendar day Oct. 
        9, 1968).
15. John W. McCormack (Mass.).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Change in Conference Procedure

Sec. 3.3 A question of the privilege of the House may not be raised to 
    criticize or effect a change in conference procedure.

    On July 29, 1935,(16) Mr. George Huddleston, of Alabama, 
sub

[[Page 1591]]

mitted as a question of the privilege of the House, a resolution 
(~17) instructing certain House conferees to insist upon the 
exclusion from subsequent conference committee meetings of several 
experts and counsel who were present during a previous committee 
meeting at the insistence of the Senate conferees. A point of order was 
then made by Mr. John E. Rankin, of Mississippi, that the resolution 
did not state a question of the privilege of the House and further 
said:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
16. 79 Cong. Rec. 12007-13, 74th Cong. 1st Sess. For further examples 
        see 104 Cong. Rec. 12690, 12691, 85th Cong. 2d Sess., June 30, 
        1958; 103 Cong. Rec. 14737-39, 85th Cong. 1st Sess., Aug. 14, 
        1957; and 84 Cong. Rec. 1367-70, 76th Cong. 1st Sess., Feb. 14, 
        1939.
17. H. Res. 311.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        To say that the Senate committee, when it brings its experts to 
    advise them and to assist them in working out the parliamentary or 
    the legislative problems involved, is a matter that goes to the 
    integrity of the proceedings of the House of Representatives I 
    submit does not meet the requirement; and therefore the resolution 
    is not privileged. If they want to come in and ask new 
    instructions, and give the House the right to vote on the 
    instructions or what those instructions are to be, that might be a 
    different proposition, but that would not be a question of the 
    privilege of the House.

    Debate ensued, at the conclusion of which the Speaker 
(18) in sustaining the point of order, 
stated:(19)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
18. Joseph W. Byrns (Tenn.).
19. 79 Cong. Rec. 12013, 74th Cong. 1st Sess.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The Chair does not wish to be understood as passing on the 
    merits of the question, because that is not within the province of 
    the Chair, but the Chair thinks there is a distinction between an 
    assault upon a member of a conference committee, as the gentleman 
    from Alabama has suggested, and the attendance at a session of a 
    conference committee of an employee of the Government upon the 
    invitation of the conferees of one House. The Chair thinks that 
    that is a matter of procedure that should be determined by the 
    conferees. In the event that the conferees are unable to agree, it 
    seems to the Chair that the remedy is provided in rule XXVIII. The 
    Chair does not believe that under the facts stated a question of 
    privilege is involved. The Chair, therefore, sustains the point of 
    order.