[Constitution, Jefferson's Manual, and the Rules of the House of Representatives, 105th Congress]
[105th Congress]
[House Document 104-272]
[Jeffersons Manual of ParliamentaryPractice]
[Pages 183-187]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


 

                    sec. xviii.--orders of the house.


[[Page 184]]



Sec. 380. Keeping of the doors of the House.

  Of  right, the 
door of the House ought not to be shut, but to be kept by porters, or 
Sergeants-at-Arms, assigned for that purpose. Mod ten. Parl., 23.





Sec. 381. Right of the Member to demand execution of the 
subsisting order.

  The  only case where a Member has a right to insist on 
anything, is where he calls for the execution of a subsisting order of 
the House. Here there having been already a resolution, any person has a 
right to insist that the Speaker, or any other whose duty it is, shall 
carry it into execution; and no debate or delay can be had on it.



<> Thus 
any Member has a right to have the House or gallery cleared of 
strangers, an order existing for that purpose; or to have the House told 
when there is not a quorum present. 2 Hats., 87, 129. How far an order 
of the House is binding, see Hakew., 392.

  As a request for unanimous consent to consider a bill is in effect a 
request to suspend the order of business temporarily, a Member has the 
right at any time to demand the ``regular order'' (IV, 3058). Where the 
regular order is demanded pending a request for unanimous consent, 
further reservation of the right to object thereto is precluded (Speaker 
Foley, Nov. 14, 1991, p. 32128). Occasionally a Member may incorrectly 
demand the ``regular order'' to assert that remarks are not confined to 
the question under debate. On such an occasion the Chair may treat the 
demand as a point of order requiring a ruling by the Chair (May 1, 1996, 
p. ----).


  Absent ``an existing order for that purpose,'' a Member may not demand 
that the galleries be cleared, as this power resides in the House (II, 
1353), which has by rule extended the power to the Speaker (clause 2 of 
rule I) and the chairman of the Committee of the Whole (clause 1 of rule 
XXIII), but not to the individual Member.


[[Page 185]]

on till an hour at which the House is usually full [which in 
Senate is at noon].



Sec. 383. Parliamentary law as to proceeding with orders 
of the day.

  But  where an order is made that any particular matter be taken 
up on a particular day, there a question is to be put, when it is called 
for, whether the House will now proceed to that matter? Where orders of 
the day are on important or interesting matter, they ought not to be 
proceeded 



  The rule of the House of Representatives providing for raising the 
question of consideration (clause 3 of rule XVI) has, in connection with 
the practice as to special orders, superseded this provision of the 
parliamentary law. The House always proceeds with business at its hour 
of meeting, unless prevented by a point that no quorum is present (IV, 
2732).




Sec. 384. Orders of the day now obsolete.

  Orders  of the day 
may be discharged at any time, and a new one made for a different day, 3 
Grey, 48, 313.



  The House of Representatives found the use of ``Orders of the day'' as 
a method of disposing business impracticable as long ago as 1818, and 
not long after abandoned their use (IV, 3057), although an interesting 
reference to them survives in clause 1 of rule XXIV. The House proceeds 
under rule XXIV unless that order is displaced by the use of ``special 
orders'' or the intervention of privileged business.




Sec. 385. Business at the end of a session.

  When  a session 
is drawing to a close and the important bills are all brought in, the 
House, in order to prevent interruption by further unimportant bills, 
sometimes comes to a resolution that no new bill be brought in, except 
it be sent from the other House. 3 Grey, 156.



  This provision is obsolete so far as the practice of the House of 
Representatives is concerned, as business goes on uninterruptedly until 
the Congress expires (rule XXVI).




Sec. 386. Effect of end of the session on existing orders, 
especially as to imprisonment.

  All  orders of the House determine with the 
session; and one taken under such an order may, after the session is 
ended, be discharged on a habeas corpus. Raym., 120; Jacob's L. D. by 
Ruffhead; Parliament, 1 Lev., 165, Pitchara's case.



[[Page 186]]

with a session (I, 104-109). The House 
uses few standing orders. However, in the first session of the 104th 
Congress, the House continued a standing order regarding special-order 
and morning-hour speeches for the remainder of the entire Congress (May 
12, 1995, p. ----). In 1866 the House discussed its power to imprison 
for a period longer than the duration of the existing session (II, 
1629), and in 1870, for assaulting a Member returning to the House from 
absence on leave. Patrick Woods was committed for a term extending 
beyond the adjournment of the session, but not beyond the term of the 
existing House (II, 1628).

  The House of Representatives, by rule XXVI and the practice 
thereunder, has modified the rule of Parliament as to business pending 
at the end of a session which is not at the same time the end of a 
Congress. A standing order, like that providing for the hour of daily 
meeting of the House, expires 




Sec. 387. Jefferson's views as to the constitutional 
power to make rules.

  Where  the Constitution authorizes each House to 
determine the rules of its proceedings it must mean in those cases 
(legislative, executive, or judiciary) submitted to them by the 
Constitution, or in something relating to these, and necessary toward 
their execution. But orders and resolutions are sometimes entered in the 
journals having no relation to these, such as acceptances of invitations 
to attend orations, to take part in procession, etc. These must be 
understood to be merely conventional among those who are willing to 
participate in the ceremony, and are therefore, perhaps, improperly 
placed among the records of the House.



[[Page 187]]

(IV, 3579). In modern practice, existing statutory procedures are readopted 
as rules of the House at the beginning of each Congress (see, e.g., H. 
Res. 6, Jan. 4, 1995, p. ----). The theories involved in this question 
have been most carefully examined and decisively determined in reference 
to the law of 1851, which directs the method of procedure for the House 
in its constitutional function of judging the elections of its Members; 
and it has been determined that this law is not of absolute binding 
force on the House, but rather a wholesome rule not to be departed from 
except for cause (I, 597, 713, 726, 833; II, 1122). Under current 
practice, the House in the resolution adopting its rules adopts 
provisions of law, and of concurrent resolutions adopted pursuant to law 
which have constituted rules of the House at the expiration of the 
preceding Congress, as the rules of the new House (see H. Res. 5, Jan. 
3, 1983, p. 34; Sec. 1013, infra). Where the House amended a standing 
rule of general applicability during a session and the amended rule did 
not require prospective application, the rule was interpreted to apply 
retroactively (Sept. 28, 1994, p. ----).


Sec. 388. The House's construction of its power to adopt 
rules.

  The  House of Representatives has frequently examined its 
constitutional power to make rules, and this power has also been 
discussed by the Supreme Court (V, 6755). It has been settled that 
Congress may not by law interfere with the constitutional right of a 
future House to make its own rules (I, 82; V, 6765, 6766), or to 
determine for itself the order of proceedings in effecting its 
organization (I, 242-245; V, 6765, 6766). It has also been determined, 
after long discussion and trial by practice, that one House may not 
continue its rules in force to and over its successor (I, 187, 210; V, 
6002, 6743-6747; Jan. 22, 1971, p. 132). A law passed by the existing 
Congress has been recognized as of binding force in matters of procedure 
(II, 1341; V, 6767, 6768); but when a law passed by a preceding Congress 
presumes to lay down a rule of procedure the House has been inclined to 
doubt its binding force (V, 6766), and in one case the Chair denied the 
authority of such a law that conflicted with a rule of the House 



  As to the participation on occasions of ceremony, the House has 
entered its orders on its journal; but it rarely attends outside the 
Capitol building as a body, usually preferring that its Members go 
individually (V, 7061-7064) or that it be represented by a committee (V, 
7053-7056). It has discussed, but not settled, its power to compel a 
Member to accompany it without the Hall on an occasion of combined 
business and ceremony (II, 1139). But the House remains in session for 
the inauguration of the President on the portico of the Capitol (Jan. 
20, 1969, pp. 1288-92) and the mace is carried to the ceremony.