[Constitution, Jefferson's Manual, and the Rules of the House of Representatives, 116th Congress]
[116th Congress]
[House Document 115-177]
[Jeffersons Manual of ParliamentaryPractice]
[Pages 202-205]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 202]]

                     sec. xviii--orders of the house



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). If 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. 32129; Nov. 7, 2009, pp. 27189, 27190). 
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, pp. 9888, 9889).


[[Page 203]]

  Absent an existing order for that purpose, a Member may not demand 
that the galleries be cleared, because 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 chair of the Committee of the Whole (clause 1 of 
rule XVIII), but not to the individual Member.




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



  The rule of the House providing for raising the question of 
consideration (clause 3 of rule XVI) has, in connection with the 
practice as to special orders of business, superseded this provision of 
the parliamentary law.




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 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 XIV. The House proceeds under rule XIV 
unless that order is displaced by the use of special orders of business 
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 is 
concerned, because business goes on uninterruptedly until the Congress 
expires (clause 6 of rule XI).


[[Page 204]]

corpus. Raym., 120; Jacob's L. D. by 
Ruffhead; Parliament, 1 Lev., 165, Pitchara's case.



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 





beyond the adjournment of the session, but not beyond the term of the 
existing House (II, 1628).

  The House, by clause 6 of rule XI and the practice thereunder, has 
modified the rule of Parliament as to business pending at the end of a 
session that is not at the same time the end of a Congress. Some 
standing orders, however, like those providing for the hour of daily 
meeting of the House (I, 104-109), expire with a session. 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




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 205]]

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 also has 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). Congress may bind 
itself in matters of procedure (II, 1341; V, 6767, 6768), but its 
ability to so bind a succeeding Congress has been called into doubt (V, 
6766). In one case the Chair denied the authority of such a law that 
conflicted with a rule of the House (IV, 3579). 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). In modern practice, existing statutory procedures, including 
provisions of concurrent resolutions, are readopted as Rules of the 
House at the beginning of each Congress (see, e.g., H. Res. 6, Jan. 4, 
1995, p. 462).

This practice was codified in clause 1 of rule XXVIII (current rule 
XXIX) when the House recodified its rules in the 106th Congress (H. Res. 
5, Jan. 6, 1999, p. 75, see Sec. 1105, 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, 1993, p. 22719).


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

  The  House has frequently examined its constitutional power to make 
rules, and this power also has been discussed by the Supreme Court (V, 
6755). It has been settled that Congress 





  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 (July 25, 2002, p. 14645), usually preferring 
that its Members go individually (V, 7061-7064) or that it be 
represented by a committee (V, 7053-7056) or other delegation (May 28, 
1987, p. 14031). It has discussed, but not settled, its power to compel 
a Member to accompany it outside 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.