Appointments. Common ally protracted the discussion, and delayed much-needed action for purely selfish or partisan motives.1 306. Special Powers of the Senate. - A large part of the authority and influence of the Senate is derived from its Bryce, Am. power to confirm all important appointments made by the President. Because of the double system of choosing officials (§ 326) there has become fixed a custom called senatorial courtesy which leaves with the senators the actual selection of most persons holding national offices within their States. wealth, abr. ed., 44-46, 80-84. Treaties. Reinsch, latures, 94-107. Trial of impeach ment cases. As we have seen (§§ 228, 229), treaties are made by the President through the Department of State, but they do not take effect until approved by two thirds of the Senate. The Senate is a real power in treaty making, as it never hesitates to amend any articles or reject an entire treaty. When acting upon presidential appointments or discussing treaties, the Senate goes into executive session, the doors being closed and the proceedings remaining secret. In addition to these executive duties, the Senate has one Am. Legis of a distinctly judicial nature. When any "civil officer" of the United States government is impeached by the House of Representatives for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes, or misdemeanors," the Senate sits as a court and hears the testimony for and against the official. No official can be convicted except by a vote of two thirds of all the senators present, and conviction carries with it only removal from office and disability to hold any other office under the United States, but the person may then be tried for crime like any other individual. Although the framers of the Constitution were sincere in their belief that impeachment could be relied upon as a valuable check upon public servants, the method has been used but seven times in all, Constitu tion, Art. I, 1This filibustering is especially likely to come at the close of the short session, which must end on March 4. In the closing days of the first session of the LX Congress, however, one of the opposition senators spoke eighteen hours. with only two convictions. By far the most interesting trial upon impeachment by the House was that of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, in 1868. of Vice President. The Senate is called upon to elect a Vice President when- Election ever the electors fail to do so. The choice is limited to the two persons receiving the greatest number of electoral votes. At least two thirds of the senators must be pres- Constituent, and the person elected must have a majority of all tion, the senators, whether present or not. Only once in our XII. history (1837) has it been necessary for the Senate to ballot for Vice President. Amendment Except in relation to just one subject, the Senate has the Financial same powers of legislation as the House. "All bills for powers. raising revenues shall originate in the House of Representa- Constitutives, but the Senate may propose or concur with amend- tion, Art. I, ments, as on other bills.” §7, cl. 1. THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 307. General Character of the House. powers. The larger branch Composition of Congress, called the House of Representatives, is a body and special of almost 400 members elected every two years from districts of nearly equal population. The representation from any State depends upon its population, but every State has at least one representative. In the making of the ordinary laws, the House has equal power with the Senate. Because it is the more popular body, it has the right to originate all money bills (§ 249), to elect a President in case the electoral college fails of a choice (§ 321), and to bring articles 1 The two persons convicted were both district judges of the United States. Pickering, judge for New Hampshire (1804), charged with drunk. enness and profanity, and Humphreys, judge for Tennessee (1862), for disloyalty. Five others have been tried on impeachment-Chase, justice of the Supreme Court (1805); Peck, district judge for Missouri (1830); Johnson, President of the United States (1868); Belknap, Secretary of War (1876); and Swayne, district judge for Florida (1906)—all of whom were acquitted. In 1797 Senator Blount of Tennessee was impeached by the House, but the Senate decided by a vote of 15 to 11 that congressmen were not "civil officers of the United States." Apportionment of representatives. Constitu tion, Art. I, § 2, cl. 3; Amendment XIV, § 2. Reinsch, Hart, Actual Nominations and elections. Constitu tion, Art. I, § 2, cl. 2. of impeachment against any civil officer for treason or for high misdemeanors in office (§ 306). The number of representatives to which any State may be entitled is determined by the population as shown in the decennial census.1 Congress selects some number as a ratio, and divides that number into the population of each State, granting the States representatives not only for the number given in the quotient, but for all additional fractions of more than one half. In 1901, this ratio was fixed at 1 to 194,182, a ratio which possessed the merit of not decreasing the representation in any State, although adding 29 to the membership of the House, making 391 members for that body, after five were added for Oklahoma in 1907. If a State's representation is changed by any reapportionment, the legislature at the next session divides the State into the proper number of districts, each of which must, according to the congressional law, contain as nearly the same population as possible, and be compact and contiguous. This is to prevent, so far as may be, the evils of gerrymandering, which unscrupulous majorities in state legislatures are willing to employ for their own benefit (§ 32). 308. The Election of Representatives. — Except in three States, the congressional elections occur on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November in the even-numbered years. The nominations of candidates are almost invariably made by conventions of delegates from the towns or precincts of which the district is composed. No one is nominated unless he is a resident of the State, at least twenty-five years of age, and has been a citizen of the United States at least seven years, for the national Constitution expressly states that these shall be the minimum qualifications of representatives. 1 Until the abolition of slavery in 1865, five slaves were counted as equal to three white persons for purposes of apportionment, the representation from the South being therefore proportionally smaller before the Civil War than since that time. According to the XIV Amendment, any State which denies to any of its adult male citizens the right to vote shall have its representation in the House reduced in the proportion that the number of excluded citizens bears to the total of male citizens over twentyone years of age. This provision has never been applied. Those who may vote Who may represent There is no national suffrage law. for members of the lower house of the state legislature may vote for vote also for congressmen. This leaves the question of suf- atives. frage wholly with the States, subject to the restriction of the XV Amendment of the United States Constitution that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Constitu tion, Art. I § 2, cl. 1. elections. The candidate who, upon the face of the returns, receives a plu- Process of rality of the votes cast, receives a certificate of election from the gov- deciding ernor of the State, and is permitted to take his seat in the House contested when that body is organized. If an unsuccessful candidate disputes his election, the case is carried before a House Committee on Elections, without, however, interfering with the successful candidate's right to attend sessions and vote. A liberal sum is allowed by Congress to each of the contestants to prove his claims, and often several weeks elapse before all the evidence has been taken. The committee then reports to the House, and, quite frequently by a party vote, the House decides who is entitled to the seat. Hart, Actual Gov't, § 108. Bryce, Am. Commonwealth, abr. ed., 309. The Speaker. At the beginning of each Congress, Selection and powers. the most important task of the House is to elect its Speaker. This officer, who presides over the deliberations of the House, is probably more powerful than any other person connected with our system of governments, with the sole exception of the President of the United States. He is the leader of the majority, and is selected by a caucus of the majority before Congress meets, his election in the House being therefore of a formal nature. His chief powers are four in number. (1) He appoints all of the committees and selects the chair- 104-107. men. (2) He assigns to the different committees the bills which the House wishes to commit. This gives him an opportunity, if two chairmen desire to investigate and report upon the same bill, to select the committee most in sympathy with his own views. (3) He recognizes whom he pleases on the floor of the House, and in consequence may easily limit the debate of the opposition upon any bill Powers. McCona chie, Cong. 191-207. by refusing to give the floor to one of their number. The House has found it necessary to give the Speaker this somewhat arbitrary authority in order to protect itself from the debating "filibusterer," who can in this way be silenced almost as effectually as by the previous question (§ 295). (4) The Speaker is the chairman of the Committee on Rules, the most powerful of the House committees. 310. The Committee on Rules practically arranges the program of business for the House. It decides what committee shall be allowed to report on a certain day and what length of time shall be given for discussing the report. By Committees, discriminating between the reports of committees and giving the time of the House to those that it deems important, it enables the House to make headway with the vast number of bills reported back to it, and saves it from frittering away its time on non-essential measures. In other words, it does for the reports of the committees what each committee does with the bills assigned to it—sifts out those that need attention, and secures action upon these. Composition. Members. Haynes, Election of 71-99. The Committee on Rules consists of five of the ablest and most experienced representatives, but the real power of the committee rests with the Speaker and the two other members belonging to the dominant party, for these three are, to all intent and purposes, the committee. RELATIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS 311. The Senate. Perhaps the most striking characteristics of the Senate are its permanence and its conservatism. Because of the method of election, at least two thirds of the senators are always men who have seen service. Reëlection of members is much more common than for the lower house, partly because the senators are chosen by a small body of office holders and partly because a State loses greatly by changing senators. Since promotion on committees depends on continuity of service, the best chair |