Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.(As an aside, the 20th Amendment also deals with unique cases of Presidential transition of power if the President-elect dies before being sworn in. In this case, the VP-elect becomes President). But back to the issue at hand.
Prior to the passage of the 20th Amendment, Congressional terms began on the 4th day of March. Imagine a Congress with a 3-month lame-duck session! Of course, transportation advanced considerably over the centuries, so what may have made sense in the 18-19th centuries was less of a limiting factor in the 20th century. On its face, if you were to simply read the amendment, it would not be obvious that the intent of the amendment was to limit or eliminate the so-called lame duck session. (The lame duck controversy has quite a colorful history that dates back almost to the beginning of our Nation, the most famous of which were the "midnight appointments" of outgoing President John Adams, leading to the famous Supreme Court case of Marbury vs. Madison). Still, it is worth a moment to take a look at just a couple of the annotations from the Senate Committee on the Judiciary regarding the amendment (emphasis mine):
"[W]hen our Constitution was adopted there was some reason for such a long intervention of time between the election and the actual commencement of work by the new Congress.... Under present conditions [of communication and transportation] the result of elections is known all over the country within a few hours after the polls close, and the Capital City is within a few days' travel of the remotest portions of the country....The Committee understood that the primary business of Congress was to dispose of the regular appropriation bills, and were concerned in part that starting in March left little time for other general legislation. At least back then it seems they understood what the priorities were. Modern Congresses now push appropriation bills to the last minute, at the end of their largely partisan agenda. But the last bolded statement above still applies as a truism, even if their objective was a longer legislative session. The fact is, we have a Congress determined to legislate on their way out of office.
"Another effect of the amendment would be to abolish the so-called short session of Congress.... Every other year, under our Constitution, the terms of Members of the House and one-third of the Members of the Senate expire on the 4th day of March.... Experience has shown that this brings about a very undesirable legislative condition. It is a physical impossibility during such a short session for Congress to give attention to much general legislation for the reason that it requires practically all of the time to dispose of the regular appropriation bills.... The result is a congested condition that brings about either no legislation or illy considered legislation....
Imagine if our elected Representatives and Senators actually abided at least by the spirit of the 20th Amendment, perhaps reserving any post-election legislative session agendas only to transition activities or national emergency items. In my dream world theory, Congress would then be forced to do their primary legislative work - including the annual budget appropriations - by October at the latest. Carrying my fantasy further, the result would be fiscal budgets and appropriations at the beginning of the fiscal year (October) rather than a series of ongoing continuing resolutions to keep the government running, which really is just a series of political posturing, threats and point scoring that wreaks havoc among the agencies that, oh by the way, are required by law to have their budgets in one to two years ahead of time.
I for one think that as far as major business in an election year, Congress should be forced to finish their primary job by October, go home to campaign, and by and large, take the rest of the year off. It simply doesn't seem right that a lame-duck session, run by politicians who have been voted out of power, should still have control of spending. If they had done their jobs in the first place, we wouldn't face the specter of government shutdowns and irresponsible legislation - and frankly, we'd have a lot less end-of-year political drama. Now, I want to be clear that this Congress, because of what I view as poor prioritization, has important business to wrap up - extension of tax cuts, appropriations bills, unemployment benefits (I have mixed feelings on the last one) - but I submit this work should have been done months ago. Nevertheless, allow me to restate that for all intents and purposes, modern Congresses are effectively ignoring the spirit of the 20th Amendment. And sadly, that's a reality that is not going to change, because to be sure, the Constitution does nowhere explicitly prohibit the lame-duck session.
It would be nice if Congresses could take a cue from the Executive at the time of transition. Lame-duck presidents, to my limited recollection, have often shied away from major decisions and actions apart from at least some discussions or consultations with the President-elect. Yes, there is only one President at a time, and he makes the decisions. But Presidents by and large have offered the courtesy of consultation to their successors during that transition period. (This would be interesting to research sometime). Somehow, I just don't see Congress showing such comity.
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