"Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members,and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting." US Constitution Article 1 Section 5
There are at 4 different clauses in Section 5 which lay out how Congress is to be regulated.
In Clause 1 it was the intent of our ancestors that each chamber of Congress should be the final arbiter of whether each of its members won a fair and free election. Losing congressional and senate candidates actually have a right to request the respective chamber to take a look at how the election was handled for that seat. In response the chamber would audit the election and the Constitution requires states to hand over to the chamber any and all information and evidence the chamber needs to conduct its audit. Part of the audit includes ensuring that the winner meets to Constitutional requirements for holding the seat. Each chamber is empowered by the Constitution to have representatives at the local level for the purpose of monitoring the election.
Just after the Civil War there was a dispute about the seating of certain Senators that almost caused the collapse of the United States. The question was what to do with Senators who expressed support for secession or who had resigned because their states had seceeded. None of the Senators were expelled but their withdrawals were instead treated as resignations and declared vacant. Some states sent new Senators. It is a bit off that a person says they don't want to be part of the US while at the same wanting to sit in the US Senate. A large block of Senators argued that if a state leaves the Union they are no longer entitled to representation in the US Senate. Others were violently opposed to secession and called for genocide against the seceding states to punish them. But most of it was muted by the Civil War. Later the reconquered Southern States were allowed back into the Senate after the end of the war. In at least one case the expulsions were later repealed and the Senator's children were financially compensated for it. The main thing that got the ten Senators expelled was their failure to show up for their job in the US Senate. As the clause states, each chamber has the right to expell members who don't show up to conduct business. Though it takes 2/3 vote to expell a member.
Part of its power to audit elections, each chamber can actually order a state to hold a new election which actually happened in the 80's when the Democrat majority House overturned election results and tried to install one of their own in the seat. The Republicans filibustered, forcing the Senate to instead order the state to hold a new election.
In clause 2, the Constitution empowers each chamber to establish and enforce rules upon its members. As noted, expelling a member takes a 2/3 vote of the whole Senate. This includes the power to punish a member for disorderly conduct up and including expulsion. However, in accordance with 1969's Powell vs McCormack no member of Congress can be expelled or punished for things they did before they were elected to the Congress which why the Democrat's stripping Marjorie Taylor Greene of her Committee assignments was actually unconstitutional. However they can punish her and seek expulsion for current conduct she is engaged in.
.Most people are not aware that Congress can actually compel the attendance of members. To this day only 5 House members and 20 Senators have actually been expelled for disorderly behavior and or failure to attend sessions of Congress. These are political actions and don't require any criminal convictions in court.
Clause 2 also empowers each chamber to decide on the rules for how to conduct its business.
Clause 3 requires the US Congress to keep open records on all matters except those pertaining to national security. The records must be accessible to the general public. The ancestors of Ethnic Americans were way ahead of their time on this issue. This clause was the first open and public records law in the history of the entire world. As an American citizen you have an Article 1 Section 5 Clause 3 right to view all Congressional records that have no connection to national security. This was included in order to keep the politicians that are sent to Washington honest and free from corruption. Today there are other types of public access to Congressional information besides the Constitutionally mandated open and public record. As part of the public accountability requirement of the US Constitution, just one fifth of members of each chamber can require a roll call vote on legislation so that voters can see how their incumbent represenatives voted. Other than national security there is almost no other justification that would allow a chamber to keep its proceedings on a specific matter confidential. One such issue could be impeachment deliberations but only during the time of the actual deliberations. Once the impeachment is over and the decision given, the record of deliberations on why members reached their decisions must be made available to the general public. Even their deliberations during election audits must be made available to the general public.
The fourth clause prohibits each chamber from adjourning or recessing to another location without the agreement of the other chamber. This was put in place to prevent one chamber from trying to obstruct the other from doing its jobs. It usually takes a joint resolution of both chambers to adjourn Congress. In the recent decade, the Senate has on two occasions refused the House request for a recess because the Senate wanted to block Presidents Obama and Trump from making recess appointments. Again the need for public transparency and accountability were at play when the founders who are the ancestors of today's Ethnic Americans included this provision. In the US, no branch and no level of government whether it be federal, state or local has the right or powr to operate in secret with no accountability to voters.
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