“Oh, THAT…”

We know that our elected officials don’t think it is important for them to read the bills they vote for (or against.) That’s irresponsible, but this is illegal: as pointed out by Thomas Beck in the Wall Street Journal, both Houses of Congress, but especially the Senate, defy the most basic Parliamentary rule of all, one that is mandated in the Constitution. The requirement: having  more than 50% of members present, a quorum, in order to do business.

Beck:

“Congress has ignored the quorum requirement for decades, yet neither the president nor the courts has questioned the practice. The one time the Supreme Court was called upon to apply the quorum requirement was in the 1892 case of United States v. Ballin. A statute was challenged on the basis that, while a majority was present in the House when the act was passed, a majority didn’t cast votes on it. A unanimous Supreme Court explained that what matters is whether a majority is present: ‘All that the Constitution requires is the presence of a majority, and when that majority are present the power of the House arises.’

“How do the Senate and House sidestep the need for this majority requirement? They presume that a quorum is present unless the absence of a quorum is affirmatively established. Yet while the Constitution grants each chamber the authority to establish its own procedural rules, this authority isn’t a license to avoid constitutional mandates. In Ballin the court noted that a chamber ‘may not by its rules ignore constitutional restraints or violate fundamental rights.’ More recent cases have confirmed this principle. In Powell v. McCormack (1969), the Supreme Court prohibited the House from imposing qualifications for membership beyond those expressly set forth in the Constitution.

“James Madison’s journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 chronicles the Framers’ thinking about the quorum requirement. As the Constitution was being drafted and debated, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts suggested that a quorum should be less than a majority, ‘otherwise great delay might happen in business.'” In response, George Mason of Virginia explained that ‘it would be dangerous . . . to allow a small number of members of the two houses to make laws.’ Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut supported the majority quorum requirement as a way to assure the people that ‘no law or burden could be imposed on them by a few men.’ Mason and Ellsworth had it right. The cumbersome procedural requirements in the Constitution were designed to elevate the freedom of the people over the convenience of the government. This is why a new law must pass through two legislative chambers instead of one, and it is why the executive is given veto power even after legislation has cleared both chambers.

“These constraints create delay and often block legislation. Yet the Framers understood what is sometimes overlooked today: Government functions through legalized coercion. The Framers crafted a Constitution that would make it difficult for the government to exercise its coercive power. Simply put, if a matter is important enough to deserve congressional attention, taking action warrants the attendance of at least a majority of our elected representatives.”

I don’t see any valid argument against Beck’s assertions, which are non-partisan, factual and objective. Nor do I see any valid argument against these assertions, which are mine:

• The fact that Congress cavalierly dispenses with such a basic and substantive Constitutional requirement shows that we are governed by a dangerously arrogant, sloppy, careless and irresponsible political class that does not have either requisite respect for our founding documents, or sufficient knowledge of their contents—take your pick.

• The fact that no Senator or House member has challenged this blatant Constitutional violation when it occurs is damning, and shows a national government dangerously unconcerned with observing the legal limits on its own power.

• No President should sign any bill passed without a quorum present, and is violating the Constitution to do so.

• The fact that the alleged watchdogs on our government’s conduct—the “objective” news media—have been either unaware of or unconcerned with the violation noted by Beck shows how poorly the American public is being served by that institution, and…

• The fact that Beck’s article and observation was barely noted anywhere else in the news media demonstrates how little concerned journalists are with the integrity of our Constitutional republic.

Finally, what Beck has revealed is smoking gun evidence of a national government devoid of leadership, integrity, seriousness and competence. There are others, such as the sequester and the impasse over the nation’s debt crisis, but this is the worst: proof that we are burdened with a government that can’t be bothered to follow the legal requirements that accompanied its own creation.

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Facts: Wall Street Journal