Congressional government : $b a study in American politicsWilson, Woodrow
History
Congressional government : $b a study in American politics
Wilson, Woodrow
Executive power -- United States; United States -- Politics and government; United States. Congress
Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, whose long congressional experience
entitles him to speak with authority, calculates[19] that, "supposing
the two sessions which make up the life of the House to last ten
months," most of the Committees have at their disposal during each
Congress but two hours apiece in which "to report upon, debate, and
dispose of all the subjects of general legislation committed to their
charge." For of course much time is wasted. No Congress gets immediately
to work upon its first assembling. It has its officers to elect, and
after their election some time must elapse before its organization is
finally completed by the appointment of the Committees. It adjourns for
holidays, too, and generally spares itself long sittings. Besides, there
are many things to interrupt the call of the Committees upon which most
of the business waits. That call can proceed only during the morning
hours,--the hours just after the reading of the "Journal,"--on Tuesdays,
Wednesdays, and Thursdays; and even then it may suffer postponement
because of the unfinished business of the previous day which is entitled
to first consideration. The call cannot proceed on Mondays because the
morning hour of Mondays is devoted invariably to the call of the States
for the introduction of bills and resolutions; nor on Fridays, for
Friday is "private bill day," and is always engrossed by the Committee
on Claims, or by other fathers of bills which have gone upon the
"private calendar." On Saturdays the House seldom sits.
The reports made during these scant morning hours are ordered to be
printed, for future consideration in their turn, and the bills
introduced by the Committees are assigned to the proper calendars, to be
taken up in order at the proper time. When a morning hour has run out,
the House hastens to proceed with the business on the Speaker's table.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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