Hello, and welcome back to the Civic Flame. IÕm your host, Dr. Amber and IÕm coming to you as the government continues to be shut down, and just a few days after 7 million people were out in the streets across the US protesting. ItÕs a wild time to be an American, but I am happy to hear that among the No Kings protests, the only people causing mayhem and getting arrested were people attacking the protestors. It takes a lot to get 7 million folks out to protests and even more to get them to do so in a way that doesnÕt break any laws or cause any damage. So, while Congress may be mucking about it looks like the people are still up and taking that. Civic responsibility seriously. Speaking of Congress, weÕre getting towards the end of the longest part of the U.S. Constitution, Article 1 or the Legislative Branch today with section 4 through 6 today! LetÕs talk about some of CongressÕ powers and responsibilities and some questions about what they can do next. LetÕs go! (intro music) WeÕll start with Article 1, section 4. Section 4 deals with elections and says, ÒTimes, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.Ó This section is kind of vague in terms of elections, but it gets expanded on in a lot of statutes and federal law. Statutes are laws passed by the legislature (so in this case Congress, but if itÕs a state law, then by your state legislature). If you take a look at the US Code (which you can do like I do on the Cornell law school website law.cornell.edu, or on the Senate website at Senate.gov or just google US code), youÕll find the public laws of the US broken up in to 54 Titles or subjects. Title 2 deals with Congress and has 65 chapters (yikes!). The nine sections of chapter 1 deal with elections. Section 7 deals with the time of elections and says: The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election, in each of the States and Territories of the United States, of Representatives and Delegates to the Congress commencing on the 3d day of January next thereafter. What this does is clarify what the Constitution requires and standardize the elections across the states. Why? Because elections are expensive and we donÕt want to run more of them if we donÕt have to, and if you have too many elections, people arenÕt going to show up. So we try to put all the federal elections on the same day across the country (part of an equal protection thing) and really important state elections get put on the state ballot (to save the states some money and attention span rather than getting their own elections). You may notice that states can have different times for primary elections, and that is because those have a lot more to do with what is going on at the state level. Remember that primary means 1st. So a primary is your first election and usually against your own part (so D vs D and R vs R). This leads to some problems in our political system because the most partisan (most D or the Ds and most R of the Rs) is the person who usually wins in the primary, but thatÕs a story for a different time. What you need to know here is that primaries are usually set by the state so they can be different days. This is why in presidential elections youÕll see the candidate polling ahead in New Hampshire or Iowa but itÕs still a little while until what we call ÒSuper TuesdayÓ where a lot of states vote. After the time/place/manner clause, the next paragraph of section 4 is about the start date of Congress but was changed by the 20th Amendment to the Constitution so that now, the new session of Congress starts on the 3rd of January rather than the first Monday in December. Those guys have a nice long Christmas vacation! If you go to Article 1, Section 4 on the National Constitution Center wesite they have a section dedicated to common interpretations, which is basically what I said above. But they also have two interesting debates on state-v-federal power works through election timing and the role of legislatures in making these decisions. If youÕre going to be a real Constitutional nerd, youÕll need to get into some of these things. But if youÕre just coming along with me for the nerd-lite journey, weÕre heading on to Section 5 which deals with CongressÕs duties. (Yes, I really want to me a juvenile doodie jokeÉdonÕt judge.) Section 5 stats with rules about quaroum (how many people you need in attendance before you can officially get to work) and compelling absent members of the house. The next section is how you get all those committees that Congress works through. It says, ÒEach House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.Ó This can, obviously be a big deal, and after the Civil War definitely led to some fights. But basically, to preserve the separation of powers, the House and the Senate are supposed to keep their own HousesÑor chambersÑin order. After the January 6th insurrection, there were some questions about whether the House was going to expel some of its more insurrectionist-sympathizer members, but not too much happened on that front except a few people being removed from committee assignments for a while. The next section is about the journal or record of proceedings that the houses have to keep, and the last section deals with adjournment. And says, ÒNeither 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.Ó This sounds boring and weird but is actually kind of interesting. Because whatever passes the House and the Senate must be identical they need to work together. But we know they donÕt always. So, the founders basically said, they canÕt resort to trickery by closing down one house and not the other. Meaning, if anyone wanted to try and skip town rather than vote, they couldnÕt. This has also been used to block some presidential powers. The president has what is called a Òrecess appointment.Ó This means that when Congress is on recess, the President can temporarily appoint a person to a job that would normally need Congressional approval, without Congressional approval. In 2027 Drmocrat and then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did this to stop George W. Bush from using his recess power, and because bad ideas like to spread across political parties, in 2012, the Republicans in the Senate did the same thing to Barack Obama. You may be asking: is the entire US political system controlled by toddlers? No, of course not. If you give them a nap and a cookie, toddlers become reasonable people. The United States government on the other hand will not. Section 6 goes away from specific responsibilities and talks about money. The first part of section 6 basically says we need to pay them and cannot arrest them except under certain circumstances: ÒThe Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.Ó The next part of section six is the emoluments clause. In this case emoluments are like extra money. They get compensation, as the first part says, but the emoluments clause is supposed to keep them from profiting from their office beyond whatever their salary is. So if you think of how CEOs get bonuses in addition to their regular pay, the regular pay is income and the bonus because it is extra would be considered an emolument. There are lots of controversies over this, as you would imagine. One of the reasons Nancy Pelosi is considered a DINO (democrat in name only) is because she has regularly stood against stricter regulations on stock trading by members of Congress. The Brenan Center for Justice has an article by Maya Kornberg called ÒCongressional Stock Trading, Explained,Ó and I recommend it because it does, well, explain whatÕs up with Congressional stock trading. But this is just one of the many questions about emoluments in Congress. Other questions include trips, campaign finance issues, jobs for staff members, promises of jobs after oneÕs term is up, and so forth. Given the role of lobbying in the United States (where interest groups can use money to get the attention of political actors), itÕs often hard to determine what is an emolument and what is just business as usual (maybe itÕs all emoluments and we need to rethink the economic structure of Congress). (transition music) So, thatÕs some of the nitty gritty stuff that goes on in Congress. Next week weÕre going to talk about some of that money stuff from Section 7 and the major section that give Congress its powers in section 8. The week after, weÕll do sections 9 and 10 and then, can you believe it? Move on to the presidency. In the meantime, share this widely. I deleted my facebook account and it definitely took a hit on getting the podcast out there. I also deleted TikTok, I guess that really is a young manÕs game. But you can still follow me at @drfunsponge on Blue Sky, Instagram, Substack, and Youtube. I hope to see you out there! Will the government shutdown end before we finish talking about the Constitution? Who knows. But stay tuned to find out. Until then, keep the civic flame burning bright. (outro) The Civic Flame is a Dr Fun Sponge production in collaboration with Writer Amber Vayo and Sound Producer Matthew Munyon. As always, thank you for listening.