Member may be appointed on, before he sworn. adopt an order "that the Speaker be authorized to appoint the regular standing committees." And after adopting such order, it is usual for the House to adjourn over for two or three days to enable him to make the appointments.] Before a return be made a member elected may be is named of a committee, and is to every extent a member, except that he cannot vote until he is sworn.—Manual, p. 61. [While this is the law, it has not been a common practice in the House to appoint a member on a committee until he has been sworn.] Who shall be chairman of committee. a excused from mittee. "The first-named member of any committee shall be the chairman; and in his absence, or being excused by the House, the next named member, and so on, as often as the case shall happen, unless the committee, by a majority of their number, elect a chairman."-Rule 68. Who may be "Any member may excuse himself from serving on serving on a com- any committee at the time of his appointment, if he is then a member of two other committees.”—Rule 69. [And under the practice, it is sufficient for him to offer such an excuse at any subsequent period of the session.] "It shall be the duty of a committee to meet on the call of any two of its members, if the chairman be absent, or decline to appoint such meeting."-Rule 70. Who shall call a meeting of a committee. Committees shall not sit while without leave. "No committee shall sit during the sitting of the House is sitting House without special leave.”—Rule 72. And "so soon as the House sits, and a committee is notified of it, the chairman is in duty bound to rise instantly, and the members, to attend the service of the House."-Manual, p. 70. [But upon the suggestion to the House by a member of a committee that it is important to the dispatch of public business that they should have such leave, it is usually granted, especially near the close of the session.] "Committees may be appointed to sit during the recess by adjournment, but not by prorogation. Neither house can continue any portion of itself in any parlia mentary function beyond the end of the session without the consent of the other two branches. When done, it is by a bill constituting them commissioners for the particular purpose.”—Manual, p. 136. [This has been Committees sitting during re cess. construed (and, in view of the distinction which exists between a "session" of Parliament and of Congress, very properly so) not to restrain a committee of the House, with the leave of the House, from sitting during the recess between a first and second session of Congress.](See Journal, 1, 32, p. 1119.) "No committee shall be permitted to employ a clerk Clerks of comat the public expense without first obtaining leave of mittees. thr House for that purpose."-Rule 73. [Such leave is usually granted to a portion of the committees for a part or the whole of the session, as they may deem the service necessary; and six of the committees have permanent clerks, viz: of Claims, by resolution of February 18, 1843; of Ways and Means, by resolution of February 18, 1856; and on Public Lands, by resolution of May 27, 1862; on Appropriations, by resolution of December 12, 1865; on War Claims, Journal, 1, 43, p. 267; and on Invalid Pensions, Ibid., p. 1223.] "When a resolution shall be offered or a motion made Precedence of different motions to refer any subject, and different committees shall be to refer. proposed, the question shall be taken in the following order: the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union; the Committee of the Whole House; a standing committee; a select committee."-Rule 43. [But where more than one standing committee is proposed, the last one proposed is first voted upon, as an amendment to strike out and insert.] Precedence of motion to commit over other mo tions, and of oth "When a question is under debate, no motion shall be received but to adjourn, to lie on the table, for the previous question, to postpone to a day certain, to com- ers over it. mit or amend, to postpone indefinitely; which several motions shall have precedence in the order in which they are arranged; and no motion to postpone to a day certain, to commit, or to postpone indefinitely, being decided, shall be again allowed on the same day, and at the same stage of the bill or proposition."-Rule 42. "Upon the second reading of a bill, the Speaker shall state it as ready for commitment."-Rule 118. Motion to compeated at mit not to be re same stage on same day. A bill, when ready for commitment. tion brings the "After the previous question is ordered, if no motion. Previous questo postpone is pending, the House is first brought to a to Vote commit. first on motion to direct vote on the motion to commit, if such motion shall have been made.”—Rule 132. Committee can only act when met together. A quorum of a committee. "A committee meet when and where they please, if the House has not ordered time and place for them; but they can only act when together, and not by separate consultation and consent, nothing being the report of a committee but what has been agreed to in committee actually assembled.”—Manual, p. 89. "A majority of the committee constitutes a quorum Not necessary for business."-Manual, p. 89. But it is not necessary that committee be full. member was no that the committee shall be full when a paper is acted Nor that every upon.―Journal, 1, 34, p. 1143. Nor is it even necessary tified of an ad- that every member shall have been notified of an adjourned meeting. journed meeting, if it shall appear that at such meeting a quorum was present, and that a majority of such quorum authorized a report to be made.-Same Journal, pp. 1433, 1434. Sub-committees. Petitions, how to be referred to committees. Committees very frequently appoint sub-committees to make investigations,] and in such case no member of the committee, as a matter of right, can take for examination papers referred to a sub-committee.-Cong. Globe, 1, 39, p. 4019. "A committee cannot receive a petition but through the House."-Manual, p. 70. "Members having petitions and memorials to present may hand them to the Clerk, indorsing the same, with their names, and the reference or disposition to be made thereof; and such petitions and memorials shall be entered on the Journal, subject to the control and direction of the Speaker."-Rule 131. [This is the only mode of presenting a petition for reference now recognized by the rules. The rule, however, is construed to authorize the withdrawal of old papers from the files, for the purpose of reference to the appropriate committee. And, in this connection, it may not be improper to call attention to that portion of this rule which Members should requires that the name of the member and that of the compers referred by mittee shall be indorsed upon the paper to be referred. "The Clerk may deliver the bill to any member of the creator: committee, but it is usual to deliver it to him who is first named."-Manual, p. 89. [In the House of Representa indorse the pa them. Matters refer ered committee. tives the long-settled practice has been, where the committee have a regular place of meeting, as is the case with all the standing committees, for the Clerk to take down to the committee-room and deposit there all matters referred to said committee, and make an entry of the same in the docket of the committee; and when they have no committee-room, as is the case with some of the select committees, to deliver the matter referred to the chairman.] It is not competent for the House to instruct a comNot competent to instruct committee to amend a bill in a manner that the House itself mittee to do what House itself cancannot amend it.-Journal, 2, 35, p. 389. [Indeed, it is not do. the well-settled practice that the House cannot instruct a committee to do what the House itself cannot do.] A division of the question is not in order on motion to commit or recommit with instructions, or on the different branches of instructions.-Journals, 1, 17, p. 507; 1, 31, pp. 1395, 1397; and, 1, 32, p. 611. To commit with instructions n divisible. How amendnoted by a com ments are to be mittee. "The committee may not erase, interline, or blot the bill itself, but must, in a paper by itself, set down the amendments, stating the words which are to be inserted or omitted, and where, by reference to the page, line, and word of the bill."-Manual, p. 91. "When a vote is once passed in a committee it cannot No reconsiderbe altered but by the House, their votes being binding on themselves."-Manual, p. 91. "If the committee are opposed to the whole paper, and think it cannot be made good by amendments, they cannot reject it, but must report it back to the House without amendments, and there make their opposition."Manual, p. 99. ation of a vote in committee. Committee cannot reject a paper. not change title or "The committee have full power over the bill or other Committee canpaper, except that they cannot change the title or sub- subject. ject."-Manual, p. 89. what order com port. As soon as the Journal is read, and the unfinished When and in business in which the House was engaged at the last mittees are to repreceding adjournment has been disposed of, reports from committees shall be called for and disposed of; in doing which the Speaker shall call upon each standing committee in the following order, viz: Committee of Elections. Committee of Ways and Means. Committee on Banking and Currency. Committee on the Pacific Railroad. Committee of Claims. Committee on Commerce. Committee on the Public Lands. Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads. Committee on the District of Columbia. (Omitted in call. See Rule 82.) Committee on the Judiciary. Committee on War Claims. Committee on Public Expenditures. Committee on Private Land-Claims. Committee on Manufactures. Committee on Agriculture. Committee on Indian Affairs. Committee on Military Affairs. Committee on the Militia. Committee on Naval Affairs. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Committee on the Territories. Committee on Revolutionary Pensions. Committee on Invalid Pensions. Committee on Railways and Canals. Committee on Mines and Mining. Committee on Freedmen's Affairs. Committee on Education and Labor. Committee on the Revision of the Laws. Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures. Committee on Patents. Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds. Committee of Accounts. Committee on Mileage. Committee on Printing. Committee on Enrolled Bills. Committee on the Library of Congress. Committee on Expenditures in the State Department. |