Article One of the United States Constitution
Article One of the United States Constitution establishes the legislative branch of the federal government, the United States Congress. Under Article One, Congress is a bicameral legislature consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Article One grants Congress various enumerated powers and the ability to pass laws "necessary and proper" to carry out those powers. Article One also establishes the procedures for passing a bill and places various limits on the powers of Congress and the states.
Article One's Vesting Clause grants all federal legislative power to Congress and establishes that Congress consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. In combination with the Vesting Clauses of Article Two and Article Three, the Vesting Clause of Article One establishes the separation of powers among the three branches of the federal government. Section 2 of Article One addresses the House of Representatives, establishing that members of the House are elected every two years, with congressional seats apportioned to the states on the basis of population. Section 2 includes various rules for the House of Representatives, including a provision stating that individuals qualified to vote in elections for the largest chamber of their state's legislature have the right to vote in elections for the House of Representatives. Section 3 addresses the Senate, establishing that the Senate consists of two senators from each state, with each senator serving a six-year term. Section 3 originally required that the state legislatures elect the members of the Senate, but the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, provides for the direct election of senators. Section 3 lays out various other rules for the Senate, including a provision that establishes the Vice President of the United States as the president of the Senate.
Section 4 of Article One grants the states the power to regulate the congressional election process but establishes that Congress can alter those regulations or make its own regulations. Section 4 also requires Congress to assemble at least once per year. Section 5 lays out various rules for both houses of Congress and grants the House of Representatives and the Senate the power to judge their own elections, determine the qualifications of their own members, and punish or expel their own members. Section 6 establishes the compensation, privileges, and restrictions of those holding congressional office. Section 7 lays out the procedures for passing a bill, requiring both houses of Congress to pass a bill for it to become law, subject to the veto power of the President of the United States. Under Section 7, the president can veto a bill, but Congress can override the president's veto with a two-thirds vote of both chambers.
Section 8 lays out the powers of Congress. It includes several enumerated powers, including the power to lay and collect taxes and tariffs for the "general welfare" of the United States, the power to borrow money, the power to regulate interstate and international commerce, the power to set naturalization laws, the power to coin and regulate money, the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, the power to establish post offices and post roads, the power to establish federal courts inferior to the Supreme Court, the power to raise and support military forces, and the power to declare war. Section 8 also provides Congress the power to establish a federal district to serve as the national capital and gives Congress the exclusive power to administer that district. In addition to various enumerated powers, Section 8 grants Congress the power to make laws necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers and other powers vested in it. Section 9 places various limits on the power of Congress, banning bills of attainder and other practices. Section 10 places limits on the states, prohibiting them from entering into alliances with foreign powers, impairing contracts, taxing imports or exports above the minimum level necessary for inspection, keeping armies, or engaging in war without the consent of Congress.
Section 1: Legislative power vested in Congress
Section 1 is a vesting clause that bestows federal legislative power exclusively to Congress. Similar clauses are found in Articles II and III. The former confers executive power upon the President alone, and the latter grants judicial power solely to the federal judiciary. These three articles create a separation of powers among the three branches of the federal government. This separation of powers, by which each branch may exercise only its own constitutional powers and no others, is fundamental to the idea of a limited government accountable to the people.The separation of powers principle is particularly noteworthy in regard to the Congress. The Constitution declares that the Congress may exercise only those legislative powers "herein granted" within Article I. It also, by implied extension, prohibits Congress from delegating its legislative authority to either of the other branches of government, a rule known as the nondelegation doctrine. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress does have the latitude to delegate regulatory powers to executive agencies as long as it provides an "intelligible principle" which governs the agency's exercise of the delegated regulatory authority. That the power assigned to each branch must remain with that branch, and may be expressed only by that branch, is central to the theory. The nondelegation doctrine is primarily used now as a way of interpreting a congressional delegation of authority narrowly, in that the courts presume Congress intended only to delegate that which it certainly could have, unless it clearly demonstrates it intended to "test the waters" of what the courts would allow it to do.
Although not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, Congress has also long asserted the power to investigate and the power to compel cooperation with an investigation. The Supreme Court has affirmed these powers as an implication of Congress's power to legislate. Since the power to investigate is an aspect of Congress's power to legislate, it is as broad as Congress's powers to legislate. However, it is also limited to inquiries that are "in aid of the legislative function;" Congress may not "expose for the sake of exposure." It is uncontroversial that a proper subject of Congress's investigation power is the operations of the federal government, but Congress's ability to compel the submission of documents or testimony from the President or his subordinates is often-discussed and sometimes controversial, although not often litigated. As a practical matter, the limitation of Congress's ability to investigate only for a proper purpose functions as a limit on Congress's ability to investigate the private affairs of individual citizens; matters that simply demand action by another branch of government, without implicating an issue of public policy necessitating legislation by Congress, must be left to those branches due to the doctrine of separation of powers. The courts are highly deferential to Congress's exercise of its investigation powers, however. Congress has the power to investigate that which it could regulate, and the courts have interpreted Congress's regulatory powers broadly since the Great Depression.
Section 2: House of Representatives
Clause 1: Composition and election of Members
Section Two provides for the election of the House of Representatives every second year. Since Representatives are to be "chosen... by the People," State Governors are not allowed to appoint temporary replacements when vacancies occur in a state's delegation to the House of Representatives; instead, the Governor of the state is required by to issue a writ of election calling a special election to fill the vacancy.At the time of its creation, the Constitution did not explicitly give citizens an inherent right to vote. However, by stipulating that those qualified to vote in elections for the largest chamber of a state's legislature could vote in Congressional elections the Framers expressed a rather explicit intent that the House was to be directly elected. Since the Civil War, several constitutional amendments have been enacted that have curbed the states' broad powers to set voter qualification standards. Though never enforced, clause 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that "when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State." The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Nineteenth Amendment prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on sex. The Twenty-fourth Amendment prohibits the revocation of voting rights due to the non-payment of a poll tax. The Twenty-sixth Amendment prohibits the denial of the right of US citizens, eighteen years of age or older, to vote on account of age.
Moreover, since the Supreme Court has recognized voting as a fundamental right, the Equal Protection Clause places very tight limitations on the states' ability to define voter qualifications; it is fair to say that qualifications beyond citizenship, residency, and age are usually questionable.
In the 1960s, the Supreme Court started to view voting as a fundamental right covered by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In a dissenting opinion of a 1964 Supreme Court case involving reapportionment in the Alabama state legislature, Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan II included Minor in a list of past decisions about voting and apportionment which were no longer being followed.
In Oregon v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court held that the Qualifications clause did not prevent Congress from overriding state-imposed minimum age restrictions for voters in Congressional elections.
Since provides that Members of the House of Representatives are apportioned state-by-state and that each state is guaranteed at least one Representative, exact population equality between all districts is not guaranteed and, in fact, is currently impossible, because while the size of the House of Representatives is fixed at 435, several states had less than 1/435 of the national population at the time of the last reapportionment in 2010. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted the provision of Clause One that Representatives shall be elected "by the People" to mean that, in those states with more than one member of the House of Representatives, each congressional election district within the state must have nearly identical populations.
Clause 2: Qualifications of Members
The Constitution provides three requirements for Representatives: A Representative must be at least 25 years old, must be an inhabitant of the state in which he or she is elected, and must have been a citizen of the United States for the previous seven years. There is no requirement that a Representative reside within the district in which he or she represents; although this is usually the case, there have been occasional exceptions.The Supreme Court has interpreted the Qualifications Clause as an exclusive list of qualifications that cannot be supplemented by a house of Congress exercising its authority to "judge...the...qualifications of its own members" or by a state in its exercise of its authority to prescribe the "times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives." The Supreme Court, as well as other federal courts, have repeatedly barred states from additional restrictions, such as imposing term limits on members of Congress, allowing members of Congress to be subject to recall elections, or requiring that Representatives live in the congressional district in which they represent. A 2002 Congressional Research Service report also found that no state could implement a qualification that a Representative not be a convicted felon or incarcerated.
However, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that certain ballot access requirements, such as filing fees and submitting a certain number of valid petition signatures do not constitute additional qualifications and thus few Constitutional restrictions exist as to how harsh ballot access laws can be.
Finally, although the U.S. Constitution places no restrictions on state or local office-holders simultaneously holding federal office, most state constitutions today effectively ban state and local office holders from also holding federal office at the same time by prohibiting federal office holders from also holding state and local office. Unlike other state-mandated restrictions, these sort of prohibitions are constitutional as long they are enforced purely at the state level.
Clause 3: Apportionment of Representatives and taxes
After much debate, the framers of the Constitution decided to make population the basis of apportioning the seats in the House of Representatives and the tax liability among the states. To facilitate this, the Constitution mandates that a census be conducted every ten years to determine the population of each state and of the nation as a whole and establishes a rule for who shall be counted or excluded from the count. As the new form of government would become operational prior to the completion of a national census, the Constitution also provides for a temporary apportionment of seats.Originally, the population of each state and of the nation as a whole was ascertained by adding to the whole number of free Persons, three-fifths the number of all other Persons, but excluding non-taxed Native Americans. This Constitutional rule, known as the three-fifths compromise, was a compromise between Southern and Northern states in which three-fifths of the population of slaves would be counted for enumeration purposes and for the apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives and of taxes among the states. It was, according to Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, a "matter of compromise and concession, confessedly unequal in its operation, but a necessary sacrifice to that spirit of conciliation, which was indispensable to the union of states having a great diversity of interests, and physical condition, and political institutions".
Following the completion of each census, Congress is empowered to use the aggregate population in all the states to determine the relative population of each state to the population of the whole, and, based on its calculations, to establish the appropriate size of the House and to allocate a particular number of representatives to each state according to its share of the national population.
Since enactment of the Reapportionment Act of 1929, a constant 435 House seats have been apportioned among the states according to each census, and determining the size of the House is not presently part of the apportionment process. With one exception, the apportionment of 1842, the House of Representatives had been enlarged by various degrees from sixty-five members in 1788 to 435 members by 1913. The determination of size was made based on the aggregate national population, so long as the size of the House did not exceed 1 member for every 30,000 of the country's total population nor the size of any state's delegation exceed 1 for every 30,000 of that state's population. With the size of the House still fixed at 435, the current ratio, as of the 2010 Census, is around 1 Representative per 700,000 Persons.
Although the first sentence in this clause originally concerned apportionment of both House seats and taxes among the several states, the Fourteenth Amendment sentence that replaced it in 1868 mentioned only the apportionment of House seats. Even so, the constraint placed upon Congress's taxation power remained, as the restriction was reiterated in Article 1 Section 9 Clause 4. The amount of direct taxes that could be collected by the federal government from the people in any State would still be tied directly to that state's share of the national population.
Due to this restriction, application of the income tax to income derived from real estate and specifically income in the form of dividends from personal property ownership such as stock shares was found to be unconstitutional because it was not apportioned among the states; that is to say, there was no guarantee that a State with 10% of the country's population paid 10% of those income taxes collected, because Congress had not fixed an amount of money to be raised and apportioned it between the States according to their respective shares of the national population. To permit the levying of such an income tax, Congress proposed and the states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment, which removed the restriction by specifically providing that Congress could levy a tax on income "from whatever source derived" without it being apportioned among the States or otherwise based on a State's share of the national population.
Clause 4: Vacancies
Section two, Clause four, provides that when vacancies occur in the House of Representatives, it is not the job of the House of Representatives to arrange for a replacement, but the job of the State whose vacant seat is up for refilling. Moreover, the State Governor may not appoint a temporary replacement, but must instead arrange for a special election to fill the vacancy. The original qualifications and procedures for holding that election are still valid.Clause 5: Speaker and other officers; Impeachment
Section Two further provides that the House of Representatives may choose its Speaker and its other officers. Though the Constitution does not mandate it, every Speaker has been a member of the House of Representatives. The Speaker rarely presides over routine House sessions, choosing instead to deputize a junior member to accomplish the task.Finally, Section Two grants to the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment. Although the Supreme Court has not had an occasion to interpret this specific provision, the Court has suggested that the grant to the House of the "sole" power of impeachment makes the House the exclusive interpreter of what constitutes an impeachable offense.
This power, which is analogous to the bringing of criminal charges by a grand jury, has been used only rarely. The House has begun impeachment proceedings 62 times since 1789, and twenty federal officials have been formally impeached as a result, including: three Presidents, one Cabinet Secretary, one Senator, one Supreme Court Associate Justice, and fourteen federal judges. Also, notably, impeachment proceedings compelled the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The Constitution does not specify how impeachment proceedings are to be initiated. Until the early 20th century, a House member could rise and propose an impeachment, which would then be assigned to a committee for investigation upon a formal resolution vote of the judicial committee. Presently, it is the House Judiciary Committee that initiates the process and then, after investigating the allegations, prepares recommendations for the whole House's consideration. If the House votes to adopt an impeachment resolution, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee recommends a slate of "managers," whom the House subsequently approves by resolution. These Representatives subsequently become the prosecution team in the impeachment trial in the Senate.
Section 3: Senate
Clause 1: Composition; Election of Senators
The first Clause of Section Three provides that each state is entitled to have two Senators, who would be elected by its state legislature, serve for staggered six-year terms, and have one vote each. By these provisions, the framers of the Constitution intended to protect the interests of the states as states. This clause has been superseded by the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, which, in part, provides as amended, thatArticle Five specifies the means by which the Constitution of the United States can be amended. It ends by temporarily shielding three Article I clauses from being amended. This clause is among them. Article Five provides that "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Thus, no individual state may have its individual representation in the Senate adjusted without its consent. That is to say, an amendment that changed this clause to provide that all states would get only one Senator could become valid as part of the Constitution if ratified by three-fourths of the states; however, one that provided for some basis of representation other than strict numerical equality, would require the unanimous consent of all the states.
Denying the states their intended role as joint partners in the federal government by abolishing their equality in the Senate would, according to Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, destroy the grounding of the Union. This Article V provision has been employed by those opposed to contemplated constitutional amendments that would grant the District of Columbia full representation in the Congress without also granting it statehood. Their argument is that an amendment that would allow a non-state district to have two Senators would deprive the states of their equal suffrage in the Senate and would therefore require unanimous ratification by all the states. Those in favor of the amendment have argued that the States are merely entitled to equal suffrage amongst one another, and that granting the federal district Senate representation does not violate that right. Whether unanimous consent of the 50 states would be required for such an amendment to become operative remains an unanswered political question.
Clause 2: Classification of Senators; Vacancies
After the first group of Senators was elected to the First Congress, the Senators were divided into three "classes" as nearly equal in size as possible, as required by this section. This was done in May 1789 by lot. It was also decided that each state's Senators would be assigned to two different classes. Those Senators grouped in the first class had their term expire after only two years; those Senators in the second class had their term expire after only four years, instead of six. After this, all Senators from those States have been elected to six-year terms, and as new States have joined the Union, their Senate seats have been assigned to two of the three classes, maintaining each grouping as nearly equal in size as possible. In this way, election is staggered; approximately one-third of the Senate is up for re-election every two years, but the entire body is never up for re-election in the same year.As originally established, Senators were elected by the Legislature of the State they represented in the Senate. If a senator died, resigned, or was expelled, the legislature of the state would appoint a replacement to serve out the remainder of the senator's term. If the State Legislature was not in session, its Governor could appoint a temporary replacement to serve until the legislature could elect a permanent replacement. This was superseded by the Seventeenth Amendment, which provided for the Popular Election of Senators, instead of their appointment by the State Legislature. In a nod to the less populist nature of the Senate, the Amendment tracks the vacancy procedures for the House of Representatives in requiring that the Governor call a special election to fill the vacancy, but it vests in the State Legislature the authority to allow the Governor to appoint a temporary replacement until the special election is held. Note, however, that under the original Constitution, the Governors of the states were expressly allowed by the Constitution to make temporary appointments. The current system, under the Seventeenth Amendment, allows Governors to appoint a replacement only if their state legislature has previously decided to allow the Governor to do so; otherwise, the seat must remain vacant until the special election is held to fill the seat, as in the case of a vacancy in the House.
Clause 3: Qualifications of Senators
A Senator must be at least 30 years of age, must have been a citizen of the United States for at least nine years before being elected, and must reside in the State they will represent at the time of the election. The Supreme Court has interpreted the Qualifications Clause as an exclusive list of qualifications that cannot be supplemented by a House of Congress exercising its authority to "Judge... the... Qualifications of its own Members," or by a state in its exercise of its authority to prescribe the "Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,..."Clause 4: Vice President as President of Senate
Section Three provides that the Vice President is the President of the Senate. Excepting the duty to receive the tally of electoral votes for President, this is the only regular responsibility assigned to the office of the Vice President by the Constitution. When serving in this capacity, the Vice President, who is not a member of the Senate, may cast tie-breaking votes. Early in the nation's history, Vice Presidents frequently presided over the Senate. In modern times, the Vice President usually does so only during ceremonial occasions or when a tie in the voting is anticipated., a tie-breaking vote has been cast 268 times.Clause 5: President pro tempore and other officers
Clause five provides for a President pro tempore of the Senate, who is elected to the post by the Senate, to preside over the body when the Vice President is either absent or exercising the powers and duties of the president.Although the Constitutional text seems to suggest to the contrary, the Senate's current practice is to elect a full-time President pro tempore at the beginning of each Congress, as opposed to making it a temporary office only existing during the Vice President's absence. Since World War II, the senior member of the majority party has filled this position. As is true of the Speaker of the House, the Constitution does not require that the President pro tempore be a senator, but by convention, a senator is always chosen.
Clause 6: Trial of Impeachment
Clause Six grants to the Senate the sole power to try impeachments and spells out the basic procedures for impeachment trials. The Supreme Court has interpreted this clause to mean that the Senate has exclusive and unreviewable authority to determine what constitutes an adequate impeachment trial. Of the nineteen federal officials formally impeached by the House of Representatives, three resigned, seven were acquitted, and eight were convicted by the Senate. On one occasion the Senate declined to hold a trial, asserting that the House had no jurisdiction over members of the Senate; in any case, Blount had already been expelled from the Senate.The constitution's framers vested the Senate with this power for several reasons. First, they believed Senators would be better educated, more virtuous, and more high-minded than Members of the House of Representatives and thus uniquely able to decide responsibly the most difficult of political questions. Second, they believed that the Senate, being a numerous body, would be well suited to handle the procedural demands of an impeachment trial, in which it, unlike judges and the judiciary system, would "never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense by the prosecutor, or in the construction of it by judges, as in the common cases serve to limit the discretion of courts in favor of personal security.".
There are three Constitutionally mandated requirements for impeachment trials. The provision that Senators must sit on oath or affirmation was designed to impress upon them the extreme seriousness of the occasion. The stipulation that the Chief Justice is to preside over presidential impeachment trials underscores the solemnity of the occasion and aims to avoid the conflict of interest of a Vice President's presiding over the proceeding for the removal of the one official standing between them and the presidency. The latter consideration was regarded to be quite important in the eighteenth century - political parties had not yet formed when the Constitution was adopted, and with the original method of electing the President and Vice President it was presumed that the two people elected to those offices would frequently be political rivals. The specification that a two-thirds super-majority vote of those Senators present in order to convict was also thought necessary to facilitate serious deliberation and to make removal possible only through a consensus that cuts across factional divisions.
Clause 7: Judgment in cases of impeachment; Punishment on conviction
If any officer is convicted on impeachment, he or she is immediately removed from office, and may be barred from holding any public office in the future. No other punishments may be inflicted pursuant to the impeachment proceeding, but the convicted party remains liable to trial and punishment in the courts for civil and criminal charges.Section 4: Congressional elections
Clause 1: Time, place, and manner of holding
The purpose of this clause is twofold. First, it makes clear the division of responsibility with respect to the conduct of the election of federal Senators and Representatives. That responsibility lies primarily with the states and secondarily with Congress. Second, the clause lodges the power to regulate elections in the respective legislative branches of the states and the federal government, not with the executive or judicial. As authorized by this clause, Congress has set a uniform date for federal elections: the Tuesday following the first Monday in November.Presently, as there are no on-point federal regulations, the states retain the authority to regulate the dates on which other aspects of the election process are held and where elections will be held. As for regulating the "manner" of elections, the Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean "matters like notices, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns." The Supreme Court has held that States may not exercise their power to determine the "manner" of holding elections to impose term limits on their congressional delegation.
One of the most significant ways that each state regulates the "manner" of elections is through their power to draw electoral districts. Although in theory Congress could draw the district map for each State, it has not exercised this level of oversight. Congress has, however, required the States to conform to certain practices when drawing districts. States are currently required to use a single-member district scheme, whereby the State is divided into as many election districts for Representatives in the House of Representatives as the size of its representation in that body. The Supreme Court has interpreted "by the Legislature thereof" to include voters using the initiative process, in those states whose constitutions provide it, to create an independent redistricting commission.
Congress first exercised its power to regulate elections nation-wide in 1842, when the 27th Congress passed a law requiring the election of Representatives by districts. In subsequent years, Congress expanded on the requirements, successively adding contiguity, compactness, and substantial equality of population to the districting requirements. These standards were all later deleted in the Reapportionment Act of 1929. Congress subsequently reinstated the requirement that districts be composed of contiguous territory, be "compact," and have equal populations within each State. Congress has allowed those requirements to lapse, but the Supreme Court has re-imposed the population requirement on the States under the Equal Protection Clause and is suspicious of districts that do not meet the other "traditional" districting criteria of compactness and contiguity.
In 1865, Congress legislated a remedy for a situation under which deadlocks in state legislatures over the election of Senators were creating vacancies in the office. The act required the two houses of each legislature to meet in joint session on a specified day and to meet every day thereafter until a Senator was selected. The first comprehensive federal statute dealing with elections was adopted in 1870 as a means of enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee against racial discrimination in granting suffrage rights. Under the Enforcement Act of 1870, and subsequent laws, false registration, bribery, voting without legal right, making false returns of votes cast, interference in any manner with officers of election, and the neglect by any such officer of any duty required by state or federal law were made federal offenses. Provision was made for the appointment by federal judges of persons to attend at places of registration and at elections with authority to challenge any person proposing to register or vote unlawfully, to witness the counting of votes, and to identify by their signatures the registration of voters and election tally sheets.
Beginning with the Tillman Act of 1907, Congress has imposed a growing number of restrictions on elections and campaign financing. The most significant piece of legislation has been the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act. It was this legislation that was at issue in the Supreme Court's seminal decision, Buckley v. Valeo, which, in the face of a First Amendment challenge, set the ground rules for campaign finance legislation, generally disallowing restrictions on expenditures by candidates, but permitting restrictions on contributions by individuals and corporations.
In addition to statutory constraints, Congress and the States have altered the electoral process through amending the Constitution. The Seventeenth Amendment altered the manner of conducting the elections of Senators; establishing that they are to be elected by the people of the states. Also, the Nineteenth Amendment prohibits any U.S. citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex; the Twenty-fourth Amendment prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax; and the Twenty-sixth Amendment prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to U.S. citizens who are at least eighteen years old.
Clause 2: Sessions of Congress
Clause 2 fixes an annual date upon which Congress must meet. By doing so, the Constitution empowers Congress to meet, whether or not the President called it into session. does grant the president limited authority to convene and adjourn both Houses and mandates that it will meet at least once in a year to enact legislation on behalf of the people. Some delegates to the 1787 constitutional convention believed yearly meetings were not necessary, for there would not be enough legislative business for Congress to deal with annually. Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts argued that the time should be fixed to prevent disputes from arising within the legislature, and to allow the states to adjust their elections to correspond with the fixed date. A fixed date also corresponded to the tradition in the states of having annual meetings. Finally, Gorham concluded that the legislative branch should be required to meet at least once a year to act as a check upon the executive department.Although this clause provides that the annual meeting was to be on the first Monday in December, the government established by the 1787 Constitution did not begin operations until March 4, 1789. As the 1st Congress held its initial meeting on March 4, that became the date on which new representatives and senators took office in subsequent years. Therefore, every other year, although a new Congress was elected in November, it did not come into office until the following March, with a "lame duck" session convening in the interim. This practice was altered in 1933 following ratification of the Twentieth Amendment, which states that, "The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the third day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day". This change virtually eliminated the necessity of there being a lame duck session of Congress.
Section 5: Procedure
Clause 1: Qualifications of Members
Section Five states that a majority of each House constitutes a quorum to do business; a smaller number may adjourn the House or compel the attendance of absent members. In practice, the quorum requirement is all but ignored. A quorum is assumed to be present unless a quorum call, requested by a member, proves otherwise. Rarely do members ask for quorum calls to demonstrate the absence of a quorum; more often, they use the quorum call as a delaying tactic.Sometimes, unqualified individuals have been admitted to Congress. For instance, the Senate once admitted John Henry Eaton, a twenty-eight-year-old, in 1818. In 1934, a twenty-nine-year-old, Rush Holt, was elected to the Senate; he agreed to wait six months, until his thirtieth birthday, to take the oath. The Senate ruled in that case that the age requirement applied as of the date of the taking of the oath, not the date of election.
Clause 2: Rules
Each House can determine its own Rules, and may punish any of its members. A two-thirds vote is necessary to expel a member. Section 5, Clause 2 does not provide specific guidance to each House regarding when and how each House may change its rules, leaving details to the respective chambers.Clause 3: Record of proceedings
Each House must keep and publish a Journal, though it may choose to keep any part of the Journal secret. The decisions of the House—not the words spoken during debates—are recorded in the Journal; if one-fifth of those present request it, the votes of the members on a particular question must also be entered.Clause 4: Adjournment
Neither House may adjourn, without the consent of the other, for more than three days. Often, a House will hold pro forma sessions every three days; such sessions are merely held to fulfill the constitutional requirement, and not to conduct business. Furthermore, neither House may meet in any place other than that designated for both Houses, without the consent of the other House.Section 6: Compensation, privileges, and restrictions on holding civil office
Clause 1: Compensation and legal protection
Senators and Representatives set their own compensation. Under the Twenty-seventh Amendment, any change in their compensation will not take effect until after the next congressional election. Paying Senators and Representatives out of the federal treasury was a departure from the practice under the Articles of Confederation, where they were paid by the state they were elected.Members of both Houses have certain privileges, based on those enjoyed by the members of the British Parliament. Members attending, going to or returning from either House are privileged from arrest, except for treason, felony or breach of the peace. One may not sue a Senator or Representative for slander occurring during Congressional debate, nor may speech by a member of Congress during a Congressional session be the basis for criminal prosecution. The latter was affirmed when Mike Gravel published over 4,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers in the Congressional Record, which might have otherwise been a criminal offense. This clause has also been interpreted in Gravel v. United States, 408 U.S. 606 to provide protection to aides and staff of sitting members of Congress, so long as their activities relate to legislative matters.
Clause 2: Independence from the executive
Senators and Representatives may not simultaneously serve in Congress and hold a position in the executive branch. This restriction is meant to protect legislative independence by preventing the president from using patronage to buy votes in Congress. It is a major difference from the political system in the British Parliament, where cabinet ministers are required to be members of parliament.Furthermore, Senators and Representatives cannot resign to take newly created or higher-paying political positions; rather, they must wait until the conclusion of the term for which they were elected. If Congress increases the salary of a particular officer, it may later reduce that salary to permit an individual to resign from Congress and take that position. The effects of the clause were discussed in 1937, when Senator Hugo Black was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court with some time left in his Senate term. Just prior to the appointment, Congress had increased the pension available to Justices retiring at the age of seventy. It was therefore suggested by some that the office's emolument had been increased during Black's Senatorial term, and that therefore Black could not take office as a Justice. The response, however, was that Black was fifty-one years old, and would not receive the increased pension until at least 19 years later, long after his Senate term had expired.
Section 7: Bills
Clause 1: Bills of revenue
This establishes the method for making Acts of Congress that involve taxation. Accordingly, any bill may originate in either House of Congress, except for a revenue bill, which may originate only in the House of Representatives. In practice, the Senate sometimes circumvents this requirement by substituting the text of a revenue bill previously passed by the House with a substitute text. Either House may amend any bill, including revenue and appropriation bills.This clause of the U.S. Constitution stemmed from an English parliamentary practice that all money bills must have their first reading in the House of Commons. This practice was intended to ensure that the power of the purse is possessed by the legislative body most responsive to the people, although the English practice was modified in America by allowing the Senate to amend these bills. The clause was part of the Great Compromise between small and large states; the large states were unhappy with the lopsided power of small states in the Senate, and so the clause theoretically offsets the unrepresentative nature of the Senate, and compensates the large states for allowing equal voting rights to Senators from small states.
Clause 2: From bill to law
This clause is known as the Presentment Clause. Before a bill becomes law, it must be presented to the President, who has ten days to act upon it. If the President signs the bill, it becomes law. If he disapproves of the bill, he must return it to the House in which it originated together with his objections. This procedure has become known as the veto, although that particular word does not appear in the text of Article One. The bill does not then become law unless both Houses, by two-thirds votes, override the veto. If the President neither signs nor returns the bill within the ten-day limit, the bill becomes law, unless the Congress has adjourned in the meantime, thereby preventing the President from returning the bill to the House in which it originated. In the latter case, the President, by taking no action on the bill towards the end of a session, exercises a "pocket veto", which Congress may not override. In the former case, where the President allows a bill to become law unsigned, there is no common name for the practice, but recent scholarship has termed it a "default enactment."What exactly constitutes an adjournment for the purposes of the pocket veto has been unclear. In the Pocket Veto Case, the Supreme Court held that "the determinative question in reference to an 'adjournment' is not whether it is a final adjournment of Congress or an interim adjournment, such as an adjournment of the first session, but whether it is one that 'prevents' the President from returning the bill to the House in which it originated within the time allowed." Since neither House of Congress was in session, the President could not return the bill to one of them, thereby permitting the use of the pocket veto. In Wright v. United States, however, the Court ruled that adjournments of one House only did not constitute an adjournment of Congress required for a pocket veto. In such cases, the Secretary or Clerk of the House in question was ruled competent to receive the bill.
Clause 3: Presidential veto
In 1996, Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act, which permitted the President, at the time of the signing of the bill, to rescind certain expenditures. The Congress could disapprove the cancellation and reinstate the funds. The President could veto the disapproval, but the Congress, by a two-thirds vote in each House, could override the veto. In the case Clinton v. City of New York, the Supreme Court found the Line Item Veto Act unconstitutional because it violated the Presentment clause. First, the procedure delegated legislative powers to the President, thereby violating the nondelegation doctrine. Second, the procedure violated the terms of Section Seven, which state, "if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it." Thus, the President may sign the bill, veto it, or do nothing, but he may not amend the bill and then sign it.Every bill, order, resolution, or vote that must be passed by both Houses, except on a question of adjournment, must be presented to the President before becoming law. However, to propose a constitutional amendment, two-thirds of both Houses may submit it to the states for the ratification, without any consideration by the President, as prescribed in Article V.
Some Presidents have made very extensive use of the veto, while others have not used it at all. Grover Cleveland, for instance, vetoed over four hundred bills during his first term in office; Congress overrode only two of those vetoes. Meanwhile, seven Presidents have never used the veto power. There have been 2,560 vetoes, including pocket vetoes.
Section 8: Powers of Congress
Enumerated powers
Congress's legislative powers are enumerated in Section Eight. Its 18 clauses are, in order:Many powers of Congress have been granted under a broad interpretation of Article 1, section 8. Most notably, Clauses 1, 3, and 18 have been deemed to grant expansive powers to Congress. These three clauses have been interpreted so broadly that the federal government of the United States exercises many powers that are not expressly delegated to it by the states under the Constitution. Some point to the various social programs of the American welfare state as a prime example, and not all agree with this broad interpretation. James Madison, who wrote much of the Constitution, asserted that Congress could not exercise powers unless they were expressly granted in the Constitution. While he was President of the United States, Madison vetoed the Federal Public Works Bill of 1817, calling it unconstitutional, since in his view the federal government did not have the authority to build infrastructure.
Clause 1: the General Welfare Clause
This clause is also referred to as the Spending Clause and the Taxing and Spending Clause. It states that Congress may lay and collect taxes for the "common defense" or "general welfare" of the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court has not often defined "general welfare," leaving the political question to Congress. In United States v. Butler, the Court for the first time construed the clause. The dispute centered on a tax collected from processors of agricultural products such as meat; the funds raised by the tax were not paid into the general funds of the treasury, but were rather specially earmarked for farmers. The Court struck down the tax, ruling that the general welfare language in the Taxing and Spending Clause related only to "matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare". Congress continues to make expansive use of the Taxing and Spending Clause; for instance, the social security program is authorized under the Taxing and Spending Clause.Clause 2: Borrowing Power
Congress has the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. In 1871, when deciding Knox v. Lee, the Court ruled that this clause permitted Congress to emit bills and make them legal tender in satisfaction of debts. Whenever Congress borrows money, it is obligated to repay the sum as stipulated in the original agreement. However, such agreements are only "binding on the conscience of the sovereign", as the doctrine of sovereign immunity prevents a creditor from suing in court if the government reneges on its commitment.Clause 3: Commerce Clause
The Supreme Court has seldom restrained the use of the commerce clause for widely varying purposes. The first important decision related to the commerce clause was Gibbons v. Ogden, decided by a unanimous Court in 1824. The case involved conflicting federal and state laws: Thomas Gibbons had a federal permit to navigate steamboats in the Hudson River, while the other, Aaron Ogden, had a monopoly to do the same granted by the state of New York. Ogden contended that "commerce" included only buying and selling of goods and not their transportation. Chief Justice John Marshall rejected this notion. Marshall suggested that "commerce" included navigation of goods, and that it "must have been contemplated" by the Framers. Marshall added that Congress's power over commerce "is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution".The expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause was restrained during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when a laissez-faire attitude dominated the Court. In United States v. E. C. Knight Company, the Supreme Court limited the newly enacted Sherman Antitrust Act, which had sought to break up the monopolies dominating the nation's economy. The Court ruled that Congress could not regulate the manufacture of goods, even if they were later shipped to other states. Chief Justice Melville Fuller wrote, "commerce succeeds to manufacture, and is not a part of it."
The U.S. Supreme Court sometimes ruled New Deal programs unconstitutional because they stretched the meaning of the commerce clause. In Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the Court unanimously struck down industrial codes regulating the slaughter of poultry, declaring that Congress could not regulate commerce relating to the poultry, which had "come to a permanent rest within the State." As Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes put it, "so far as the poultry here in question is concerned, the flow of interstate commerce has ceased." Judicial rulings against attempted use of Congress's Commerce Clause powers continued during the 1930s.
In 1937, the Supreme Court began moving away from its laissez-faire attitude concerning Congressional legislation and the Commerce Clause, when it ruled in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Company, that the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was constitutional. The legislation under scrutiny prevented employers from engaging in "unfair labor practices" such as firing workers for joining unions. In sustaining this act, the Court signaled its return to the philosophy espoused by John Marshall, that Congress could pass laws regulating actions that even indirectly influenced interstate commerce.
This new attitude became firmly set into place in 1942. In Wickard v. Filburn, the Court ruled that production quotas under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 were constitutionally applied to agricultural production that was consumed purely intrastate, because its effect upon interstate commerce placed it within the power of Congress to regulate under the Commerce Clause. This decision marked the beginning of the Court's total deference to Congress' claims of Commerce Clause powers, which lasted into the 1990s.
United States v. Lopez was the first decision in six decades to invalidate a federal statute on the grounds that it exceeded the power of the Congress under the Commerce Clause. The Court held that while Congress had broad lawmaking authority under the Commerce Clause, the power was limited, and did not extend so far from "commerce" as to authorize the regulation of the carrying of handguns, especially when there was no evidence that carrying them affected the economy on a massive scale. In a later case, United States v. Morrison, the justices ruled that Congress could not make such laws even when there was evidence of aggregate effect.
In contrast to these rulings, the Supreme Court also continues to follow the precedent set by Wickard v. Filburn. In Gonzales v. Raich it ruled that the Commerce Clause granted Congress the authority to criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes. The court held that, as with the agricultural production in the earlier case, home-grown cannabis is a legitimate subject of federal regulation because it competes with marijuana that moves in interstate commerce.
Other powers of Congress
Congress may establish uniform laws relating to naturalization and bankruptcy. It may also coin money, regulate the value of American or foreign currency and punish counterfeiters. Congress may fix the standards of weights and measures. Furthermore, Congress may establish post offices and post roads. Congress may promote the progress of science and useful arts by granting copyrights and patents of limited duration. Section eight, clause eight of Article One, known as the Copyright Clause, is the only instance of the word "right" used in the original constitution. Though perpetual copyrights and patents are prohibited, the Supreme Court has ruled in Eldred v. Ashcroft that repeated extensions to the term of copyright do not constitute perpetual copyright; also note that this is the only power granted where the means to accomplish its stated purpose is specifically provided for. Courts inferior to the Supreme Court may be established by Congress.Congress has several powers related to war and the armed forces. Under the War Powers Clause, only Congress may declare war, but in several cases it has, without declaring war, granted the President the authority to engage in military conflicts. Five wars have been declared in United States' history: the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the Spanish–American War, World War I and World War II. Some historians argue that the legal doctrines and legislation passed during the operations against Pancho Villa constitute a sixth declaration of war. Congress may grant letters of marque and reprisal. Congress may establish and support the armed forces, but no appropriation made for the support of the army may be used for more than two years. This provision was inserted because the Framers feared the establishment of a standing army, beyond civilian control, during peacetime. Congress may regulate or call forth the state militias, but the states retain the authority to appoint officers and train personnel. Congress also has exclusive power to make rules and regulations governing the land and naval forces. Although the executive branch and the Pentagon have asserted an ever-increasing measure of involvement in this process, the U.S. Supreme Court has often reaffirmed Congress's exclusive hold on this power. Congress used this power twice soon after World War II with the enactment of two statutes: the Uniform Code of Military Justice to improve the quality and fairness of courts martial and military justice, and the Federal Tort Claims Act which among other rights had allowed military service persons to sue for damages until the U.S. Supreme Court repealed that section of the statute in a divisive series of cases, known collectively as the Feres Doctrine.
Congress has the exclusive right to legislate "in all cases whatsoever" for the nation's capital, the District of Columbia. Congress chooses to devolve some of such authority to the elected mayor and council of District of Columbia. Nevertheless, Congress remains free to enact any legislation for the District so long as constitutionally permissible, to overturn any legislation by the city government, and technically to revoke the city government at any time. Congress may also exercise such jurisdiction over land purchased from the states for the erection of forts and other buildings.
Clause 18: Implied Powers of Congress (Necessary and Proper)
Finally, Congress has the power to do whatever is "necessary and proper" to carry out its enumerated powers and, crucially, all others vested in it. This has been interpreted to authorize criminal prosecution of those whose actions have a "substantial effect" on interstate commerce in Wickard v. Filburn; however, Thomas Jefferson, in the Kentucky Resolutions, supported by James Madison, maintained that a penal power could not be inferred from a power to regulate, and that the only penal powers were for treason, counterfeiting, piracy and felony on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.The necessary and proper clause has been interpreted extremely broadly, thereby giving Congress wide latitude in legislation. The first landmark case involving the clause was McCulloch v. Maryland, which involved the establishment of a national bank. Alexander Hamilton, in advocating the creation of the bank, argued that there was "a more or less direct" relationship between the bank and "the powers of collecting taxes, borrowing money, regulating trade between the states, and raising and maintaining fleets and navies". Thomas Jefferson countered that Congress's powers "can all be carried into execution without a national bank. A bank therefore is not necessary, and consequently not authorized by this phrase". Chief Justice John Marshall agreed with the former interpretation. Marshall wrote that a Constitution listing all of Congress's powers "would partake of a prolixity of a legal code and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind". Since the Constitution could not possibly enumerate the "minor ingredients" of the powers of Congress, Marshall "deduced" that Congress had the authority to establish a bank from the "great outlines" of the general welfare, commerce and other clauses. Under this doctrine of the necessary and proper clause, Congress has sweepingly broad powers not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. However, the Congress cannot enact laws solely on the implied powers, any action must be necessary and proper in the execution of the enumerated powers.
Section 9: Limits on Federal Power
The ninth section of Article One places limits on federal powers, including those of Congress:Clause 1: Slave trade
The first clause in this section prevents Congress from passing any law that would restrict the importation of slaves into the United States prior to 1808. Congress could, however, levy a per capita duty of up to ten Spanish milled dollars for each slave imported into the country. This clause was further entrenched into the Constitution by Article V, where it is explicitly shielded from constitutional amendment prior to 1808. On March 2, 1807, Congress approved legislation prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States, which went into effect January 1, 1808, the first day of the prohibition permitted by the Constitution.Clauses 2 and 3: Civil and legal protections
A writ of habeas corpus is a legal action against unlawful detainment that commands a law enforcement agency or other body that has a person in custody to have a court inquire into the legality of the detention. The court may order the person released if the reason for detention is deemed insufficient or unjustifiable. The Constitution further provides that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus may not be suspended "unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it". In Ex parte Milligan, the Supreme Court ruled that the suspension of habeas corpus in a time of war was lawful, but military tribunals did not apply to citizens in states that had upheld the authority of the Constitution and where civilian courts were still operating.A bill of attainder is a law by which a person is immediately convicted without trial. An ex post facto law is a law which applies retroactively, punishing someone for an act that was only made criminal after it was done. The ex post facto clause does not apply to civil matters.
Clauses 4–7: Apportionment of direct taxes
Section Nine reiterates the provision from that direct taxes must be apportioned by state populations. This clause was also explicitly shielded from constitutional amendment prior to 1808 by Article V. In 1913, the 16th Amendment exempted all income taxes from this clause. This overcame the ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. that the income tax could only be applied to regular income and could not be applied to dividends and capital gains. Furthermore, no tax may be imposed on exports from any state. Congress may not, by revenue or commerce legislation, give preference to ports of one state over those of another; neither may it require ships from one state to pay duties in another. All funds belonging to the Treasury may not be withdrawn except according to law. Modern practice is that Congress annually passes a number of appropriations bills authorizing the expenditure of public money. The Constitution requires that a regular statement of such expenditures be published.Clause 8: Titles of nobility
The Title of Nobility Clause prohibits Congress from granting any title of nobility. In addition, it specifies that no civil officer may accept, without the consent of Congress, any gift, payment, office or title from a foreign ruler or state. Emoluments were a profound concern of the Founders. However, a U.S. citizen may receive foreign office before or after their period of public service.Section 10: Limits on the States
Clause 1: Contract Clause
States may not exercise certain powers reserved for the federal government: they may not enter into treaties, alliances or confederations, grant letters of marque or reprisal, coin money or issue bills of credit. Furthermore, no state may make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, which expressly forbids any state government from "making a tender" of any type or form of money to meet any financial obligation, unless that form of money is coins made of gold or silver. Much of this clause is devoted to preventing the States from using or creating any currency other than that created by Congress. In Federalist no. 44, Madison explains that "it may be observed that the same reasons which shew the necessity of denying to the States the power of regulating coin, prove with equal force that they ought not to be at liberty to substitute a paper medium in the place of coin. Had every State a right to regulate the value of its coin, there might be as many different currencies as States; and thus the intercourse among them would be impeded". Moreover, the states may not pass bills of attainder, enact ex post facto laws, impair the obligation of contracts, or grant titles of nobility.The Contract Clause was the subject of much contentious litigation in the 19th century. It was first interpreted by the Supreme Court in 1810, when Fletcher v. Peck was decided. The case involved the Yazoo land scandal, in which the Georgia legislature authorized the sale of land to speculators at low prices. The bribery involved in the passage of the authorizing legislation was so blatant that a Georgia mob attempted to lynch the corrupt members of the legislature. Following elections, the legislature passed a law that rescinded the contracts granted by the corrupt legislators. The validity of the annulment of the sale was questioned in the Supreme Court. In writing for a unanimous court, Chief Justice John Marshall asked, "What is a contract?" His answer was: "a compact between two or more parties". Marshall argued that the sale of land by the Georgia legislature, though fraught with corruption, was a valid "contract". He added that the state had no right to annul the purchase of the land, since doing so would impair the obligations of contract.
The definition of a contract propounded by Chief Justice Marshall was not as simple as it may seem. In 1819, the Court considered whether a corporate charter could be construed as a contract. The case of Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward involved Dartmouth College, which had been established under a Royal Charter granted by King George III. The Charter created a board of twelve trustees for the governance of the College. In 1815, however, New Hampshire passed a law increasing the board's membership to twenty-one with the aim that public control could be exercised over the College. The Court, including Marshall, ruled that New Hampshire could not amend the charter, which was ruled to be a contract since it conferred "vested rights" on the trustees.
The Marshall Court determined another dispute in Sturges v. Crowninshield. The case involved a debt that was contracted in early 1811. Later in that year, the state of New York passed a bankruptcy law, under which the debt was later discharged. The Supreme Court ruled that a retroactively applied state bankruptcy law impaired the obligation to pay the debt, and therefore violated the Constitution. In Ogden v. Saunders, however, the court decided that state bankruptcy laws could apply to debts contracted after the passage of the law. State legislation on the issue of bankruptcy and debtor relief has not been much of an issue since the adoption of a comprehensive federal bankruptcy law in 1898.
Clause 2: Import-Export Clause
Still more powers are prohibited of the states. States may not, without the consent of Congress, tax imports or exports except for the fulfillment of state inspection laws. The net revenue of the tax is paid not to the state, but to the federal Treasury.Clause 3: Compact Clause
Under the Compact Clause, states may not, without the consent of Congress, keep troops or armies during times of peace, or enter into agreements with other states or with foreign governments. Furthermore, states may not engage in war unless invaded. States may, however, organize and arm a militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. The National Guard, whose members are also members of the militia as defined by, fulfill this function, as do persons serving in a state defense force with federal oversight under.The idea of allowing Congress to have say over agreements between states traces back to the numerous controversies that arose between various colonies. Eventually compromises would be created between the two colonies and these compromises would be submitted to the Crown for approval. After the American Revolutionary War, the Articles of Confederation allowed states to appeal to Congress to settle disputes between the states over boundaries or "any cause whatever". The Articles of Confederation also required Congressional approval for "any treaty or alliance" in which a state was one of the parties.
There have been a number of Supreme Court cases concerning what constitutes valid congressional consent to an interstate compact. In Virginia v. Tennessee,, the Court found that some agreements among states stand even when lacking the explicit consent of Congress. According to the Court, the Compact Clause requires congressional consent only if the agreement among the states is "directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States". The congressional consent issue is at the center of the current debate over the constitutionality of the not yet effective National Popular Vote Interstate Compact entered into by fifteen states plus the District of Columbia.