According to the BOSTON HERALD, US senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) has missed 97 percent of the roll call votesin the US Senate, in the past 12 months. He has been too busy campaigning…to the detriment of the people of Massachusetts, who elected this fraud.
Are there ant rules about being a senator? Do you actually HAVE to attend senate meetings?
Reminds me of the late representative (Adam Clayton Powell, D-NY/Bimini)-he spent all of his time in the Bahamas…yet keep winning re-elections by huge margins.
Still, I’d like to know: why isn’t Kerry called to task for this disgraceful de :smack: reliction of duty?
You could, of course, amend the Constitution to make GWB President for life, with the right to suspend Constitutional guarantees. Other countries have done this from time to time; references on request. ;j
There was some criticism here of John Edwards missing Senate votes during his run for the nomination. But the general attitude is that a man who is running for the Presidency has a job to do – campaign for that office – and that supersedes other responsibilities to a very great extent.
Or perhaps no candidate for public office should ever take the time to make speeches, public appearances, position papers on issues, and other such trivia that would allow voters to make an informed choice, since they all have jobs to do. Certainly the incumbent should not, in the middle of an undeclared war, be leaving the Oval Office in an effort to further his own political career by running for re-election!
(In case you haven’t gathered the point, my contention is that you’ve disguised a partisan rant as a GQ, and I’m answering in kind. The factual answer is that nobody has the right to hold a member of Congress (Senator or Rep.) to attendance, etc. – that was made very clear by SCOTUS in the situation you allude to, a case called Powell v. McCormick IIRC.)
The Rule IV of the Senate states that “no Senator shall absent himself from the service of the Senate without leave.” There basically is no process to grant leave, however – it is as simple as any Senator saying during a vote, “Senator Kerry is necessarily absent.” That’s it.
The Senate could compel the attendence of absent Senators by voting on a motion to arrest those who are absent and not sick. All it would take is a bare majority to issue such an order, but the purpose of these arrests is not to seek out one specific Senator, but to establish a quorum (51 members). Typically, arrest orders are rescinded once a quorum is established.
If someone wanted to expel Kerry from the Senate, under the Constitution, it would take a 2/3 vote of the Senate. The House of Representatives would not be involved (as it would be in the proposed impeachment of a judge, a President, or other officer of the Executive Branch).
The reality is that, for all the worsening of partisan attacks in the past few years, the OP notwithstanding, the Senate is still a rather decent bunch, all things considered. Republicans may grumble about Kerry being in dereliction of duty or whatever, but are most likely okay to let this one slide. Who knows when a Republican might run for the White House without resigning his seat? What goes around, comes around.
Technically speaking, the answer to the OP is “Yes”. This is simply because Congress can impeach any member of Congress for any reason at all; the Constitution does not specify the “why” only the “how”.
Don’t like someone’s hairdo? Impeach’em. Don’t like their shoes? Impeach’em. Technically, that can be done. Practicality, of course, is another matter altogether …
Ahh, Ponder… It’s generally felt that Senators can’t be impeached. As this lovely page at FindLaw explains, “only the President, the Vice President, and “civil officers of the United States” can be impeached. Members of Congress do not count as “civil officers of the United States”.” They can be kicked out by a vote of 2/3, but that isn’t impeachment.
Do Senators miss a lot of votes during their normal re-election campaigns, or does the body as a whole arrange the sessions so it isn’t a problem?
This is a matter for the people of Massachusetts. If they are not happy with an absentee Senator, then it is up to them to recall him. Of course, they are more than ably served by the honorable Ted Kennedy, and Mr. Kerry would make it a point to come to Washington for any important votes.
But to turn the tables, does Dick Cheney have any obligation to actually preside over the Senate? I would wager Kerry’s attendance in the Senate exceeds Cheney’s. And how much time did Bush spend governing Texas in 2000?
Realistically, if you campaign for President you give your current job the attention that it demands and no more. Kerry is not negligent in his attention to the Senate any more than Bush neglected Texas in 2000. Kerry would come in for any important matters, just as Bush would have returned to Austin for anything pressing in 2000.
…and only if they fail to qualify according to the constitutional requirements, according to the Adam Clayton Powell case. Of course, a Senator or Representative whose actions and attitudes are offensive to enough of his fellow Congresscritters may be stripped of seniority, plum committee appointments, etc. – those are not perquisites of the office. But AFAIK the only ways to get rid of a Senator or Representatives are to force him to resign by enough public pressure, to await his death or disability, or to fail to re-elect him. (And, of course, he can be arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for a crime when Congress is not in session.)
Just to tie up the loose ends here, technically the House and Senate don"t “impeach” their members. They can vote to discipline their members. This could include writing them a nasty letter, stripping them of their seniority and committee chairmanships, even up to expulsion.
However, since members of Congress are elected, it’s generally considered the prudent thing to let the voters take care of turning someone out of office.
This handy document will give you all the legalistic background you need.
http://lugar.senate.gov/CRS%20reports/Recall_of_Legislators_and_the_Removal_of_Members_of_Congress_from_Office.pdf
And according to this article, James Trafficant of Ohio (2002) and Michael Myers of Pennsylvania (1980) are the only two members of Congress to be expelled since Reconstruction.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/legislative/house/2002-07-24-traficant_x.htm
Disguised?
Where’s the disguise?
The OP is nothing but a partisan rant.
Yes, it’s called an “election”.
Your personal animus for Kerry aside, why do you care about how he serves his constituancy? Are you from MA?
We have the same problem here with our so-called Representative Don Young ®. He has one of the worst attendence records in the House. It nearly cost him the election two times ago, but he keeps getting elected. Why? Just because, I guess.
Seniority brings in dollars to your home state. Tossing the bastards out of office means starting all over again.
Hmmm…that link should have taken you to the membership page. If you don’t want to search the site, Don Young is the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
I would think that Republicans like it that Kerry isn’t around. In a closely divided Senate (and with several liberal Republicans not trustworthy votes), it’s better for the Republicans if a reliable liberal like Kerry were absent.
Also, to answer SmackFu’s question about re-election, usually the Senate recesses in election years in September or the first week of October (at the latest) to give incumbents time to go home and campaign. Also, the Senate calendar is usually such that there are no votes on Mondays and Fridays (and sometimes not until late Tuesday) so peopl can go home over the weekend for events. Most incumbents know that if they miss too many votes it will reflect poorly on them, so they try to minimize this as much as possible.
I can’t imagine that this is that unusual. According to senate roll call records McCain missed all but two days of voting in Nov. 1999, 100% of the votes Feb 2000 and all of the first three weeks of March, presumably due to his candidacy in the Repub. primaries. I leave it to the rest of y’all to see if a similar absence exists for other sitting congressmen during their runs (I was going to check bob Dole’s record, but I think he ran after leaving the senate, who then was the last sitting senator to win the primary and run for president?)
I would also imagine that both Kerry and McCain made it their business to know when a close vote was/is coming up and their absence would actually make a difference in the outcome. I can’t imagine Kerry would want his absence to lead to the marriage amendment passing by one vote, or some such. So why its a little galling to have our public servants skipping work all the time when my boss looks at me like I’m covered in feces if i run in ten minutes late, I think from the stand point of actually making their vote count on the senate floor, their absence is less important then the roll call numbers make it seem.
FWIW:
Actually, it is up to them to deny him reelection. The electorate can’t recall a senator or representative before his or her constitutional term expires.
Not quite. There are actually two different constitutional provisons at issue in the Powellv. McCormack case: First, that “each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members …” Second, that “each House may … punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.”
The 89th Congress had expelled Representative Powell, under the “expel” clause, for misappropriating funds and abuse of process. But Powell’s constituents reelected him to the 90th Congress – which denied him his seat under the “judge … qualifications” clause, on the ground that his prior expulsion rendered him unqualified for service in Congress. Powell sued all the way up to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the “qualifications” in the “judge … qualifications” clause meant only the constitutionally enumerated qualifications – age, citizenship, and residency – and not the member’s general fitness for office. (McCormack, the named defendant, was the House’s paymaster, whom Powell sued for a judgment directing that he be paid his congressional salary – since naming the House itself, or its members, would have violated the separation of powers.) Because Powell had already suffered expulsion from the 89th Congress for his earlier misconduct, the 90th Congress was powerless to deny him his seat without some new and distinct “disorderly behavior” for which it could punish him.
Thus the House or Senate may expel a member for whatever conduct the chamber deems, by a two-thirds vote, “disorderly behavior.” But they can’t otherwise deny a member his or her seat unless he or she fails to meet the constitutionally enumerated qualifications.
No member of the Senate or the House has ever been impeached (though Sen. William Blount came close in 1797, when the charges were dismissed after the Senate settled for expelling him), and I doubt that they are going to set a precedent on so flimsy of grounds as one’s attendance record.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Senate_Impeachment_Role.htm
If a senator should be impeached for missing Senate duty while campaigning for president, then maybe a president can be impeached for spending over 40% of his term on vacation instead of doing *his * job. :rolleyes:
The OP is a thinly disguised partisan rant.
ralph124c, consider this a warning to keep politics out of General Questions from now on.
This is closed.
DrMatrix - GQ Moderator