Could the House of Representatives be disbanded for refusing to perform their duties?

Great Debates
21

Here’s roughly how the coup might go down.

The President would order some branch of the federal government to arrest all members of Congress and to transport them to their home of record in their constituent states. They would be held under house arrest for a period of 6 months. The National Guard would be deployed to each state capital, and would quell riots. The governor would be politely asked by armed soldiers to show up in the capital, and would be asked to choose replacement Congressman within 5 days. If the governor were to fail in his duty, he too would be sent to his house and kept there, and the task would fall to the lieutenant governor.

Once the replacement is concluded, the new Congress would have a chance to go to work.

22

The House has the power to expel its members. The House could vote to expel all its own members. Or the entire House could resign or die. But short of that, there is no Constitutional way to disband the House between elections.

ETA: Like Lord Feldon said.

23

Delaying by one year the individual mandate enforcement in the Obamacare law.

24

From reading “Executive Orders” (the now dead Clancy) -

I would think that if it really got that bad, that common sense would reign - i.e that a “reasonable” if not entirely “legal” solution would be found.

I’d also be willing to assume that the supreme court would support it, at least until something better comes up -

Remember - that what is “legal” and what is “constitutional” is basically what the various depts / branches says it is

25

What you are proposing is that the House must vote in line with the President. I thought you guys rejected monarchy over 200 years ago.

26

The Constitution gives governors no power to appoint House members. So you are talking about just ignoring the Constitution altogether. If you want to do that, there are much simpler means to accomplish the same thing. Why mess with the governors? Just have the President pick some allies. It doesn’t have to be 435 of them either, just one or two dependable allies who will pass everything on a voice vote and never have a quorum call.

But if you are ignoring the Constitution why not just arrest the House and declare that Senate to be the whole Congress? Or just arrest the House and the Senate and let the President make all the laws.

27

Then what happens when they die in office?

28

A special election:

29

Article I, Section 2, Clause 4.

You really need to bone up on the Constitution.

30

Ah, got it. Since Obama’s senate seat was replaced this way, I assumed the procedure was the same for the House.

Well, shit. That basically means it is a coup no different than Egypt. Obama would announce the House is <insert reason here>, and don’t worry everyone is safe but being held incommunicado under house arrest. The elections to replace those representatives would be held “at some future date” that keeps getting postponed…
**
So, hypothetically, 3 months from today the government is still shut down. What (possibly unconstitutional/illegal) fix could be done to get it running again?**

31

Seeing as the US Constitution requires that all budgets begin in the House of Representatives, disbanding the House would not only be unconstitutional but make the present problem worse.

32

I’d say that if the problem really became so intractable that putting people under house arrest became an attractive option - you want the incoming folk to have as much “legitimacy” as possible - the way to achieve legitimacy would be via some sort of transparent system rather than cronyism.

33

The Senate and House could agree on either a continuing resolution or a budget and the president could sign it. That’s the only Constitutional way.

If you’re talking about illegal fixes, then, sure, Obama declares martial law and overthrows congress, naming himself dictator for life, or Congress impeaches the President and Vice President, and then, instead of turning him over to the Senate for trial, reenacts Julius Caesar, or Chief Justice Roberts declares the other two branches of government unconstitutional and announces the Court is in charge, or all sorts of amusing but illegal and unprecedented scenarios.

But, Constitutionally, the Congress passes a CR or budget and the President either signs it or vetoes it and is overwritten.

34

Frankly I’m baffled by the OP. As much as I think that the 30-40 craziest members of the House are holding the rest of the country hostage, I can’t imagine a scenario where they could be “removed for the good of the country” that would not in itself be far worse for the country. The ability of other parts of the government to remove people who are voting the “wrong way” would have a huge potential for abuse and corruption.

The correction is to stop voting for these idiots. And if the people in those districts are of a mind to continue to send the loons back to Congress, well…that’s the democratic process for you.

On a tangential note: are there any recall processes for members of Congress in the way that there are for governors and the like? What if individual members become *non compos mentis *, in the way that the President can be replaced if he goes lala? (Not that I’m suggesting that you could do this for several members at once; I’m just curious if there’s a system in place for individuals.)

35

However, there is nothing in the Constitution saying that the White House and Washington, DC have to be where they are right now, only that Congress has the authority to create a Federal District that is no more than ten square miles. So, Congress could probably make Alcatraz part of DC with California’s permission, and could probably relocate DC in its entirety to Alcatraz with California and Maryland’s permission (Maryland would probably take back the land that currently makes up DC). Congress might even be able to bypass California by turning an existing US Territory or part of one into a new Federal District - so there’s probably nothing preventing Congress from moving the White House to Old San Juan, Wake Atoll, or Saipan. Or, how about this place?

36

There is no recall process. There was debate at the Constitutional convention for including a provision to allow the recall of House members, and it was not included.

Additionally, the Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that state-passed term limits on Federal elected officials were unconstitutional. A law providing for the recall of Federal elected officials would almost certainly suffer the same fate.

37

Are you seriously asking what illegal things can be done for the president to seize power in blatantly unconstitutional manner? The answer, of course, is everything that’s illegal. It’s a nonsense question: if the President wants to break the law, he can murder every member of the House, bribe them, imprison them, rape them, steal their money, whatever any other criminal would do. And any of that, of course, means that we would no longer be a country of laws.

The more interesting question is what could the President legally do, but I’m not clear why you jump to the President needing to violate the basic principles of civilized government.

38

Ta. I suppose if an individual member went round the twist to a serious extent Congress itself could expel that member but, as with removing a President, it would have to be an extreme case.

39

Since this discussion is both political and largely hypothetical, it is better suited to Great Debates than GQ.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

40

Let’s look at parallel incidents:
Egypt - nope. the general assembly (the house) was dissolved by the supreme court a year ago. As a result Morsi took dictatorial powers, packed the various bodies including the constitution-writing group with his fellow-travellers. Severe discontent resulted in such serious protests and disruptions that the Army stepped in (such a polite way of putting it) to prevent further chaos. “Mission accomplished”. The resulting disruptions were the result of a very divided country, half adamantly against the brotherhood, half admantly for.

That sort of factionalism wouldn’t happen in a truly democratic government like Washington, would it?

Oliver Cromwell eventually got fed up with the “Rump Parliament” and used the army to suggest it was time for them to disperse… after 10 or more years.

There was a famous standoff in Australia about 30 years ago. IIRC, the house wanted one budget and the senate wanted another, and they could not agree so the government was in deadlock. For those wondering what real power the Queen has, the Queen’s representative, the governor general, took it upon himself to do what he was allowed to do, but by tradition only did when asked by the prime minister - he simply dissolved parliament and called new elections.

There is no provision for dissolving the House of Representatives that I am aware of. The only solution is to wait until the elections in November, 2014 and see if the voters make a more intelligent decision. (Odds are they won’t).

You can imagine any situation where the administration, or the army brass, or the Washington Mall park ranger force, act illegally and prevent the Representatives from doing their job. However, they are all fantasies. I suspect the backlash against whoever actually destroys democracy will be strong.

(Check what happened to Indira Ghandi after she took on dictatorial powers then decided the time was ripe for democracy again. No, not the assassination - that was later. She lost the next election - bigtime.)

Plus any such action would be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court almost immediately. Then what? Are you going to arrest the Supreme Court too? Why not take out the senate too, and change your name to Julius Caesar?

Bill Clinton had a very good take on democracy and elections in an interview I saw. He said, 40% of people vote Democrat pretty much no matter what. 40% vote Republican. The trick is to get more of the remaining 20% fence-sitters to decide to vote for you. If you basically trash the constitution, I’m assuming you’ll lose that 20% and half your 40% will not bother to show up either.