# president strom thurmond? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 28, 2003, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-strom-thurmond/184902 "2003-06-28T02:21:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-strom-thurmond/184902/21 "2003-07-02T06:42:02Z")
**brianmelendez** , the Constitution’s Article I, Section 6, is what I was referring to: “No person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.” ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-strom-thurmond/184902/22 "2003-07-02T16:16:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by brianmelendez \* > **. . . absent a special session, the outgoing Congress–and with it the tenure of the Speaker and the president pro tem–expired in March, and there was neither a Speaker nor a president pro tem until the incoming Congress convened nine months later.** Was there a consensus in the Nineteenth Century about whether the president pro tem’s tenure expired along with Congress on March 4? The consensus today seems to be that it does not–the Senate does _not_ elect a new president pro tem at the beginning of a new Congress unless there has been a majority change or the incumbent has left the Senate. (This relates to the “continuing body question” which may come into play in the current debate over changing the filibuster rule.) If the President had died at any of the many times in the Nineteenth Century when the Vice Presidency was vacant, this could have been a critical question, but I’ve never read that anybody at the time really addressed or answered it. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-strom-thurmond/184902/23 "2003-07-02T16:29:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jklann \* > \*\*Was there a consensus in the Nineteenth Century about whether the president pro tem’s tenure expired along with Congress on March 4? The consensus today seems to be that it does not–the Senate does _not_ elect a new president pro tem at the beginning of a new Congress unless there has been a majority change or the incumbent has left the Senate. (This relates to the “continuing body question” which may come into play in the current debate over changing the filibuster rule.) If the President had died at any of the many times in the Nineteenth Century when the Vice Presidency was vacant, this could have been a critical question, but I’ve never read that anybody at the time really addressed or answered it. \*\* Yes. The practice as late as the 1880s (and perhaps later) was that the president pro tem was not a permanent officer, as it is today, but was rather an ad hoc officer whom the Senate elected for the time being (“pro tempore”) when the Vice President was absent. His status ended when the Vice President reclaimed the chair or the Senate adjourned. As long as the same party held power, the Senate customarily re-elected the last president pro tempore when it next needed one, but at least in theory several presidents pro tempore could have served during a single Congress. (I don’t know if it ever happened in practice.) Somewhere along the road–I don’t know when or why–the president pro tem became regarded as a permanent officer who held office until a successor was elected. But that practice is a modern development. Unfortunately I don’t have a handy online resource that I can cite for this history, but it is touched on in Ruth C. Silva, _Presidential Succession_ (1968). ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-strom-thurmond/184902/24 "2003-07-03T06:58:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by brianmelendez \* > \*\*Unfortunately I don’t have a handy online resource that I can cite for this history, but it is touched on in Ruth C. Silva, _Presidential Succession_ (1968). \*\* Here are a few online references: From the [Senate](http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/President_Pro_Tempore.htm)’s own website: > [@](#): > > Before 1890, the Senate elected a president pro tempore only for the period when the vice president would be absent. Since 1890, the president pro tempore holds office continuously until the election of another president pro tempore. > > … > > Vacancies in the office presented a most pressing problem. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Senate assumed that it was empowered to elect a president pro tempore only during the absence of a vice president. But what should senators do at the end of a session? Since Congress was customarily out of session for half of each year, what would happen if there were no designated president pro tempore? If the vice president became president, who would preside at the opening of the next Senate session? Rather than settle these problems by statute or rules changes, the Senate for decades relied upon an elaborate charade in which the vice president would voluntarily absent himself from the chamber at the end of the session to enable the Senate to elect a president pro tempore, who would then be available to preside if necessary when the Senate reconvened. Some vice presidents refused to perform this little courtesy. From snopes, [President for a Day](http://www.snopes.com/history/american/atchison.htm): > [@](#): > > The custom of the Senate had been to select a president pro tempore only when the Vice-President was absent, and thus there were long stretches of time (especially since Congress did not sit in session all year around) during which the Senate had no president pro tempore… The Senate had been relying upon a gimmick under which the Vice-President would voluntarily leave the Senate chamber just before the end of a session so that a president pro tempore could be named before adjournment, but not all Vice-Presidents were willing to play along (especially when the opposition was the majority party). See also Richard C. Sachs, “The President Pro Tempore of the Senate: History and Authority of the Office” (Congressional Research Service, 2001): > [@](#): > > Recent research indicates that 88 different Senators have served as President pro tempore. (See Gerald Gamm and Stephen S. Smith, _Last Among Equals: The Senate’s Presiding Officer_, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, September, 1998). Sixty-one served prior to 1900, when Vice Presidents routinely presided over the chamber and Presidents pro tempore were elected to serve only for limited periods when the Vice President was absent or ill, or the office was vacated. Frequently, several different Presidents pro tempore were chosen in a single congressional session, “on the basis of their personal characteristics, popularity, and reliability.” (See Robert C. Byrd, “President Pro Tempore of the Senate,” in Donald C. Bacon, Roger H. Davidson, and Morton Keller, eds., _The Encyclopedia of the Congress_, 4 vols. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, vol. 3, p. 1604)). > > … > > **Tenure.** For more than a century, the Senate acted upon the theory that a President pro tempore could be chosen only in the absence of the Vice President, and that the tenure of a President pro tempore expired when the Vice President resumed his duties in the Senate.14 Under this interpretation of the Constitution, the Senate elected a President pro tempore each time the Vice President was absent at the beginning of a daily session. Between April 1789 and March 1890, the Senate elected Presidents pro tempore on no fewer than 166 occasions. A record 10 such elections were held during the 42nd Congress. > > During the period from April 1789 to March 1890, Presidents pro tempore usually served no more than a few consecutive days before the Vice President returned to displace them… > > … > > Four years later the Senate resolved the question of the President pro tempore’s tenure when it adopted a resolution originally introduced by Senator William M. Evarts of New York. As accepted by the Senate on March 12, 1890, the resolution read: > > _Resolved,_ That it is competent for the Senate to elect a President _pro tempore_, who shall hold the office during the pleasure of the Senate and until another is elected, and shall execute the duties thereof during all future absences of the Vice-President until the Senate otherwise order.25 > > That resolution is still in effect. Under its terms a President pro tempore, once elected, holds the post continuously whether or not the Vice President is absent (although, of course, he may not preside over the Senate unless the Vice President steps down from the chair). The tenure of the President pro tempore ends upon the expiration of the term for which he was elected Senator, a precedent dating back to at least 1841. > > * * * > > 14 In its report of January 6, 1876, the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections declared: “The office of the president pro tempore of the Senate must expire whenever the absence of the Vice President is at an end and he appears in the Senate to preside.” U.S. Congress, Senate, S. Rpt. 3, [_Election of President Pro Tempore_], 44th Cong., 1st sess., (Washington: GPO, 1876), p. 2. See also, George P. Furber, _Precedents Relating to the Privileges of the Senate of the United States_, S. Misc. Doc. 68, 52nd Cong., 2nd sess., (Washington: GPO, 1893), p. 176. > > 25 U.S. Congress, _Senate Journal_, 50th Cong., 2d sess., p. 165. See also “President Pro Tempore of the Senate,” _Congressional Record_, vol. 21, March 12, 1890, pp. 2144-2150. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-strom-thurmond/184902/25 "2003-07-03T16:36:11Z")
Fascinating stuff, **brian**. That clears up some points I had never understood in reading about the potential succession crises of the 1880’s. The problem, then, was not that the pro tem office became vacant at the end of the term on March 4 but that it was vacant _any time the Vice President had been in attendance for the last hour of the last day of the last previous session of the Senate_. An odd factor on which to base succession to the leadership of a mighty republic, but somehow we survived. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-strom-thurmond/184902/26 "2003-07-04T02:41:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by brianmelendez \* > \*\* Half the senators plus the Vice President is a majority for the purpose of passing laws, but it is still not “a majority of the whole number” of senators, which is necessary for choosing a Vice President. \*\* :smack: Simple arithmetic is evidently not my strong suit. Thanks, **brian**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-strom-thurmond/184902.md?page=1)