- Pursuant to the United States and District of Columbia Criminal Codes, firearms, dangerous weapons, explosives, or incendiary devices are prohibited on U.S. Capitol Grounds.
Are elected members excused from following criminal codes?
EDIT: I stand corrected - I see that members are indeed granted certain exemptions under a 1967 regulation from the Capitol Police Board, however Under no circumstances are lawmakers allowed to bring firearms onto the House floor.
Great. Agreed. Now where’s the law that requires them to pass through metal detectors in order to attend a session of Congress? As I understand it, and I may be wrong, there’s an internal House rule (not a law) that members must pass through a metal detector to come on to the floor, and failing to do so results in an administrative fine.
If a Member of Congress bypasses a metal detector to attend a Joint Session of Congress, what law are they failing to follow?
As I understand it, they in fact already have that rule, which they are certainly entitled to enact under the Constitution. We’ve skipped at least one step here, though. The original issue was Members of Congress bypassing metal detectors, which as I understand it is an internal administrative rule, enforced by an administrative fine. From there, both you and Euphonious_Polemic seem to have skipped right to Members of Congress being armed, which wasn’t the issue. I agree that there are enforceable prohibitions against that.
My original issue was that it’s probably unconstitutional to prohibit a Member of Congress from attending a session of Congress for violating an administrative requirement to pass through a metal detector, and it’s certainly unconstitutional for an Exective Branch agency such as the Secret Service to do so.
I’m also still a bit flabbergasted by the suggestion that an appropriate security procedure is for the Executive Branch to station armed agents in the Legislative Branch’s own chamber and individually assigned to kill specific legislators who “present a threat” to the President. I’m even more flabbergasted that apparently I’m the only one who sees any sort of problem with that.
If I am reading this right…
Can congress make a rule that could potentially keep a member from entering the floor?
I am guessing they cannot.
But, I think they can manage to search members entering. Walk through a metal detector. If they refuse, manually search them thoroughly. If they refuse that, tackle them and search them. Then let them in.
Heck, tackle them, search them, disarm them, and then carry them in. You’re not preventing them from entering; you’re just making sure they’re safe to enter.
What if a hypothetical Speaker Don suddenly took to sombreros, cigars, and crossed bandoliers?
I don’t think Don would know what to do with any of those. He might figure out the sombrero.
Eh, if Trump was the speaker, I expect that the actual leadership role would just move to the majority leader, as it is in the Senate. Trump would show up for the State of the Union to make faces, then go back to Florida and occasionally phone in.
The only crongressman to kill another congressman was on February 24, 1838, according to my google-fu.
On this date, Jonathan Cilley of Maine was killed by Representative William Graves of Kentucky in a duel on the outskirts of D.C., in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
At least he did not do this in the building itself.
The attack with the cane is well known, I believe:
The Senate had just adjourned on May 22, 1856, when Representative Preston Brooks entered its chamber carrying a cane. The pro-slavery southerner walked over to Senator Charles Sumner, whacked him in the head with the cane and then proceeded to beat the anti-slavery northerner unconscious. Afterward, Brooks walked out of the chamber without anyone stopping him.
I see Trump fantasizing about this, but he could not do it himself, not even with a golf club. I mean, the man needs a valet* to tie his shoelaces…
But there once was a shooting in congress. It was the Ticos!. 1954, those were different times:
[Speaker] Martin later recalled, “Bullets whistled through the chamber in the wildest scene in the entire history of Congress . . . ‘The house stands recessed,’ I declared, unhindered by any parliamentarian.” […]
I believe the pandemonium today would be a of different order of magnitude. It would be shown live on TV, and it would become trending topic in the so called social media in no time at all. I can imagine tanTrump boasting afterwards (if he survived) that he had higher quotas than the 9/11 losers.
* Strange, my fingers almost wrote wallet instead all on thier own.
Is this an option now, if the GOP takes control of the House?
He’s presumably got enough control over the GOP to demand that they elect him Speaker, and (as noted above) he wouldn’t actually have to do any work, just issue vague orders about what he wants to House to do, and then various flunkies will carry out his orders (or try to) as he shows up for ceremonial duties, makes threats on social media, stages fundraisers and rallies etc.
I’m trying to find a downside–I see only an upside for him and for the GOP.
Anyone who can get a majority of the House of Representatives to vote for him or her can be elected Speaker. But Trump didn’t earn himself a lot of goodwill this election, with several of his hand-picked candidates tanking otherwise winnable races. Especially with a narrow Republican majority, I just can’t see this happening.
There’s tons of downside, especially in turning off independent and moderate Republicans. And remind me what is the upside for the GOP? Nothing would get done, and they’d completely squander any possibility of getting some legislation through Congress.
Do you think they have much chance right now? Biden will veto anything they pass that doesn’t suit him.
What’s in it for the GOP is Trump’s future endorsements, or his withholding of naming them as RINOs. He’s down to only a few bits of real influence, and i think his ability to boost or wreck a Congressman’s career is one of them.
You don’t think he could force a majority of the GOP House members to vote for him as Speaker if he really wanted to?
A candidate for Speaker needs to secure a majority of all Representatives present and voting (note this is not true for Senate Majority Leader). So, if Republicans end up with a seven-seat majority, Trump would need nearly all House Republicans to vote for him (assuming no House Democrats would). This is very unlikely.
Interesting. I hadn’t realized this. So what happens if no one gets a majority? I can envision him denying McCarthy (or whoever) a majority for a few ballots until McCarthy agrees to some outrageous concession.
They keep voting — it took 133 ballots to select Nathaniel Banks as Speaker in 1855. I’ll also note that it requires a majority of Members “present and voting,” so a group of Members could choose to abstain which would lower the threshold for a successful candidate.
ISTM obstructionism is what republicans want with a democrat in the White House. That’s precisely what they did with Obama for eight years.
Trump wouldn’t want the Speaker’s job. It’s an actual job.
And he could have Biden and Harris impeached as many times as he wants. It won’t go anywhere in the Senate so he still can’t be ordained president.
Nah. He’d get some flunky to do the actual work. His job would be bloviator, abuser-in-chief, accuser, etc.
And they didn’t need Trump as Speaker for that. What purpose does making Trump the Speaker serve? How does it advance the Republican’s agenda?