SECTION. 4
Clause 1
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
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This is one of those places where I have to say that the United States' general system of government, is bonkers-broken-mental. Presumably when the several states were coming together to invent the Union, they had similar sort of public philos for each other as the several states in Australia did. That is, they would have just as easily murdered each other in cold blood and laughed about it, purely for fun, as easily as they would have come together for the collective project of forging a new nation.
The United States is staunchly a union of several states with what is called a 'republican form of government'. This has been taken to mean in a host of cases at law, that the several states are sovereign in their legal framework except in cases where the Supremacy Clause of this Constitution acts. With respect to holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, the decentralised nature of United States election processes are such that there is not an election for the President but 51 elections (because the District of Columbia sends delegates to the Electoral College as if it were a state). 51 elections should in theory be incredibly difficult to hack but as there is practically zero oversight and practically zero expertise at running elections in any other states, what we get are inadvertently easy to manipulate elections coupled with no oversight on those several states restricting and denying the franchise to their own citizens. Remember, there is no explicit right to vote in the United States and states can and do have the power to deny the franchise and frequently do on the basis of race even if they pretend otherwise.
Clause 2
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be [on the first Monday in December,]* unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.
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Parliament in England had been up until 1649, summoned on a haphazard basis, on the whims, fads, and fancies, of the Monarch. There was a wee little dispute in the middle of the 17th Century, in which Puritan factions finally had had enough of what they saw was the toleration of the King to various religious practices and degeneracy of the King in being profligate in his spending. This was ultimately the root cause of the English Civil War and upon the restoration of the Crown, after the very Puritan republic proved to be worse than the King whom they decapitated, Parliament decided to impose further and further restrictions on the scope of the power of the Crown.
There were many Parliament Acts (that is, an act of Parliament which defines how parliaments should act and make acts of Parliament) over the next four centuries but the one which is important here is the Parliament Act of 1660. The 1660 act set forth that parliament sit at least once every two years. By the time that the American colonies had developed relatively robust forms of self administration (if not direct self government), most of them had at least Biennial Acts which made local parliaments and congresses sit once every two years.
By the time that 1788 rolled around, the several American states all clubbed together to cut this down even further to once in every Year, and I can only assume that the reason for the stipulation of setting the date as the first Monday in December, has to do with budgetary and appropriation concerns. Remember, the first duty of the state is the defence of that state and the first act that said state needs to do in order to ensure that happens, is to pay people to do so.
SECTION. 5.
Clause 1
Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.
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Here we have some of the mechanics of how the houses are two operate. They have oversight of who can be a member. They need a Quorum to do Business. They have the right to whip members into attendance.
On this latter point, we recently had quite a fun demonstration of what happens in practice when it is impractical to demand the Attendance of absent Members. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (before it had become endemic) and when people in the United States were dying from it at a very considerable rate, the Congress ran skeleton proceedings. It was interesting to watch C-SPAN to see the House and Senate hold micro-meetings of in some cases three people, purely because the rules of the houses demanded it. Those micro-meetings would open the day's proceedings, declare that there was no business, maybe speak a few words of salutation and greeting to the people, and then close the meeting. The majority of those present was two.
Clause 2
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
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With the amount of visceral hatred that exists in the United States, I find it weird that even with the First Amendment right to free speech, that the House and Senate are as civilised as they are. Here in Australia, parliaments are rowdy places; with the NSW Legislative Assembly even gaining the nickname of "The Bearpit" because it is so very very nasty and rowdy. As far as Federal Parliament goes, there is a right which stems from the 1688 Bill Of Rights Act that proceedings in parliament aught not to be questioned and by extension it means that anything that is said on the floor of parliaments, however barbaric and however otherwise illegal (such as things that as are seditious, open calls to violence, defamatory, or the divulging of official secrets, et cetera) is free and unrestricted due to parliamentary privilege. However there is a difference between an absolute right to free speech on the floor of the parliament and behaviour which the house thinks is not cricket. Federally the infamous Standing Order 91A is invoked when members need to be sent to the sinbin and/or naughty step.
The United States similarly has had warrant to punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, because of reasons of starting pillow fights, punch-ups, attacking each other with canes, and in the Senate making someone clean out their desk after it was discovered that there had been apples kept in the desk and forgotten for years. Curiously though, carving one's name into the desk is not only allowed but actively encouraged as tradition in the United States Senate.
Clause 3
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.
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Of course it makes sense that a legislative house should keep a journal of business, however the United States had to invent this procedure for itself; as the journals of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, were sketchy and unreliable. It wasn't until Thomas Curson Hansard took over the printing of parliamentary proceedings in 1829 that anything remotely looking like a proper journal was kept in England.
The United States at inception, being thirteen several states who kind of semi-hated each other, wanted a neutral record of proceedings which is sensible. The fact that they require one fifth of the members to approve that the proceedings be entered on the Journal, is maddening. Such a thing would not fly today. If you have an elected body of representatives whose job it is to pass legislation, then the principles of open government must surely demand that all proceedings be entered on the Journal by default. Mechanically this clause is always in practice met by a resolution which accepts the record to be entered, and there are even some interesting notes about what constitutes a day and what not, but the fact that you would accuse the British Government of holding opaque sessions of parliament and then design a system which replicates that same degree of opacity (except at the Desire of one fifth of those Present) is crazy-making.
Clause 4
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
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Probably in theory, the fastest that a given piece of legislation could pass through the entire of legislative government, is less than half an hour. I am allowing ten minutes in the House, then ten minutes in the Senate, and sufficient faffing about time such that the legislation could be ferried from house to house and then to the President for assent.
The reason why you would want to do this is obvious. The first duty of government is the defence of the realm and when you consider that only the Congress actually has the power to make war, then having the two houses present in the event that such a resolution and/or declaration needs to be made, is sensible. Speculative fiction (and I include such pieces of media as "The Bedsitting Room", "Threads", "Fallout", et cetera) has often touched upon the idea that a nuclear war still might be all over within that half an hour which I have imagined. Granted that in 1788 the framers of the Constitution could not have imagined such raw naked power, but they were familiar with firearm warfare. Therefore the physical proximity of the two houses is vital; quite literally.
I note that in Australia, we liked this so much, that the two houses face each other and although it is not physically possible for the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate to see each other, Black Rod and the Sergeant-At-Arms can do. Legislation in Australia can be run across a hallway if need be. When the United States Constitution was being written, the Capitol building had not even been dreamt of; so this clause likely imagines two separate buildings, or the two houses occupying the same rooms in turn.
SECTION. 6
Clause 1
The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
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The first part of this clause, which states that the members of Congress be paid for doing work, seems logical enough but there was an absolute shemozzle and indeed fisticuffs in the convention when this was suggested. Some people though that they Constitution should name a fixed amount. Some thought that the level of remuneration be tied to that of the civil service. Still others like Benjamin Franklin, who even at the time was being painted as a hemi-demi-semi-god and a brilliant man and a bounder and a cad all at once, thought that that the members of Congress should not be paid at all; and that the service that they were doing for the country aught to be enough.
The second part of this clause, which states that the members of Congress be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the respective Houses, is kind of based upon the existing 1688 Bill Of Rights concept that the speech inside parliament aught not to be questioned, but this stops well short of protecting the right to free speech within the Congress.
Section 6 Clause 1 does not bestow the right of parliamentary privilege inside the Congress and although the First Amendment which got tacked on later attempts to extend the right to all places, it actually fails to do so. The right to free speech in the United States is such that Congress can not pass laws restricting it, but it is not so absolute to extend parliamentary privilege to the members of Congress on the floor. This is where I wonder if this particular element of the 1688 Bill Of Rights still actually applies in the United States, as part of the corpus a legislation which was received upon the forging of the new nation. Just a plain text reading of this, still looks like that the members of Congress can be sued for what they say upon the floor of Congress. That is kind of dangerous.
Clause 2
No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.
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I love pecuniary interest clauses. They basically say: don't have a government job while in the government because you will have a conflict of interest. One finger in the pie is fine. Two fingers in the pie is out. If everyone has fingers in the pie then it spoils the pie for everyone.
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