The Twentieth Amendment (Amendment XX) to the United States Constitution moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president from March4 to January 20, and of members of Congress from March4 to January 3. It also has provisions that determine what is to be done when there is no president-elect. The Twentieth Amendment was adopted on January 23, 1933.

The amendment reduced the presidential transition and the "lame duck" period, by which members of Congress and the president serve the remainder of their terms after an election. The amendment established congressional terms to begin before presidential terms and that the incoming Congress, rather than the outgoing one, would hold a contingent election if the Electoral College deadlocked regarding either the presidential or vice presidential elections.

Text

Historical background

Original text of the Constitution

Article I, Section 4, Clause2 of the Constitution states that Congress must meet at least once a year. The default date specified is the first Monday in December, though Congress is empowered to set another date and the president can summon special sessions.

The original text of the Constitution set a duration for the terms of federal elected officials, but not the specific dates on which those terms would begin or end. In September 1788, after the necessary nine states had ratified the Constitution, the Congress of the Confederation set March 4, 1789, as the date "for commencing proceedings" of the newly reorganized government. Although the new Congress and presidential administration did not begin operating until April, March 4 was designated as the official start of the newly elected officials' terms, and thus the starting point for the terms of their successors. The Constitution did not specify a date for federal elections; however, by the second presidential election in 1792, Congress had enacted a law requiring presidential electors to be chosen in November or early December. In 1845, the 28th Congress narrowed the appointment in each State of Electors (of President and Vice President) to a single day: The "Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November". Congressional elections were generally held on the same day.

Issues

The result of these scheduling decisions was that there was a long, four-month lame duck period between the election and inauguration of the new president. For Congress, the situation was perhaps even more awkward. Because Article I, Section 4, Clause2 mandated a Congressional meeting every December, after the election but before Congressional terms of office had expired, a lame-duck session was required by the Constitution in even-numbered years; the next session was not required until the next December, meaning new members of Congress might not begin their work until more than a year after they had been elected. Special sessions sometimes met earlier in the year, but this never became a regular practice, despite the Constitution allowing for it. In practice, Congress usually met in a long session beginning in Decembers of odd-numbered years, and in a short lame-duck session in December of even-numbered years.

The long lame-duck period might have been a practical necessity at the end of the 18th century, when any newly elected official might require several months to put his affairs in order and then undertake an arduous journey from his home to the national capital, but it eventually had the effect of impeding the functioning of government in the modern age. From the early 19th century, it also meant a lame-duck Congress and presidential administration would fail to adequately respond to a significant national crisis in a timely manner. Each institution could do this on the theory that, at best, a lame-duck Congress or administration had neither the time nor the mandate to tackle problems, whereas the incoming administration or Congress would have both the time and a fresh electoral mandate, to examine and address the problems the nation faced. These problems very likely would have been at the center of the debate of the just-completed election cycle.

This dilemma was seen most notably in 1861 and 1933, after the elections of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, respectively, plus the newly elected senators and representatives. Under the Constitution at the time, these presidents had to wait four months before they and the incoming Congresses could deal with the secession of Southern states and the Great Depression respectively.

Proposal and ratification

{|style="float: right; margin-left:2em" class="wikitable"

!The Twentieth Amendment,<br>National Archives

|-

|200px|center

|-

|200px|center

|}

The 72nd Congress proposed the Twentieth Amendment on March 2, 1932, and the amendment was ratified by the following states. The Amendment was adopted on January 23, 1933, after 36 states, being three-fourths of the then-existing 48 states, ratified the Amendment.

  1. Virginia: March 4, 1932
  2. New York: March 11, 1932
  3. Mississippi: March 16, 1932
  4. Arkansas: March 17, 1932
  5. Kentucky: March 17, 1932
  6. New Jersey: March 21, 1932
  7. South Carolina: March 25, 1932
  8. Michigan: March 31, 1932
  9. Maine: April 1, 1932
  10. Rhode Island: April 14, 1932
  11. Illinois: April 21, 1932
  12. Louisiana: June 22, 1932
  13. West Virginia: July 30, 1932
  14. Pennsylvania: August 11, 1932
  15. Indiana: August 15, 1932
  16. Texas: September 7, 1932
  17. Alabama: September 13, 1932
  18. California: January 4, 1933
  19. North Carolina: January 5, 1933
  20. North Dakota: January 9, 1933
  21. Minnesota: January 12, 1933
  22. Arizona: January 13, 1933
  23. Montana: January 13, 1933
  24. Nebraska: January 13, 1933
  25. Oklahoma: January 13, 1933
  26. Kansas: January 16, 1933
  27. Oregon: January 16, 1933
  28. Delaware: January 19, 1933
  29. Washington: January 19, 1933
  30. Wyoming: January 19, 1933
  31. Iowa: January 20, 1933
  32. South Dakota: January 20, 1933
  33. Tennessee: January 20, 1933
  34. Idaho: January 21, 1933
  35. New Mexico: January 21, 1933
  36. Missouri: January 23, 1933<br />This satisfied the requirement for three-fourths of the then-existing 48 states. The amendment was subsequently ratified by:
  37. Georgia: January 23, 1933
  38. Ohio: January 23, 1933
  39. Utah: January 23, 1933
  40. Massachusetts: January 24, 1933
  41. Wisconsin: January 24, 1933
  42. Colorado: January 24, 1933
  43. Nevada: January 26, 1933
  44. Connecticut: January 27, 1933
  45. New Hampshire: January 31, 1933
  46. Vermont: February 2, 1933
  47. Maryland: March 24, 1933
  48. Florida: April 26, 1933

Effects

Section 1 of the Twentieth Amendment prescribes that the start and end of the four-year term of both the president and vice president shall be at noon on January 20. The change superseded the Twelfth Amendment's reference to March4 as the date by which the House of Representatives must—under circumstances where no candidate won an absolute majority of votes for president in the Electoral College—conduct a contingent presidential election. The new date reduced the period between election day in November and Inauguration Day, the presidential transition, by about six weeks. Section1 also specifies noon January 3 as the start and end of the terms of members of the Senate and the House of Representatives; the previous date had also been March 4.

Section 2 moves the yearly start date of congressional sessions from the first Monday in December, as mandated by Article I, Section 4, Clause 2, to noon on January3 of the same year, though Congress still can by law set another date and the president can summon special sessions. This change eliminated the extended lame duck congressional sessions. As a result of this change, if the Electoral College vote has not resulted in the election of either a president or vice president, the incoming Congress, as opposed to the outgoing one, would conduct a contingent election, following the process set out in the Twelfth Amendment. The Constitution previously had been silent on this point, and this lack of guidance nearly caused constitutional crises on two occasions: when the House of Representatives seemed unable to break the deadlocked election of 1800, and when Congress seemed unable to resolve the disputed election of 1876.

Section 4 permits Congress to statutorily clarify what should occur if either the House of Representatives must elect the president, and one of the candidates from whom it may choose dies, or if the Senate must elect the vice president and one of the candidates from whom it may choose dies. Congress has never enacted such a statute.

Effect on the terms of elected officials

On February 15, 1933, 23 days after the amendment was adopted, President-elect Franklin Roosevelt was the target of an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Zangara. While Roosevelt was not injured, had the attempt been successful, then vice president-elect John Nance Garner would have become president on March 4, 1933, pursuant to Section 3.

The first Congress to open its first session and begin its members' terms on the new date was the 74th Congress in 1935. The first presidential and vice presidential terms to begin on the date appointed by the Twentieth Amendment were the second terms of President Roosevelt and Vice President Garner, on January 20, 1937. As Section 1 had shortened the first term of both (1933–1937) by 43 days, Garner thus served as vice-president for two full terms, but he did not serve a full eight years: his vice presidency spanned from March 4, 1933, to January 20, 1941.

References

  • CRS Annotated Constitution: Twentieth Amendment