WHEN IN ORDER. Friday in every week shall be set apart for the consideration of private business, unless otherwise determined by the House.-Rule XXVI, clause 1. A continuing special order for the consideration of a public bill "from day to day until finally acted on" makes such consideration in order on Friday as on other days.-Journal, 2, 48, p. 136. A given number of days being assigned generally for the consideration of certain public bills is construed as not including Friday, which day is set apart for private business.— Congressional Record, 1, 51, p. 2012. On Friday of each week, after the morning hour, it shall be in order to entertain a motion that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole House to consider business on the Private Calendar; and if this motion fails, then public business shall be in order as on other days.-Rule XXIV, clause 6. On Fridays the consideration of private business previously reported from the Committee of the Whole House takes precedence over the motion to resolve into Committee of the Whole House to consider private business.-Journal, 2, 52, p. 33. The hour for the consideration of business under clause 4, Rule XXIV, being confined to public business on the House Calendar or in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, business under this clause is held not to be in order on Fridays unless private business has been previously dispensed with. Congressional Record, 1, 49, p. 864; 1, 52, p. 1987. A negative vote on the motion to resolve into Committee of the Whole House to consider business on the Private Calendar is according to the practice construed as equivalent to dispensing with private business for the day, and a similar motion is not again in order on the same Friday.-Journal, 2, 52, p. 17. PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS, COMMITTEE ON. (See Committees.) PRIVILEGE. The Senators and Representatives * 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.-Const., 1, 6, 1, 5. This privilege from arrest privileges, of course, against all process the disobedience to which is punishable by an attachment of the person: as a subpoena ad respondendum or testificandum, or a summons on a jury; and with reason, because a Member has superior duties to perform in another place.Manual, p. 110. A Member of the House, Thirty-ninth Congress, having been arrested and detained on civil process, and the matter being referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, that committee reported a resolution directing that a warrant issue commanding the Sergeant-at-Arms to deliver the Member from the custody of the officer by whom he was detained. The motion was adopted, and the warrant was afterwards returned executed, and the Member restored to his seat in the House.-Journal, 2, 39, pp. 103, 105. It was held in a recent decision by Judge Dyer of the United States district court for the eastern district of Wisconsin, that the privilege of a Member extends to exemption from service of process even though not accompanied with an arrest. Also held that the time allowed for going to and returning from the Capitol must be construed as a reasonable time; and that a slight deviation from the usual route for rest, conven ience, or because of sickness, did not terminate or suspend the exemption. Miner vs. Markham, 28 Fed. Law Reporter, p. 387. Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings punish its Members for disorderly conduct, and, with the con currence of two-thirds, expel a Member.-Const., 1, 5, 2, 5. - This power is evidently given to enable each House to exer cise its constitutional functions of legislation unobstructed. It can not vest in Congress a jurisdiction to try a Member for an offense committed before his election; for such offense a Member, like any other citizen, is amenable to the courts alone.Report 815, by Judiciary Committee, first session, Forty-fourth Congress. It is for the House to determine whether a Member has trans gressed its rules and privileges in printing remarks in the Record.-Journal, 1, 49, pp. 1835–1836. In the maintenance of what are denominated its privileges, and of the privileges of its individual Members, the House, in former Congresses, has imposed various penalties. In some cases it has directed its Speaker to reprimand the party offending.—Journals, 1, 4, p. 389; 1, 15, p. 154; 1, 22, pp. 730, 736. In others it has committed the party to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms.-Journals, 1, 4, p. 407; 1, 12, p. 280; 1, 15, p. 119; 2, 34, pp. 277, 281, 284. In others (where the parties were reporters of the House) it has excluded them from the Hall.-Journals, 1, 24, p. 1021; 2, 33, p. 315. In the Forty-first Congress, Patrick Woods, having been held to answer for an assault upon a Member (outside of the city), was ordered to be punished by imprisonment in the jail of the District of Columbia, as other criminals are, for three months. Journal, 2, 41, pp. 1199, 1200. The session terminated within a week after the order, but the order was executed. In one case where a witness refused to answer a question propounded to him by a select committee, it was ordered and adjudged by the House that he be committed to the common jail of the District of Columbia, to be kept in close custody until he should signify his willingness to purge himself of the contempt.-Journal, 1, 35, pp. 387 to 389. And after having been so imprisoned for more than three months, he was, by the further order of the House, on the 22d of March, released from jail and delivered over to the marshal of the said District to answer a presentment against him in the United States criminal court therein.-Ibid., pp. 535 to 539. A witness having refused to answer a question during an examination by an investigating committee of the House was committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, and, per sisting in the refusal, was by the order of the House confined in the District jail for forty-five days. The imprisonment was afterwards decided by the courts to have been illegal upon the ground that no general power is vested by the Constitution in either House of Congress to punish for contempt; and a verdict was obtained for a large sum in damages in a suit by the witness against the Sergeant-at-Arms. (See proceedings in case of Hallett Kilbourne, First session, Forty-fourth Congress; also case of Kilbourne vs. Thompson, United States Supreme Court Reports, vol. 103, p. 168.) PRIVILEGE, QUESTIONS OF. Questions of privilege shall be, first, those affecting the rights of the House collectively, its safety, dignity, and the integrity of its proceedings; second, the rights, reputation, and conduct of Members individually in their representative capacity only; and shall have precedence of all other questions, except motions to fix the day to which the House shall adjourn, to adjourn, and for a recess.—Rule IX. "Questions of privilege" are sometimes confounded with what are known as "privileged questions." The latter designation applies to motions, legislative propositions, or other questions, which take precedence in different degrees over each other and over the ordinary business of the House; while "questions of privilege" as defined by the rule relate to the rights of the Members officially and individually, and of the House collectively. A question of privilege is thus a privileged question of high rank, but a privileged question is not necessarily a "question of privilege." A matter of privilege arising out of any question, or from a quarrel between two Members, or any other cause, supersedes the consideration of the original question, and must be first disposed of.-Manual, p. 155. A question of privilege is in order and has precedence, though presented on a day previously set apart by special order for the consideration of other business.-Congressional Record, 1, 51, p. 8375. Pending a call of the House no question of privilege can be presented, except such as may arise out of or in connection. with the call in which the House is engaged.-Journal, 2, 52, p. 105. Whenever a point of order is made that a matter presented is in violation of the honor, dignity, or privileges of the House, it is not a question for the Chair but for the House itself to determine.-Congressional Record, 1, 49, p. 8032. It is ordinarily impracticable for the Speaker to determine from a private inspection whether a paper submitted presents a question of privilege, it being necessary that the paper be read in order that the House may act advisedly in case of an appeal.―Journal, 1, 49, pp. 514, 515. A Member having leave to make a personal explanation proceeds to read or have read a paper, when the point is made that the paper is disrespectful to the House and its reading should therefore not be continued. Held, that it is the privilege of the Member to read or have read the paper as a part of his remarks, but a point of order may be made against it as the reading proceeds, whereupon the House may determine whether the paper is in order.-Congressional Record, 1, 49, pp. 8031, 8032. Questions of privilege may be based on communications received by telegraph bearing the usual evidences of authenticity, (e. g., a dispatch from the chairman of an investigating committee,) in like manner as if the same were received directly or by mail.-Journal, 2, 44, p. 133. The right of a Member-elect to take the oath as a Member was held by the Clerk to present no higher question of priv ilege than the election of Speaker to fill a vacancy in that office, on the ground that one question of privilege could not be presented while another was pending.-Journal, 2, 44, p. 8. A better ground for the decision was that the Speaker is the only officer authorized by law to administer the oath.-R. S., sec. 30. Whenever the Speaker is of the opinion that a question of privilege is involved in a proposition, he must entertain it in preference to any other business.-Journal, 1, 29, p. 724. [Such decision, of course, being subject to an appeal.] And when a proposition is submitted which relates to the privileges of the House, it is his duty to entertain it, at least to the extent of submitting the question to the House as to whether or not it presents a question of privilege.-Journals, 3, 27, p. 46; 1, 29, p. 223; 1, 30, p. 712; 1, 31, p. 1079; 1, 35, pp. 376, 410; 1, 51, p. 22. |