Apparently the Constitution, which the 112th House of Congressional Pancakes read aloud today like any other incoming class of fourth-graders at the beginning of their Civics module, requires that the oath of office be taken by lawmakers in Congress.
Two little Congressmen were so busy taking a “victory lap” with supporters that they sluffed homeroom and skipped the oath-taking ceremony, a quaint tradition that a mere frosh Congressman attended and who was duly sworn in, with an NPR reporter shadowing him for the day. The more senior members thought they knew better.
Even sweeter, one of the oathskippers was anti-gay Texas Congressman Pete Sessions. They thought raising their right hands as they watched the ceremony on television at a fundraiser at the Capitol visitors center was “good enough,” but there’s no provision in that nit picky Constitution for being sworn in remotely. As noted by a commented at the Dallas Voice, it was just as valid as a “Skype wedding.” It probably invalidated everything Sessions and the other truant, Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-Big Boy), voted on… including the motion to bring health care reform up for eventual repeal.
Sessions, a senior member of the Rules committee and leader of the successful GOP House campaign committee, had to be literally ruled out and have his votes and motions invalidated, along with Fitzpatrick’s. At one point it was thought Minority Leader Pelosi and the Dems would have to agree to a unanimous resolution to mark them absent.
In their second day in power the Republicans are already struggling with a major error. United States Representatives Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) both failed to attend the swearing in ceremony as required by the United States Constitution. Despite not swearing in, both representatives have been casting votes as if they were legal. The Republicans passed an important rules package and a number of procedural motions to repeal health care reform using the votes of Sessions and Fitzpatrick. Technically, that could invalidate all of the business of the House for the last two days. Ironically, the Republicans read the United States Constitution to open the House session today, but no one must have been listening to the portion which requires House members to be sworn in before performing their duties. As soon as the Republicans did discover their error late this afternoon they immediately went into recess to try and resolve the matter.
The only way for Republicans to get around the problem is to now pass a motion by unanimous consent which cleans up the mess. However, a unanimous consent motion, by definition, requires the consent of the minority. As a result, Republicans are literally forced to go to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to ask her if she will consent to the motion. It is unclear at this time if Pelosi will give the Republicans grace for what now appears to be a fairly large error.
The fairly large problem seems to have been resolved, but it’s still highly amusing.