Twentieth Amendment--Terms of President, Vice President,
Members of Congress: Presidential Vacancy

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                           TWENTIETH AMENDMENT
                               __________

                           COMMENCEMENT OF THE

  TERMS OF THE PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT, AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, ETC.


  Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at
noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and
Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which
such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and
the terms of their successors shall then begin.
  Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year,
and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless
they shall by law appoint a different day.
  Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the
President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect
shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before
the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect
shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as
President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may
by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice
President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as
President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected,
and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice
President shall have qualified.
  Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death
of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose
a President whenever the right of

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choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of
any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President
whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
  Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of
October following the ratification of this article.
  Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of
three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of
its submission.
      Purpose of the Amendment

        The Senate Committee on the Judiciary in its report suggested
several reasons for the proposed Twentieth Amendment. It said in part:

        ``[W]hen our Constitution was adopted there was some reason for
such a long intervention of time between the election and the actual
commencement of work by the new Congress. . . . Under present conditions
[of communication and transportation] the result of elections is known
all over the country within a few hours after the polls close, and the
Capital City is within a few days' travel of the remotest portions of
the country. . . .

        ``Another effect of the amendment would be to abolish the so-
called short session of Congress. . . . Every other year, under our
Constitution, the terms of Members of the House and one-third of the
Members of the Senate expire on the 4th day of March. . . . Experience
has shown that this brings about a very undesirable legislative
condition. It is a physical impossibility during such a short session
for Congress to give attention to much general legislation for the
reason that it requires practically all of the time to dispose of the
regular appropriation bills. . . . The result is a congested condition
that brings about either no legislation or illy considered legislation.
. . .

        ``If it should happen that in the general election in November
in presidential years no candidate for President had received a majority
of all the electoral votes, the election of a President would then be
thrown into the House of Representatives and the memberships of the
House of Representatives called upon to elect a President would be the
old Congress and not the new one just elected

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by the people. It might easily happen that the Members of the House of
Representative, upon whom devolved the solemn duty of electing a Chief
Magistrate for 4 years, had themselves been repudiated at the election
that had just occurred, and the country would be confronted with the
fact that a repudiated House, defeated by the people themselves at the
general election, would still have the power to elect a President who
would be in control of the country for the next 4 years. It is quite
apparent that such a power ought not to exist, and that the people
having expressed themselves at the ballot box should through the
Representatives then selected, be able to select the President for the
ensuing term. . . .

        ``The question is sometimes asked, Why is an amendment to the
Constitution necessary to bring about this desirable change? The
Constitution [before this amendment] does not provide the date when the
terms of Senators and Representatives shall begin. It does fix the term
of Senators at 6 years and of Members of the House of Representatives at
2 years. The commencement of the terms of the first President and Vice
President and of Senators and Representatives composing the First
Congress was fixed by an act of [the Continental] Congress adopted
September 13, 1788, and that act provided `that the first Wednesday in
March next to be the time for commencing proceedings under the
Constitution.' It happened that the first Wednesday in March was the 4th
day of March, and hence the terms of the President and Vice President
and Members of Congress began on the 4th day of March. Since the
Constitution provides that the term of Senators shall be 6 years and the
term of Members of the House of Representatives 2 years, it follows that
this change cannot be made without changing the terms of office of
Senators and Representatives, which would in effect be a change of the
Constitution. By another act (the act of March 1, 1792) Congress
provided that the terms of President and Vice President should commence
on the 4th day of March after their election. It seems clear, therefore,
that an amendment to the Constitution is necessary to give relief from
existing conditions.''\1\

        \1\S. Rep. No. 26, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 2, 4, 5, 6 (1932).
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        As thus stated, the exact term of the President and Vice
President was fixed by the Constitution, Art. II, Sec. 1, cl. 1, at 4
years, and became actually effective, by resolution of the Continental
Congress, on the 4th of March 1789. Since this amendment was declared
adopted on February 6, 1933, Sec. 1 in effect shortened, by the interval
between January 20 and March 4, 1937, the terms of the President and
Vice President elected in 1932.

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        Similarly, it shortened, by the intervals between January 3 and
March 4, the terms of Senators elected for terms ending March 4, 1935,
1937, and 1939; and thus temporarily modified the Seventeenth Amendment,
fixing the terms of Senators at 6 years. It also shortened the terms of
Representatives elected to the Seventy-third Congress, by the interval
between January 3 and March 4, 1935, and temporarily modified Article I,
Sec. 2, clause 1, fixing the terms of Representatives at 2 years.

        Section 1 further modifies the Twelfth Amendment in its
reference to March 4 as the date by which the House must exercise its
choice of a President.

        Section 2 supersedes clause 2 of Sec. 4 of Article I. The
setting of an exact hour for meeting constitutes a recognition of the
long practice of Congress, which in 1867 was for the first time enacted
into permanent law,\2\ only to be repealed in 1871.\3\

        \2\Ch. 10, 14 Stat. 378.
        \3\Ch. 21, Sec. 30, 17 Stat. 12. See 1 A. Hinds' Precedents of
the House of Representatives Sec. 11 (1907).
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        When the 3d of January fell on Sunday (in 1937), Congress did by
law appoint a different day for its assemblage.\4\

        \4\Ch. 713, 49 Stat. 1826.
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        Pursuant to the authority conferred upon it by Sec. 3 of this
amendment, Congress shaped the Presidential Succession Act of 1948 \5\
to meet the situation which would arise from the failure of both
President elect and Vice President elect to qualify on or before the
time fixed for the beginning of the new Presidential term.

        \5\Ch. 644, 62 Stat. 672, as amended, 3 U.S.C. Sec. 19. See also
the Twenty-fifth Amendment, infra, pp. 1991-93.