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Procedures of the United States Congress are established ways of doing legislative business. Congress has two-year terms with one session each year. There are rules and procedures, often complex, which guide how it converts ideas for legislation into laws.
The first occurrence of a joint session was on April 6, 1789, at Federal Hall in New York City during the 1st Congress, for the counting of electoral votes. [22] On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the "Day of Infamy speech" to a joint session of Congress
The United States Constitution provides that each "House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings," [1] therefore each Congress of the United States, upon convening, approves its own governing rules of procedure. This clause has been interpreted by the courts to mean that a new Congress is not bound by the rules of proceedings of the previous ...
†John Howard's address before the Joint Meeting of Congress in 2002 was originally scheduled for September 12, 2001, but was interrupted by the September 11 attacks. He was already in Washington when the attacks occurred, and sat in on the September 12 session of the House of Representatives.
In the United States House of Representatives, suspension of the rules is a procedure generally used to quickly pass bills which enjoy broad, bipartisan support. A member can make a motion to suspend the rules only if the Speaker of the House allows them to. Once a member moves to "suspend the rules" and take some action, debate is limited to ...
Committees only very rarely are deprived control of a bill, although this kind of action is provided for in the rules of each chamber. By far the most important committees in Congress are the Standing Committees, permanent bodies that are established by the rules of each chamber of Congress and that continue from session to session.
For purpose of seniority on joint committees, total time in Congress—Senate and House—is counted.Most joint committees rotate their chair and vice chair position between each chamber's majority at the end of a congressional term (two years), except for Taxation, which starts each term led by the House and rotates to the Senate at the end of each term's session (one calendar year).
Under Section 4 (3 U.S.C. § 15), Congress is required to be in session on January 6 following the election to count the votes, although this date can be changed by law. Due to the 20th Amendment, the joint session is conducted by the new Congress whose term begins on January 3, rather than the outgoing lame-duck Congress.