Law Commons^™

Noncontemporaneous Lawmaking: Can The 110th Senate Enact A Bill Passed By The 109th House?, Seth Barrett Tillman

Seth Barrett Tillman

The text of the Constitution nowhere expressly demands contemporaneous action (i.e., during the life of a single two year session) by the two houses of Congress as a precondition for valid lawmaking. No on-point federal decision mandates contemporaneity - nor do the precedents of the two Houses (i.e., the reported decisions of the Speaker, the Clerk, the Secretary, the parliamentarians, etc.). Is this a power Congress has chosen never to exercise? Or, a power that Congress does not possess? Can we be sure that the federal courts would intervene to block such a practice, particularly if the bill were signed …

Defending The (Not So) Indefensible: A Reply To Professor Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl, Seth Barrett Tillman

Seth Barrett Tillman

This paper replies to Professor Bruhl's response, Against Mix-and-Match Lawmaking, to my opening article: Noncontemporaneous Lawmaking. The trilogy of articles discuss the constitutional validity (or invalidity) of noncontemporaneous lawmaking, i.e., the House and the Senate passing the same bill, but not within a given two-year House term, followed by subsequent presentment to the President (some unspecified time thereafter). Professor Bruhl's erudite essay required that I clarify and fine tune my prior position. I respond to his arguments with textual, historical, and quasi-structural arguments.

This paper, like the opening article, makes heavy use of foreign authority, particularly Irish and Australian authority. …