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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 …