releases: https://biggs.house.gov/media/in-the-news/opening-117th-congress-will-be-different-due-pandemic
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://biggs.house.gov/media/in-the-news/opening-117th-congress-will-be-different-due-pandemic | Opening of 117th Congress will be different due to pandemic | 2020-11-23 | 2020 | 2020-11 | Republican | Senate | AZ | Andy Biggs | B001302 | biggs.house.gov | legacy | More complicated is planning for the swearing in of members. Members in Washington can be sworn in groups, Hoyer said. But the tricky part is figuring out how to accommodate those who are unable to travel for health reasons. The issue was raised before, and the parliamentarian ruled you had to be there. He ruled essentially you couldn't be sworn through television, Hoyer said. So I don't know exactly how we're going to do it for people who are unable to come. While that hasn't been resolved, Hoyer said he personally doesn't see why swearing in couldn't be conducted virtually if we can vote virtually and make big decisions virtually. Under the Constitution, opening day of each Congress is supposed to be Jan. 3. In 2021 that falls on a Sunday, so leaders are likely to move the date to Jan. 4 or Jan. 5, which requires both chambers passing a resolution agreeing to the date change. We've changed it before, Hoyer said. I've been here, as you know, 40 years. I can't remember ever being sworn in over a weekend. In addition to the speaker's election and swearing in of members, the House also typically passes its rules package on the opening day of each new Congress. In 2019 the package was split into multiple votes and passed over two days. Rules ChairmanJim McGovern, D-Mass., on Friday told CQ Roll Call he's hoping to have a package to present to the Democratic Caucus in a couple of weeks. We've opened it up and asked people for their advice and their guidance, he said. And everybody has an idea. Some of them are good ideas, some of them are OK ideas, some of them are really bad ideas, but we're vetting them all. So, it's just taking us a little while. Because the 117th Congress follows a presidential election, the House and Senate by law are supposed to hold a joint session to count the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6. Hoyer said he'd like to prevent all members from being on the floor for that, but social distancing could prove complicated if any members want to raise objections. Usually, as I recall, everybody is not in the chamber for the counting, he said. But usually there's never any controversy. President Donald Trump is contesting the election results in the courts and on Twitter, but so far he's produced no evidence of widespread fraud. And on Friday he brought Republican state lawmakers from Michigan to the White House in an apparent effort to lobby them to overturn the state's results. If all those efforts fail as expected, Trump could lean on his allies in Congress to object to the counting of Electoral College votes in a last-ditch effort to protest the results. I don't know what I'm going to do. That's down the road still, House Freedom Caucus ChairmanAndy Biggs, R-Ariz., told CQ Roll Call on Friday. I haven't really thought about that other than I know that in 2000 they objected repeatedly on Bush, he said, referring to House members who objected to counting votes for George W. Bush but were not able to get a senator to join them. One senator and one House member can join together to submit in writing an objection to the counting of any electoral votes. If an objection is raised, the joint session recesses and each chamber meets separately to deliberate and vote. Both chambers must agree to the objection or it fails and the counting resumes. The Democrat-led House is unlikely to agree to any objections, but the process of having to consider objections and abide by social distancing would be cumbersome. I hope that by the time we get to the counting that we will have resolved the controversies, the courts will have thrown all this junk out and somehow cooler minds will prevail, Hoyer said. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |