Opinion ID: 4510976
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Congressional Understanding

Text: Plaintiffs cite remarks by the Senator who proposed the final version of the Seventeenth Amendment in the Senate, and by the Representative who authored the Vacancy Clause’s final text in the context of a previous version of the Seventeenth Amendment introduced in the House, as supporting their interpretation of the Amendment. We disagree. We conclude that the cited reports are ambiguous as to the relevant questions. 36 TEDARDS V. DUCEY Senator Joseph L. Bristow 28 proposed the final version of the Seventeenth Amendment in the Senate. In his remarks on the Senate floor, he briefly explained the drafting of the Vacancy Clause. Regarding the principal clause, he emphasized that he had “use[d] exactly the same language in directing the governor to call special elections for the election of Senators to fill vacancies that is used in the Constitution in directing him to issue writs of election to fill vacancies in the House of Representatives.” 47 Cong. Rec. 1482–83 (1911). Regarding the proviso, he noted “[t]hat it is practically the same provision which now exists in the case of such a vacancy. . . . [T]he legislature may empower the governor of the State to appoint a Senator to fill a vacancy until the election occurs, and he is directed by this amendment to ‘issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.’” Id. These statements align with our conclusions regarding the text and constitutional context discussed above. They do not, however, illuminate whether legislators understood the final language to require that the necessary “special election” must “occur[]” by a particular time. Id. Representative Henry St. George Tucker III 29 authored an 1892 proposed version of the Seventeenth Amendment, 28 Senator Bristow (R-Kan.) was a former newspaper editor who devoted his political career to progressive reform, particularly with respect to popular participation in government. See U.S. Senate, Joseph L. Bristow: A Featured Biography, https://www.senate.gov/senators/ FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_Bristow.htm. 29 Representative Tucker (D-Va.) was a constitutional law scholar who would later serve as dean of the law schools of Washington and Lee University and George Washington University. See Biographical Directory of the U.S. Cong., Tucker, Henry St. George, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000399. TEDARDS V. DUCEY 37 from which the final version of the Amendment borrowed the language in the Vacancy Clause (omitting one comma). Representative Tucker’s authorship received express acknowledgement during the Senate debates on the final version. 46 Cong. Rec. 2940 (1911). We therefore find Representative Tucker’s explanation of his language to be relevant here. In explaining his proposed language, Representative Tucker justified the principal clause, under which “the governor must order an election to fill the vacancy,” as “preserv[ing] the principle of election by the people.” H.R. Rep. No. 52-368, at 5 (1892) (emphasis added). He justified the proviso as responding to the predicament of those States that have “annual elections,” where any vacancy would therefore “in most cases not be of long duration, and to add another State election would be imposing an unnecessary expense on the people.” Id. (emphasis added). He went on to suggest that: . . . in a State where there are biennial elections the legislature might direct that if a vacancy occurred within a year [or any other period it might fix] after the election, the vacancy should be filled by an election by the people; but if the vacancy occurred more than a year after the election the vacancy should be filled by executive appointment. Id. (brackets in original). In context, we read this explanation to suggest that a state legislature would have discretion to direct that any vacancy occurring within the “period it might fix” be filled by prompt special election, but that any vacancy occurring thereafter be filled at the next general election, with a temporary appointee serving in the interim. 38 TEDARDS V. DUCEY We conclude that Representative Tucker’s report evinces a strong assumption that States would fill most Senate vacancies by popular election within one year of their occurrence. However, we are less confident that Representative Tucker’s report evinces any assumption that the proposed Vacancy Clause would require observance of this one-year limit. Rather, his report suggests that although the principal clause would require a special election (even sooner than one year) standing alone, the proviso defeats this requirement by leaving some discretion to state legislatures. The report does not anticipate the possibility that States with biennial elections might direct that a prompt special election is never required, postponing the people’s ability to fill the vacancy until the next general election no matter how near the previous election the vacancy arose. But neither does the report offer an interpretation of the proviso that would clearly prohibit this. The legislative history thus does not provide us with a clear view of the textual interpretation possessed by the members of Congress who voted in favor of the Seventeenth Amendment.