Lame-Duck Amendment

Lame-Duck Amendment, the name applied to the Twentieth Amendment (1933) to the U.S. Constitution, abolished so-called lame-duck sessions of Congress, which were held from December of even-numbered years until the following 4 March. These sessions acquired their nickname because they included numerous members who had been defeated (the lame ducks) in elections held a month before the session opened. The law permitted them to sit and function until their terms ended in March, while a newly elected Congress, with a fresh popular mandate, stood by inactive and unorganized. Newly elected members usually had to wait thirteen months to take office, because the lame-duck sessions lasted only three months, and Congress did not reconvene until the following December. In the last lame-duck session, which opened in December 1932, 158 defeated members sat in the Senate and House. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. George W. Norris of Nebraska, did away with the lame-duck session by moving back the day on which terms of senators and representatives begin from 4 March to 3 January, and by requiring Congress to convene each year on January 3—about two months after election. The amendment also set back the date of the president's and the vice-president's inauguration from March to 20 January. Other provisions relate to the choice of president under certain contingencies.

Bibliography

Anastaplo, George. The Amendments to the Constitution: A Commentary. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

The popu- lar name given to the Twentieth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Senator George W. Norris proposed the amendment on March 2, 1932, as a way to shorten the period of time in election, or even-numbered, years during which members of Congress who had failed to be reelected (the lame ducks) would serve in office until their terms expired.

The handicap of a session of Congress with numerous lame ducks was particularly evident in December 1932. During the thirteen weeks of that session of the Seventy-second Congress, 158 defeated members (out of a total of 431) served until the new Congress convened in March 1933. In the meantime the newly elected members, spurred by their recent electoral victories and the problems of a nationwide economic depression, had to wait inactive and unorganized until the term of the old Congress expired.

The Norris proposal was ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures on January 23, 1933, and took effect on October 15 of that year. The new amendment stipulated that the terms of all members of Congress begin on January 3. It also required Congress to convene on January 3 each year and for the president and vice president to be inaugurated on January 20 rather than in March. Two sections of the amendment also clarified the problem of presidential succession under certain conditions.