Article 1 §3.5 Pro Tempore Presidents

Democracy is hard, but it helps if you know what you’re doing. I want to be better at democracy so I’m studying the Constitution, and blogging what I learn. I read through the entire Constitution on Memorial Day. It was a short read, and seemed simple. But it’s kind of dry and easy to skim over. So now I’m going back through and studying each clause to make sure I really get it.

Let me know if you think I don’t, or if you have insights I miss. After all, in a functioning democracy we should all be Constitutional scholars.

I’m currently reading the First Article of seven. It deals with the legislative branch of government and has 10 sections. Section One establishes a bicameral Congress and Section Two deals with the House of Representatives. I’m currently reading Section Three. Today is Clause 5.

Article 1 §3.5

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

Clause 4 established the Vice President as the President of the Senate. This clause allows the Senate to choose its other officers, whose roles have not yet been identified. This part is the same as the House of Representatives, which also chooses its own officers (they get to choose their own leader, too, whose office is called the Speaker).

When the Vice President is unavailable to serve, or is busy filling in for the President, the Senate chooses a pro tempore replacement.

This is all very straightforward and procedural. But when it comes to the Constitution, it seems like there’s always more to it than the words on paper, so I checked around a bit for some history or context, which I found on the Senate website.

The order of succession has shifted several times in U.S. history, but the Vice President and the Senate pro tempore president are usually both on the list. Since 1947, the order of succession has been

• Vice President,
• Speaker of the House,
• president pro tempore, and then the
• secretary of state and
• other cabinet officers in order of their departments’ creation.

Although the president pro tempore was originally elected as needed, since 1890 the president pro tempore has held office continuously and designates other senators to preside in his absence. Back when the Vice President regularly presided over Senate sessions, it was normal to elect several presidents pro tempore during a single session.

Unlike the vice president, the president pro tempore is an elected Senator and can speak and vote on any issue. They used to be elected based on their qualifications, but nowadays it’s a party perk – the Senate elects the senior member of the majority party as president pro tempore.

I’ve been surprised as I worked on this project how many of the clauses were relevant to current news stories. But so far, this administration doesn’t seem to have generated any scandals or tussles related to the pro tempore Senate president, although the current holder of the position, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, helped the current administration shoot their wad in health care shenanigans earlier this year.