Article One of the United States Constitution
United States of America
This article is part of the series:
United States Constitution
Original text of the Constitution
Preamble
Articles of the Constitution
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII
Amendments to the Constitution
Bill of Rights
I · II · III · IV · V
VI · VII · VIII · IX · X
Subsequent Amendments
XI · XII · XIII · XIV · XV
XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX
XXI · XXII · XXIII · XXIV · XXV
XXVI · XXVII
Article One of the United States Constitution describes the powers of Congress, the legislative branch of the federal government.
The Article provides that Congress consists of a House of Representatives and the Senate, establishes the manner of election and qualifications of members of each House, and outlines legislative procedure and enumerates the powers vested in the legislative branch. Finally, it establishes limits on the powers of both Congress and the states.
Each of the first three Articles of the Constitution concern one of the three branches of the federal government. The legislative branch is established under Article One, the executive branch under Article Two, and the judicial branch under Article Three.
Amendments to certain provisions of Article One, unlike amendments to other articles, are explicitly restricted by the Constitution (these restrictions are imposed by Article Five). For example, no amendment made prior to 1808 could affect the first and fourth clauses of Section Nine. The first clause prevented Congress from prohibiting the slave trade until 1808; the fourth barred any direct taxes that were not apportioned among the States according to population.
Section 1: Legislative power vested in Congress
“ All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. ”The "Vesting Clause" grants all the federal government's legislative authority to Congress. Other vesting clauses are found in Articles II and III as well, and differ regarding the branch of government concerned; Article II's vesting clause vests the President with "the executive power" and Article III's vesting clause vests "the judicial power" in the federal judiciary. The Vesting Clauses thus establish the principle of separation of powers by specifically giving to each branch of the federal government only those powers it can exercise and no others. This means that no branch may exercise powers that properly belong to another (e.g., since the legislative power is vested in Congress, the executive and judiciary may not enact laws).
The language "herein granted" in Article I's vesting clause has been interpreted to mean that the powers Congress may exercise are exclusively those specifically provided for in Article I. This contrasts with the general vesting of the executive and judicial powers in Articles II and III in the branches of government those articles govern, which has been interpreted to mean that those branches enjoy "residual" or "implied" powers beyond those specifically mentioned, as contrasted with the Congress, which is vested only with those legislative powers "herein granted;" however, there is substantial contemporary disagreement about the precise extent of the powers conferred by the general vesting clauses.
As a corollary to the fact that Congress, and only Congress, is vested with the legislative power, Congress (in theory) cannot delegate legislative authority to other branches of government (e.g., the Executive Branch), a rule known as the nondelegation doctrine. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress does have latitude to delegate regulatory powers to executive agencies as long as it provides an "intelligible principle" which governs the agency's exercise of the delegated regulatory authority. In practice, the Supreme Court has only invalidated four statutes on non-delegation grounds in its history, three of which were invalidated in the mid-1930s and one that was invalidated in 1998.
The nondelegation doctrine is primarily used now as a way of interpreting a congressional delegation of authority narrowly, in that the courts presume Congress intended only to delegate that which it certainly could have, unless it clearly demonstrates it intended to "test the waters" of what the courts would allow it to do.
Although not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, Congress has also long asserted the power to investigate and the power to compel cooperation with an investigation. The Supreme Court has affirmed these powers as an implication of Congress' power to legislate.
Since the power to investigate is an aspect of Congress' power to legislate, it is as broad as Congress' powers to legislate. However, it is also limited to inquiries that are "in aid of the legislative function;" Congress may not "expose for the sake of exposure." It is uncontroversial that a proper subject of Congress' investigation power is the operations of the federal government, but Congress' ability to compel the submission of documents or testimony from the President or his subordinates is often-discussed and sometimes controversial (see executive privilege), although not often litigated. As a practical matter, the limitation of Congress' ability to investigate only for a proper purpose ("in aid of" its legislative powers) functions as a limit on Congress' ability to investigate the private affairs of individual citizens; matters that simply demand action by another branch of government, without implicating an issue of public policy necessitating legislation by Congress, must be left to those branches due to the doctrine of separation of powers. The courts are highly deferential to Congress' exercise of its investigation powers, however. Congress has the power to investigate that which it could regulate, and the courts have interpreted Congress' regulatory powers broadly since the Great Depression.
Additionally, the courts will not inquire into whether Congress has an improper motive for an investigation (i.e., using a legitimate legislative purpose as a cover for "expos[ing] for the sake of exposure"), focusing only on whether the matter is within Congress' power to regulate and, thus, investigate. Persons called before a congressional investigatory committee are entitled to the constitutional guarantees of individual rights, such as those in the Bill of Rights. Congress can punish those who do not cooperate with an investigation via holding violators in contempt.
Section 2: House of Representatives
Clause 1: Composition and election of Members
“ The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature. ”Section Two provides for the election of the House of Representatives every second year. Since Representatives are to be "chosen . . . by the People," State Governors are not allowed to appoint temporary replacements when vacancies occur in a state's delegation to the House of Representatives; instead, the Governor of the state is required by clause 4 to issue a writ of election calling a special election to fill the vacancy.
The Constitution does not directly guarantee the franchise to anyone; rather, it provides that those qualified to vote in elections for the largest chamber of a state's legislature may vote in congressional elections as well. Amendments to the Constitution, however, have restricted the states' ability to set such qualifications. The Fifteenth Amendment and Nineteenth Amendment bar the use of race or sex as qualifications to vote in both federal and state elections. Furthermore, the Twenty-sixth Amendment provides that states may not set age requirements higher than eighteen years. The Twenty-fourth Amendment bars states from using the payment of a tax as a voter qualification in federal elections. Moreover, since the Supreme Court has recognized voting as a fundamental right, the Equal Protection Clause places very tight limitations (albeit with uncertain limits) on the states' ability to define voter qualifications; it is fair to say that qualifications beyond citizenship, residency, and age are usually questionable.
Since clause 3 provides that Members of the House of Representatives are apportioned state-by-state and that each state is guaranteed at least one Representative, exact population equality between all districts is not guaranteed and, in fact, is currently impossible, because while the size of the House of Representatives is fixed at 435, several states had less than 1/435 of the national population at the time of the last reapportionment in 2000. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted the provision of Clause One that Representatives shall be elected "by the People" to mean that, in those states with more than one member of the House of Representatives, each congressional election district within the state must have nearly identical populations.
Clause 2: Qualifications of Members
“ No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. ”The Constitution provides that a representative must be twenty-five years old and an inhabitant of the state in which they are elected, and must have been a Citizen of the United States for the previous seven years. There is no requirement that a representative reside within the district he represents; in practice, this is usually the case, but there have been occasional exceptions, and in any event the states may not add such a requirement. The Supreme Court has interpreted the Qualifications Clause as an exclusive list of qualifications that cannot be supplemented by a House of Congress exercising its § 5 authority to "judge . . . the . . . qualifications of its own members," or by a state in its exercise of its § 4 authority to prescribe the "times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives."
Clause 3: Apportionment of Representatives and taxes
“ Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse [sic] three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. ”The Constitution does not fix the size of the House of Representatives; instead, this clause empowers Congress to determine the size of the House as part of the apportionment process, so long as the size of the House does not exceed 1 member for every 30,000 of the country's total population and the size of the state's delegation does not exceed 1 for every 30,000 of the state's population (although these limits have not been approached since the Founding). The number is currently fixed at 435, which is around a 1 Representative: 700,000 Citizen ratio. A particular number of Representatives is assigned to each State according to its share of the national population; election districts are not drawn nationally and do not cross state boundaries. Congress additionally has the authority to prescribe what method shall be used to allocate Representatives to each state; currently, Congress has prescribed the use of the Equal Proportions method.