When do new members get sworn in as congress people? I have seen two sources (one was LA Times) state that new members are not sworn in until after a speaker is elected. If that is correct, how do the results of an election get reflected in that key election?
Ch. 34 of House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House explains that &quot;The general practice for election of Speaker begins with nominations from each party caucus followed by a viva voce vote of the Members-elect&quot;. We know who those people are; one of these days, they may make the transition to being &quot;Members&quot;, after the Speaker is chosen and sworn in. 2 USC 25 says that after elections, the oath of office shall be administered by any Member of the House of Representatives to the Speaker; and by the Speaker to all the Members and Delegates present, and to the Clerk, previous to entering on any other business; and to the Members and Delegates who afterward appear, previous to their taking their seats. It is up to the House to decide if &quot;and&quot; means &quot;and after that&quot;.
The FCC Commissioner is appointed, per 47 USC 154, by POTUS, subject to approval by the US Senate (as a member of the Commission). Thereafter he serves for 5 years. However Article 2 of the Constitution allows removal from office: The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors. But only the House of Representatives can impeach and only the Senate can remove (of the President declines to do so). There is no provision for a citizen to sue to remove a civil officer. It is, of course, legal for citizens and others to lobby politically for whatever action that want Congress to take. "Net Neutrality" rules can be more permanently fixed by act of Congress. By act of Congress, the FCC may be required to, allowed to, or prohibited from setting some set of rules. Such laws are typically broad and leave a lot of discretion to the executive branch. Congress has not passed a law mandating "net neutrality", and as ruled in Comcast v. FCC the FCC lacks "ancillary jurisdiction" over internet services of at least Comcast. There have been previous attempts to legislate "net neutrality", such as the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006 which died on the floor of the House, which purported to guarantee "net neutrality" via an extension of antitrust law. However, the only way to make such a provision permanent is to make it be a Constitutional Amendment, since an act of Congress can be repealed or amended in such a way that it effectively doesn't exist.
Speech of foreign nationals is not treated the same as that of citizens. In the case Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of various statutory limits on campaign spending. Some parts of the law were upheld, others were overturned in 1st Amendment grounds. They upheld limits on contributions to candidates and volunteers' incidental expenses, and overturned limits on expenditures. In the decision, the court observed that [n]either the right to associate nor the right to participate in political activities is absolute and "governmental 'action which may have the effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny'" The court stated that Even a 'significant interference with protected rights of political association' may be sustained if the State demonstrates a sufficiently important interest and employs means closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgment of associational freedoms. This is reasonably-standard strict scrutiny boilerplate language: what it remind you is that no Constitutionally-protected right is absolute, and all rights are subject to limitation, when that right conflicts with a compelling government interest. In the case of the federal contribution laws, that interest is the prevention of corruption and the appearance of corruption spawned by the real or imagined coercive influence of large financial contributions on candidates' positions and on their actions if elected to office. The court then found that under the rigorous standard of review established by our prior decisions, the weighty interests served by restricting the size of financial contributions to political candidates are sufficient to justify the limited effect upon First Amendment freedoms caused by the $1,000 contribution ceiling. 52 USC 30121 imposes a prohibition which, if placed on US persons, would be held to violate the 1st Amendment. That law prohibits, among others, a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election by "a foreign national", defined to not include lawful permanent residents but otherwise includes all foreign citizens and entities. The constitutionality of this law was challenged on First Amendment grounds but affirmed in Bluman v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 800 F. Supp. 2d 281 (written by Kavanaugh in his previous job), and upheld in a one-sentence affirmation by SCOTUS. So, 1st Amendment rights of foreign nationals are not protected to the same extent as those of US citizens. It should be noted that the court also (expressly) did not decide if Congress could also constitutionally ban contributions by LPRs, or could prohibit foreign nationals from engaging in other forms of speech (issue advocacy and speaking on issues of public policy) – that matter was left undecided.
He's not a judge in a courtroom with all the power of a federal judge. He's temporary presiding officer of the Senate, in charge of enforcing Senate rules. The Senate calendar is under control of the majority leader who passed the rules of how the trial would be run. If the rules don't say "must adjourn for the day by X o'clock" then Roberts would not be allowed to do so on his own, he needs a Senator to ask for adjournment and then get consent from the rest of the Senate.
If no President or Vice-President is picked by Inauguration Day, January 20th, then the Presidential Succession Act kicks in. The Act lists the line of succession Acting President. It starts with the Speaker of the House, the President pro tempore and then goes through the cabinet officers. (You can see the full order of succession here.) You can read more here here and here.
The 12th Amendment specifies a process in case of failure. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President which means that there shall be a president until the House can reach an agreement. It is therefore possible that the acting president will be president for 4 years if no resolution is possible. If there is no vice-presidential choice either, the Presidential Succession act provides that the Speaker of the House becomes president until the situation is straightened out, which again could be 4 years in the future.
Not less than a full house of Congress, and perhaps Congress as a whole, might have standing. It is hard to see anyone else who would. The law of Congressional standing (the link is to a report of the Congressional Research Service, a policy research arm of the Library of Congress that does research for Congress) is quite involved and is not perfectly consistent and clear. Congress would argue that it has suffered an institutional injury as an institution and perhaps authorize someone to bring suit on its behalf via a joint resolution. As the Court explained in Arizona State Legislature, an “institutional injury” is an injury that “scarcely zeroe[s] in on any individual member,” but rather “impact[s] all Members of Congress and both Houses . . . equally.” There is considerable uncertainty regarding how this would be applied which is not really at issue in this case at the present time since Democrats control both houses of Congress and support the President in this policy. Individuals legislators lack standing to sue in a case like this one. See also Tara Leigh Grove &amp; Neal Devins, &quot;Congress’s (Limited) Power to Represent Itself in Court&quot;, 99 Cornell L. Rev. 571 (2014); Matthew L. Hall, &quot;Standing of Intervenor-Defendants in Public Law Litigation&quot;, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 1539 (2012). A blog entry from a law professor considers the question and comes up with the Congressional standing analysis above, the notion that a loan serving company paid on the dollar value of the loans serviced might have standing (which isn't inconceivable but is a stretch), and finally considers &quot;competitor standing&quot;, a minority view that I do not think is sound in these circumstances (because the forgiveness is retroactive only and does not change competitive positions going forward).
This would require a constitutional amendment (overriding the First Amendment), which can be done in two ways. Congress can write an amendment and submit it to the states; or the states can call for a convention. None of these methods can be implemented by any number of courts.