Amendment 20 — Date When Congress Shall Meet
Primary source
Commentary below is sourced from the Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII) mirror of the U.S. Constitution Annotated, used per LII's robots.txt with 10-second crawl-delay compliance.
Commentary
Twentieth Amendment , Section 2:
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
Section 2 of the Twentieth Amendment superseded Clause 2 of Section 4 of Article I.[1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-20/date-when-congress-shall-meet#fn1amd20 " See . ") Setting an exact hour for Congress to meet recognized Congress’s long practice, which it enacted into permanent law for the first time in 1867[2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-20/date-when-congress-shall-meet#fn2amd20 " Ch. 10, 14 Stat. 378. ") but repealed in 1871.[3](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-20/date-when-congress-shall-meet#fn3amd20 " Ch. 21, § 30, 17 Stat. 12. See 1 Asher C. Hind, Precedents of the House of Representatives § 11 (1907). ") When January 3 fell on Sunday (in 1937), Congress appointed a different day by law to assemble.[4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-20/date-when-congress-shall-meet#fn4amd20 " Ch. 713, 49 Stat. 1826. ")
Footnotes
1
2
Ch. 10, 14 Stat. 378 .
3
Ch. 21, § 30, 17 Stat. 12 . See 1 Asher C. Hind, Precedents of the House of Representatives § 11 (1907).
4
Ch. 713, 49 Stat. 1826 .
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