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Section 2 of the Twentieth Amendment superseded Clause 2 of Section 4 of Article I. Setting an exact hour for Congress to meet recognized Congress’s long practice, which it enacted into permanent law for the first time in 1867 but repealed in 1871.. ") When January 3 fell on Sunday (in 1937), Congress appointed a different day by law to assemble.
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 .
This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.