An illegitimate Congress?

First an illegitimate president, now we may have an illegitimate Congress.

Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives - one of them close to home - cast six votes on Thursday, Jan. 6, when they had not yet been sworn in.

A decade ago, a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Florida vote-counting system unconstitutional that allowed George W. Bush to become president. That prevented us from learning if Bush or Al Gore won the election via the electoral college, as spelled out in the Constitution.

The swearing-in of the 112th Congress was held for 433 House members on Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 5, as two other members - Michael Fitzpatrick of Bucks County, a Philadelphia suburb, and Pete Sessions of Dallas - attended a reception for more than 500 of Fitzpatrick’s constituents a few hundred yards away, in the Capitol Visitor Center, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Washington Post.

As Speaker of the House John Boehner administered the oath of office on the House floor, Sessions and Fitzpatrick watched Boehner on live television and recited the oath without leaving the reception, at 2:15 p.m. Predictably, House parliamentarians told them they must be officially sworn in, and Boehner administered the oath of office on Thursday.

Fitzpatrick said he thought that the Jan. 5 swearing-in would be held at 2:45, not 2:15. Of course, any situation could arise that might prevent a member of Congress from attending the swearing-in.

Their failure to show up for the oath does not by itself jeopardize the operations of Congress. It is problematic that they cast votes for six legislative measures before taking their oath of office.

Can these measures be legitimate after two illegitimate congressmen cast votes?

If Sessions and Fitzpatrick paid attention when the Constitution was recited on Thursday morning, they would have been aware of Article VI, Clause 3: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.”

Sessions and Fitzpatrick were not “bound by Oath or Affirmation” when they voted to establish the rules of the House and a 5 percent reduction in congressional office allowances, according to The Washington Post. Their votes were stricken from the Congressional Record on Friday, but is that sufficient?

This fact remains: The House passed six measures in which two illegal votes were cast for each. That could make the entire package of bills illegal. Any one of these bills which, if they need to be ratified by the Senate and signed by the president, could be illegal because illegal votes were cast.

Sessions even chaired a committee meeting on Thursday.

Sessions and Fitzpatrick should have arranged to be sworn in before casting any votes. It takes plenty of gall to cast votes without abiding by the constitutional requirement to be “bound by Oath or Affirmation.” Sessions has spent the last 14 years in Congress and Fitzpatrick was first elected in 2004, defeated two years later and elected again this past November. They should have known better.

Anyone who objects to a law passed in this manner might file lawsuits based on the casting of the two illegal votes.

Also, any law stemming from the committee meeting could also be challenged.

Supporters of these bills might argue that these measures would have passed without the votes cast by Sessions and Fitzpatrick, so it is appropriate to maintain the results. However, the initial inclusion of these votes could taint the end result.

Practically speaking, these measures will probably not be challenged in court. Even if a legal challenge reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, maybe all the Judges on the right and the left will uphold the legislation because it is impractical to do otherwise.

All the same, Congress moved away from our constitutional principles. The House took legislative action that was not legitimate. The only way to make it legitimate is to wipe the slate clean and hold the votes and the committee meeting again.

Certainly, as Rep. Anthony Weiner of the Forest Hills section of Queens asked in open session, the House leadership must be sure that all representatives have been sworn in first.

Many critics have assailed the new Republican majority for a series of hypocritical acts during its first days in power, but all of it pales by this blunder - that the House acted in its official capacity when it was not official.

The House not only violated the Constitution when it undertook those six votes. The House persists in violating the Constitution so long as it refuses to straighten out its self-inflicted mess.

This is not parsing. The law is the law is the law. If our own Congress cannot abide by the law that binds it, then our system is automatically violated.

That is a slap in the face to every citizen of this country.