The oath
Article VI requires that Senators, Representatives, and state officers “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.” The modern statutory oath (5 U.S.C. § 3331) binds the officer to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. It is not an oath to a party, a president, or a poll.
Federalist No. 57: representatives are to have “an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people.” Dependence is electoral. Sympathy is not a substitute for the roll.
The clock
Article I, Section 2: the House is chosen every second year. Section 3, as amended by the Seventeenth Amendment: Senators are chosen for six years. The term is a limit, not a property right. Federalist No. 52 called frequent elections the “effective way” to keep the House dependent on the people.
The purse
Article I, Section 9: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Federalist No. 58: the House was given the purse as a check “the most complete and effectual… against every being of the government.” A vote on an omnibus is still a vote on the purse, even when the packaging hides the line items.
The recorded vote
Article I, Section 5: “the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.” The journal is the public record. This site reprints that record. It does not replace it.
If the Clerk or the Senate and this site disagree, the official tally is right and this site is wrong.
