Answer: The power of special sessions
Step-by-step explanation:
Presidential Authority to Call a Special Session of Congress
141
[T]he 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 be law appoint a different day (amend. XX, § 2).
The foregoing provisions appear to contemplate the existence of situations,
comparable to the present, in which one or both houses of the Congress may stand
adjourned or at recess until a future date other than that appointed by the Constitution or by a duly enacted statute. There is nothing in the Constitution to indicate,
nor is there any other basis for believing, that the President’s power to convene the
Congress on extraordinary occasions depends upon the precise nature of the recess
or the adjournment, that is, whether the adjournment is sine die, until a day certain,
or until the majority leaders of the Congress find it in the public interest to
reassemble the two houses.
The important factor would appear to be not the nature of the recess or adjournment but, rather, that the Congress is not in session and that an extraordinary
occasion has arisen which requires that it be in session and that it convene,
therefore, at a date earlier than it otherwise would. It is beyond question that the
two houses of the Congress do not have the power, even by statute, to defeat the
constitutional power of the President, under Article II, Section 3, to convene the
Congress on such an occasion.
While the motives of the Congress in passing Senate Concurrent Resolution 33
may not be entirely clear, I may say that neither the resolution on its face nor its
legislative history indicates a congressional intention to deny this power of the
President.
I conclude, therefore, that the President has the power, under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, to call a special session of the Congress during the
current adjournment.
GEORGE T. WASHINGTON
Assistant Solicitor General