20th Amendment

Virginia was the tenth State to ratify the Federal Constitution./- Last week it was the first State to ratify what is likely to become the 20th Amendment to that Constitution. Prodded into speedy action by Senator Carter Glass, it did not wait to be notified officially by Secretary of State Stimson that Congress had put this newest Amendment up to the States. Last week Mr. Stimson was still waiting for the Government Printing Office to turn out 48 copies of the Amendment to be signed, sealed, red-taped and distributed among the States.

As submitted to the States by Congress, the 20th Amendment would eliminate the short ("lame duck") session of Congress which follows every biennial election. Each Congress, instead of waiting 13 months to get to work, would open Jan. 3 after the November voting. The President would be inaugurated Jan. 20 instead of March 4. Congressional sessions, within the two-year term of members, would be unlimited.

Only five of the 25 constitutional amendments proposed by Congress have failed of State ratification.* Unless three-fourths of the State Legislatures ratify this latest proposal within seven years, it will lapse, becoming null and void. Virginia's hasty ratification started a race among the States to tack the "Lame Duck'' Amendment to the Constitution after the one providing for woman suffrage. Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, Mississippi, Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, Illinois, Rhode Island and Connecticut, all with legislatures sitting, jockeyed for second and third honors in performing a Federal function. Nebraska's Senator George William Norris, who has fought long and hard to reform Congressional dates fixed in the stage-coach era confidently expected to have the 36 necessary State ratifications soon after next January when the Legislatures of 44 States meet.

*Concerning apportionment of Representatives: concerning compensation to members of Congress (1789); forfeiture of citizenship by acceptance of foreign titles or other honor (1810); Corwin Amendment to prohibit the Constitution from interfering with slavery in the States (1861); Child Labor (1924).

/-June 25, 1788 by a vote of 89-10-79.

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