A special session for Homeland Security funding?

Early last week, President Trump told the New York Post he was considering calling Congress into special session, in the middle of its two-week Easter recess, to resolve the funding stalemate at the Department of Homeland Security.

At this writing, no such emergency session has been called. If called, it would be a rare invocation of the president’s power under Article I, section 3 of the Constitution, “on extraordinary occasions, to convene both Houses, or either of them.”  

On March 28, Trump had already signed an executive memorandum to pay Transportation Security Administration workers. On April 3, he signed another order to restore pay for nearly all the rest of the Homeland Security workforce, except for ICE and Border Patrol, which had already been forward-funded in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” last year.

The partial government shutdown this year is already the longest ever, depicted daily on TV by long boarding lines wrapping around airports across the country. Those two pay restoration orders have all but obviated any need for an emergency special session this week.

I was only surprised that no one publicly questioned the propriety of the president’s threatened intrusion into Congress’s scheduling prerogatives. Unmentioned in the press was the fact that even when Congress is in recess today, it is still considered to be in legislative session. That’s because it convenes every three days for what are called, “pro forma” sessions during which no legislative business is conducted. Secondly, should the need arise, the Speaker of the House and majority leader of the Senate are empowered by........

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