The Pelosi-Trump State of the Union Address Chess Match

Or is it a game of checkers? Either way, here are some great options for how this thing might play out, from the reliably anti-Trump Outside the Beltway:

"Although it’s usually just a matter of form, it has been a tradition that the ability of the President or anyone else to speak in the chamber of the House of Representatives has always been something that has been a matter of discretion for the House, acting through the office of the Speaker of the House. Because of this, the normal procedure since the tradition of President’s delivering a State of the Union in person was reinstated by President Woodrow Wilson has been that the Speaker of the House issues an invitation to the President to speak on a date that has usually been agreed to in advance by the House, the Senate, and the White House and the White House sends an acceptance of that invitation. Alternatively, there have been occasions such as situations involving national emergencies where the White House has requested permission to address a Joint Session of Congress, but in those cases as well it technically requires an invitation from the Speaker’s Office to allow the President access to the House floor. In part, this is meant to recognize the fact that Congress is a co-equal branch of government and that it does not exist to do the bidding of the President. It’s on this basis that Speaker Pelosi sent her initial letter on January 3rd inviting the President and this letter today.

"There is one part of Pelosi’s letter that strikes me as largely nonsensical. The idea that there would be a significant security concern due to the fact that the government is partially shutdown is, as James Joyner put it, clearly just a pretext for what is largely a political move on Pelosi’s part as part of the ongoing shutdown showdown. As James notes the Secret Service personnel who would be responsible for Presidential security are exempt from furlough during the shutdown. Additionally, the shutdown does not impact the Capitol Hill Police due to the fact that the Legislative Branch was one of the parts of government whose appropriations bill was passed prior to the shutdown so the employees on Capitol Hill are being paid and not subject to furlough. The same is true about the District of Columbia police and other support personnel that may be called on to help with security during one of these events. While this is the excuse that Pelosi is using in her letter, then, it’s clear that this is yet another move in the ongoing chess match that is the government shutdown.

"While the letter itself, which I’ve embedded below, reads as a suggestion to the President, it seems clear that this is effectively a revocation of the prior invitation and that the invitation will be more formally revoked if the President doesn’t agree to either reschedule the address or to deliver it in writing. As I’ve argued in the past, as you can see in examples here, here, and here, this second option is perhaps the ideal solution both to the current situation and to the extent to which the State Of The Union has become something akin to Queen Elizabeth’s address from the Throne that is delivered at the start of each new session of Congress. Contrary to what many Americans may think and what several cable news hosts have already stated on the air, there is no requirement in the Constitution that the President deliver a State of the Union Address to Congress, or that it be done annually. The only requirement is found in Article II, Section 3, which states that the President “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” While it quickly became the tradition that a President would advise Congress of the state of the union and policy provisions he believes should be enacted on an annual basis as President Washington did, the idea of a formal address wasn’t the practice for a significant period of American history. From Thomas Jefferson to William Howard Taft, Presidents would satisfy their Constitutional duty by sending a written message to Congress addressing those issues, That tradition remained unbroken until Woodrow Wilson, whose Presidency saw the establishment of several bad precedents and bad decisions, opted to address Congress, a tradition that every President has followed since then. Even after Wilson’s decision, though, the State of the Union didn’t take on the air of importance it undeservedly has today until 1965 when Lyndon Johnson became the first President to have a State of the Union address televised on live television. With television now part of the tradition, the speech has taken on ever more over-inflated importance. The hype has only gotten worse since we started living in the world of a 365/24/7 news cycle thanks to cable news, the Internet, and political social media.

"Given that, the government shutdown and Pelosi’s letter offers the President the opportunity to return to what had been the status quo for more than 100 years, but he also has other alternatives that could effectively amount to him calling Pelosi’s bluff. One option would be for the Republicans to invite the President to address the Senate exclusively. Although this would not be an address to a Joint Session of Congress and would lack much of the pageantry associated with that event, it would be a way for Republicans to hit back against House Democrats. Alternatively, the President could decide to deliver his form of a “State of the Union” from the White House, perhaps in the Oval Office or perhaps with a friendly audience of House and Senate Republicans in the East Room. Finally, Trump could choose to hold one of his campaign-style rallies before an adoring audience of supporters and use it as an occasion to bash Democrats in general and Nancy Pelosi in particular. On the other hand, Trump is perhaps even more aware of the value of appearances than most other Presidents and he clearly understands the value of addressing a Joint Session of Congress. Additionally, a State of the Union Address would get coverage on not only the cable networks but also on the broadcast networks. As a result, it seems likely he’d still want to do that. In order to get an invitation, though, he’s going to have to help bring an end to the government shutdown, or at least a significant part of it, and he shows no sign of being willing to do that."​

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/n...ate-of-the-union-until-the-government-reopens