Regarding whether Larry Craig can use senatorial privilege to beat his toilet rap, reader Gary chimes in:
While I’m not a lawyer, Akhil Reed Amar, a member of the Yale Law School
faculty, is. His excellent book, “America’s Constitution-A Biography” has
this to say on your questions. First of all, the relevant portion is in
Article I, Section 6.“Article I, section 6 “privileged” senators and representatives
from certain kinds of “Arrest during their Attendance” in Congress. The
privilege applied only to various civil cases, still prevalent in the
eighteenth century, in which a litigant sought the physical arrest of a
defendant. (No congressional privilege would exist in cases of “Treason,
Felony and Breach of the Peace” – a catchall English-law term of art
effectively covering all crimes.) Without the privilege, a single private
civil litigant, perhaps by design, might undo the voters’ verdict by keeping
their man off the floor. As Jefferson explained in his famed “Manual of
Parliamentary Practice”, “When a representative is withdrawn from his seat
by summons, the 30,000 people whom he represents lose their voice in debate
and vote.” The private privilege thus served a public purpose. In the name
of democracy, a sitting congressman could claim temporary immunity and
oblige his would-be civil arrester to wait until the legislative session had
ended. If a lawmaker abused this privilege, the voters could punish him at
the next election. To put legislators from distant states on equal footing
with those living near the national seat, the privilege would apply to
lawmakers traveling to and from Congress.”It appears the operative word here is “civil” as Craig would have appeared
to commit a “breach of the peace”. Hope this helps.
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