After President Joe Biden’s first address to the nation, pundits and Biden-watchers in general began to speculate about whether he would skip the traditional address to a joint session of Congress that his predecessors have almost always delivered in their first year in office.
Already, Biden has gone the longest of almost any president in a century without delivering the address before Congress. The lone exception was that of President Richard Nixon in 1969, who skipped the traditional address the entire year out of respect for his predecessor Lyndon Johnson, who delivered a combination State of the Union and farewell address to Congress in January of that year.
For its part, the White House suggested to Newsmax that such an address was in the works — albeit without a firm commitment that it is coming.
“We certainly intend on the president delivering a joint session speech — joint session, not a State of the Union — in the first year that they[sic] are in office,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told Newsmax. “But we don’t have a date for that or a timeline at this point in time, and we’ve been engaged closely with leaders in Congress about determining that.”
Under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union and recommendation to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary.”
But the president is not required to deliver such an address and could conceivably not speak to Congress. George Washington and John Adams made addresses before Congress, but Thomas Jefferson chose to send written remarks to lawmakers.
Jefferson’s policy of a written message for an annual address was maintained by presidents until Woodrow Wilson. On December 6, 1913, Wilson gave the address before Congress in person. The next three presidents alternated between written and in-person annual addresses and, in 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt made the personal address a tradition.
Although FDR did give one address in the evening — in 1936, pursuing a larger radio audience — and Lyndon Johnson, in 1965, launched the modern tradition of the speech delivered in prime time for the television audience.
Spokeswoman Psaki also told Newsmax that “any joint session speech would — would look different than — than the past” because “[w]e are in the middle of a global pandemic.”
Source: Newmax
