U.S. Supreme Court BARRY v. U.S. EX REL. CUNNINGHAM, 279 U.S. 597 (1929)

[Page 279 U.S. 597, 620]

with well-settled rules and discharge him from custody upon proper assurance, by recognizance or otherwise, that he will appear for interrogation when required. This is all he could properly demand of a court under similar circumstances.

Here the question under consideration concerns the exercise by the Senate of an indubitable power; and if judicial interference can be successfully invoked, i can only be upon a clear showing of such arbitrary and improvident use of the power as will constitute a denial of due process of law. That condition we are unable to find in the present case.

Judgment reversed. Footnotes

Footnote 1 Among the typical cases in the House, where that body refused to seat members in advance of investigation, although presenting credentials unimpeachable in form, was that of Roberts, in the Fifty-Sixth Congress, where it was so decided after full debate by a vote of 268 to 50. Cong. Record, vol. 33, pt. 2, p. 1217.

It was stated at the bar in this case that the Senate in 29 cases had, in advance of investigation, seated persons exhibiting prima facie credentials, and in 16 cases had taken the opposite course of refusing to seat such persons, before investigation and determination of charges challenging the right to the seat.