One of the most frequent misquotes of the U.S. Constitution is that the familiar annual State of the Union speech is a constitutional requirement. While the topic is mentioned in Article II, there is absolutely no requirement of annual activity nor any requirement of a speech or a broadcast of the event. Here is the beginning of Section 3 from the Constitution’s Article II:
“Section 3. He [the president] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union . . .”
In terms of history of the SOTU, George Washington gave the first SOTU “address” in 1790. Thomas Jefferson toned down the event by sending his SOTU report in writing to each house of Congress, to be read by each chamber’s clerks. A century or so later it was Woodrow Wilson who resumed the practice of delivering the SOTU report in person.
The first SOTU speech to be broadcast on radio was that of Calvin Coolidge in 1923. The first television broadcast of the speech was of Harry Truman in 1947. The 2002 speech of George W. Bush was the first to be available as a live webcast on the White House website. Presidents since Ronald Reagan in 1981 have skipped the “annual” SOTU speech in the first year of their first term.
In recent decades the SOTU speech has evolved (or devolved) into a partisan political pageant. What about the “rebuttal” from the opposition party? No mention of that in the U.S. Constitution. Members of the SCOTUS regularly attend the pageant though the presidential report is given to Congress according to Article II.
When any member of news media describes the supposed constitutional requirement of an annual SOTU speech, that person should be sentenced to the punishment of reading Article II. It takes only a few minutes.
Your blogger has not watched an entire SOTU speech in decades. It is easier and less nauseating to catch the post-speech news accounts and analysis of the speech content.
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