<P> In addition to statutory constraints, Congress and the States have altered the electoral process through amending the Constitution (first in the above mentioned Fifteenth Amendment). The Seventeenth Amendment altered the manner of conducting the elections of Senators; establishing that they are to be elected by the people of the states . Also, the Nineteenth Amendment prohibits any U.S. citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex; the Twenty - fourth Amendment prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax; and the Twenty - sixth Amendment prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to U.S. citizens who are at least eighteen years old . </P> <P> The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day . </P> <P> Clause 2 fixes an annual date upon which Congress must meet . By doing so, the Constitution empowers Congress to meet, whether or not the President called it into session . Article II, Section 3 does grant the president limited authority to convene and adjourn both Houses (or either of them) and mandates that it will meet at least once in a year to enact legislation on behalf of the people . Some delegates to the 1787 constitutional convention believed yearly meetings were not necessary, for there would not be enough legislative business for Congress to deal with annually . Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts argued that the time should be fixed to prevent disputes from arising within the legislature, and to allow the states to adjust their elections to correspond with the fixed date . A fixed date also corresponded to the tradition in the states of having annual meetings . Finally, Gorham concluded that the legislative branch should be required to meet at least once a year to act as a check upon the executive department . </P> <P> Although this clause provides that the annual meeting was to be on the first Monday in December, the government established by the 1787 Constitution did not begin operations until March 4, 1789 . As the 1st Congress held its initial meeting on March 4, that became the date on which new representatives and senators took office in subsequent years . Therefore, every other year, although a new Congress was elected in November, it did not come into office until the following March, with a "lame duck" session convening in the interim . This practice was altered in 1933 following ratification of the Twentieth Amendment, which states (in Section 2) that, "The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the third day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day". This change virtually eliminated the necessity of there being a lame duck session of Congress . </P>

Which of the following are constraints placed on congress