FROM: Seth Barrett Tillman

TO: Jimmy Y T MA

Counsel to the Legislature

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China

Re: Counting Quorums

Dear Legislative Counsel,

Thank you for writing. I am happy to send you a copy of my publication on the Quorum Clause of the U.S. Constitution. I have attached a copy. It is short (and, perhaps, a bit informal), but I hope useful to scholars and practitioners such as yourself.

You ask an interesting question—Do members have an unlimited right to seek quorum calls, even if repetitive, even if they effectively amount to a filibuster? I have not written on that precise question, but I have thought about that question for some years and corresponded with a wide array of parliamentarians in the English-speaking world following lex parliamentaria. I offer some thoughts below. Everything I suggest below assumes that any meeting was duly noticed under the relevant organic law: the constitution, statutes, standing parliamentary orders and rules, etc.

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[July 14, 2014]