clearly a part of the legislative process-the due functioning of the process.10 Appellee's contention for a broader interpretation of the privilege draws essentially on the flavor of the rhetoric and the sweep of the language used by courts, not on the precise words used in any prior case, and surely not on the sense of those cases, fairly read.

(c) We would not think it sound or wise, simply out of an abundance of caution to doubly insure legislative independence, to extend the privilege beyond its intended scope, its literal language, and its history, to include all things in any way related to the legislative process. Given such a sweeping reading, we have no doubt that there are few activities in which a legislator engages that he would be unable somehow to "relate" to the legislative process. Admittedly, the Speech or Debate Clause must be read broadly to effectuate its purpose of protecting the independence of the Legislative Branch, but no more than the statutes we apply, was its purpose to make Members of Congress super-citizens, immune from criminal responsibility. In its narrowest scope, the Clause is a very large, albeit essential, grant of privilege. It has enabled reckless men to slander and even destroy others with impunity, but that was the conscious choice of the Framers.11

10 See Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168 (1881) (voting for a resolution); Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367 (1951) (harassment of witness by state legislator during a legislative hearing; not a Speech or Debate Clause case); United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169 (1966) (making a speech on House floor); Dombrowski v. Eastland, 387 U. S. 82 (1967) (subpoenaing records for committee hearing); Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969) (voting for a resolution).

In Coffin v. Coffin, 4 Mass. 1 (1808), the state equivalent of the Speech or Debate Clause was held to be inapplicable to a legislator who was acting outside of his official duties.

11 "To this construction of the article it is objected, that a private citizen may have his character basely defamed, without any pecuniary

The history of the privilege is by no means free from grave abuses by legislators. In one instance, buses reached such a level in England that Parliament was compelled to enact curative legislation.

"The practice of granting the privilege of freedom from arrest and molestation to members' servants in time became a serious menace to individual liberty and to public order, and a form of protection by which offenders often tried-and they were often successful to escape the penalties which their offences deserved and which the ordinary courts would not have hesitated to inflict. Indeed, the sale of 'protections' at one time proved a source of income to unscrupulous members, and these parliamentary 'indulgences' were on several occasions obtainable at a fixed market price." C. Wittke, The History of English Parliamentary Privilege 39 (1921).

The authors of our Constitution were well aware of the history of both the need for the privilege and the abuses that could flow from too sweeping safeguards. In order to preserve other values, they wrote the privilege so that it tolerates and protects behavior on the part of Members not tolerated and protected when done by other citizens, but the shield does not extend beyond what is necessary to preserve the integrity of the legislative process. Moreover, unlike England with no formal, written constitutional limitations on the monarch, we defined limits on the co-ordinate branches, pro

recompense or satisfaction. The truth of the objection is admitted. The injury to the reputation of a private citizen is of less importance to the commonwealth, than the free and unreserved exercise of the duties of a representative, unawed by the fear of legal prosecutions." Coffin v. Coffin, 4 Mass., at 28.

See Cochran v. Couzens, 59 App. D. C. 374, 42 F. 2d 783, cert. denied, 282 U. S. 874 (1930) (defamatory words uttered on Senate floor could not be basis of slander action).

viding other checks to protect against abuses of the kind experienced in that country.

It is also suggested that, even if we interpreted the Clause broadly so as to exempt from inquiry all matters having any relationship to the legislative process, misconduct of Members would not necessarily go unpunished because each House is empowered to discipline its Members. Article I, § 5, does indeed empower each House to "determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member," but Congress is ill-equipped to investigate, try, and punish its Members for a wide range of behavior that is loosely and incidentally related to the legislative process. In this sense, the English analogy on which the dissents place much emphasis, and the reliance on Ex parte Wason, L. R. 4 Q. B. 573 (1869), are inapt. Parliament is itself "The High Court of Parliament"-the highest court in the land—and its judicial tradition better equips it for judicial tasks.

"It is by no means an exaggeration to say that [the judicial characteristics of Parliament] colored and influenced some of the great struggles over [legislative] privilege in and out of Parliament to the very close of the nineteenth century. It is not altogether certain whether they have been entirely forgotten even now. Nowhere has the theory that Parliament is a court the highest court of the realm, often acting in a judicial capacity and in a judicial manner-persisted longer than in the history of privilege of Parliament." Wittke, supra, at 14.

The very fact of the supremacy of Parliament as England's highest tribunal explains the long tradition precluding trial for official misconduct of a member in any other and lesser tribunal.

In Australia and Canada, "where provision for legisla

tive free speech or debate exists but where the legislature may not claim a tradition as the highest court of the realm, courts have held that the privilege does not bar the criminal prosecution of legislators for bribery." Note, The Bribed Congressman's Immunity from Prosecution, 75 Yale L. J. 335, 338 (1965) (footnote omitted). Congress has shown little inclination to exert itself in this area.12 Moreover, if Congress did lay aside its normal activities and take on itself the responsibility to police and prosecute the myriad activities of its Members related to but not directly a part of the legislative function, the independence of individual Members might actually be impaired.

The process of disciplining a Member in the Congress is not without countervailing risks of abuse since it is not surrounded with the panoply of protective shields that are present in a criminal case. An accused Member is judged by no specifically articulated standards 13 and is at the mercy of an almost unbridled discretion of the charging body that functions at once as accuser, prosecutor, judge, and jury from whose decision there is no established right of review. In short, a Member would be compelled to defend in what would be comparable to a criminal prosecution without the safeguards provided by the Constitution. Moreover, it would be somewhat naive to assume that the triers would be wholly objective and free from considerations

12 See Thomas, Freedom of Debate: Protector of the People or Haven for the Criminal?, 3 The Harvard Rev. 74, 80-81 (No. 3, 1965); Note, The Bribed Congressman's Immunity from Prosecution, 75 Yale L. J. 335, 349 n. 84 (1965); Oppenheim, Congressional Free Speech, 8 Loyola L. Rev. 1, 27-28 (1955-1956).

13 See, e. g., In re Chapman, 166 U. S. 661, 669-670 (1897):

"The right to expel extends to all cases where the offence is such as in the judgment of the Senate is inconsistent with the trust and duty of a member."

of party and politics and the passions of the moment.14 Strong arguments can be made that trials conducted in a Congress with an entrenched majority from one political party could result in far greater harassment than a conventional criminal trial with the wide range of procedural protections for the accused, including indictment by grand jury, trial by jury under strict standards of proof with fixed rules of evidence, and extensive appellate review.

Finally, the jurisdiction of Congress to punish its Members is not all-embracing. For instance, it is unclear to what extent Congress would have jurisdiction over a case such as this in which the alleged illegal activity occurred outside the chamber, while the appellee was a Member, but was undiscovered or not brought before a grand jury until after he left office.15

The sweeping claims of appellee would render Members of Congress virtually immune from a wide range of crimes simply because the acts in question were peripherally related to their holding office. Such claims are inconsistent with the reading this Court has given, not only to the Speech or Debate Clause, but also to the other legislative privileges embodied in Art. I, § 6. The very sentence in which the Speech or Debate Clause appears provides that Members "shall in all Cases, ex

14 See the account of the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in J. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage 126-151 (1955). See also the account of the impeachment of Mr. Justice Samuel Chase in 3 A. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall 169-220 (1919).

15 "... English Parliaments have historically reserved to themselves and still retain the sole and exclusive right to punish their members for the acceptance of a bribe in the discharge of their office. No member of Parliament may be tried for such an offense in any court of the land." Cella, supra, n. 5, at 15-16. That this is obviously not the case in this country is implicit in the remand of Representative Johnson to be retried on bribery charges.