Last Tuesday evening, the President gave the annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1790. The State of the Union address is required by the U.S. Constitution. Article II, Section 3 states: The president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The Constitution doesn’t define “from time to time” but by tradition the president delivers his message once each year. Only two presidents never delivered a State of the Union address — William Henry Harrison and James Garfield. Both died before they had the chance to deliver their messages. The first radio broadcast of the address was in 1923 by President Calvin Coolidge. The first broadcast on television was Harry Truman’s address in 1947.
No matter what your view of the current president may be, the State of the Union address on Tuesday sounded mostly “presidential.” He started his speech by saying, “The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda.” He promised a new era of cooperation. He talked about infrastructure, lowering the cost of health care, protecting patients with preexisting conditions, eliminating HIV, and fighting childhood cancer. He indicated he was the first president to include a plan for nationwide paid family leave in his budget.
Hard to argue with any of that — even though, as far as I know, he hasn’t submitted his budget indicating how seriously any of the issues will be addressed. But it was at least nice to hear the President of the United States, for the most part, actually sound “presidential” for a change.
There were a lot of good lines delivered Tuesday night — of course it’s more important to see what this administration does than to listen to what was said during the State of the Union.
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