no member of the clergy may be chosen. The term of
membership is five years, though by reason of not infrequent
dissolutions the period of service is actually briefer. As is true
also of senators, deputies receive no pay for their services.[858]

[Footnote 857: There is the customary regulation
that soldiers and sailors in active service may not
vote.]

[Footnote 858: J. Vila Serra, Manual de elecciones
de Diputados a Cortes (Valencia, 1907); J. Lon y
Albareda, Nueva ley electoral de 8 de Agosto de
1907, comentada (Madrid, 1907); M. Vivanco y L. San
Martin, La reforma electoral (Madrid, 1907).]

*684. Sessions and Status of the Chambers.*--The Cortes, consisting thus
of the Senate and the Congress of Deputies, is required by the
constitution to be convened by the crown in regular session at least
once each year. Extraordinary sessions may be held, and upon the death
or incapacitation of the sovereign the chambers must be assembled
forthwith. To the crown belongs the power not only to convene, but
also to suspend and to terminate the sessions, and to dissolve,
simultaneously or separately, the Congress and the elective portion of
the Senate. In the event, however, of a dissolution, the sovereign is
obliged to convene the newly constituted Cortes within the space of
three months. Except when it devolves upon the Senate to exercise (p. 619)
its purely judicial functions, neither of the chambers may be
assembled without the other. In no case may the two chambers sit as a
single assembly, or deliberate in the presence of the sovereign. Each
body is authorized to judge the qualifications of its members and to
frame and adopt its own rules of procedure. The Senate elects its
secretaries, but its president and vice-president are designated, for
each session, and from the senators themselves, by the crown. The
Congress, on the other hand, elects from its membership all of its own
officials. Sessions of both chambers are public, though "when secrecy
is necessary" the doors may be closed. A majority of the members
constitutes a quorum, and measures are passed by a majority vote. No
senator or deputy may be held to account by legal process for any
opinion uttered or for any vote cast within the chamber to which he
belongs; and, save when taken in the commission of an offense, a