State of the Union

State of the Union, in the United States, the annual address of the president of the United States to the U.S. Congress. The U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 3) requires the president to “from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.” Although the president now gives the speech in person to a joint session of Congress, doing so is not required by the constitution.

The country’s first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, did make annual addresses to Congress in person, but Adams’s successor, Thomas Jefferson, instead provided a report in writing. Jefferson felt that the personal address was too similar to the Speech from the Throne, the British monarch’s traditional statement at the opening of Parliament. It was not until the 20th century that the practice of delivering a speech in person became firmly rooted. In 1913 Woodrow Wilson revived the personal address and shifted its focus, changing it from a simple recapitulation of the executive branch’s recent activities to a road map of the president’s legislative agenda for the upcoming year.

In 1923 Calvin Coolidge delivered the first State of the Union to be broadcast on radio, and in 1947 Harry S. Truman’s address was the first to be broadcast on television. That year also saw the general acceptance of the name “State of the Union” for the address, which previously had been known as the “President’s Annual Message to Congress.” While the address had traditionally been given in the late afternoon, in 1965 Lyndon Johnson moved it to the evening in order to capture the prime-time television viewing audience, a practice that was duplicated by his successors. The 2002 address by George W. Bush was the first to be streamed live on the World Wide Web.

For most of its history, the address was given in December, at the opening of Congress. With the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933, however, the beginning of congressional and presidential terms were rescheduled to January 3 and January 20, respectively, and subsequent State of the Union addresses were delivered in January or early February.

As virtually all the individuals who fall within the line of presidential succession customarily attend the State of the Union address—the vice president, the speaker of the House, the president pro tem of the Senate, and members of the president’s cabinet—protocols have been instituted to ensure continuity of the office in the event of a catastrophe. Chief among these measures is the sequestration of one member of the president’s cabinet at a secure location away from the Capitol for the duration of the address. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, a similar system was enacted for the legislative branch, with two members of each house of Congress, one representing each party, absenting themselves from the address. Others typically present at the State of the Union include the Joint Chiefs of Staff, members of the diplomatic corps, and those justices of the Supreme Court who choose to attend.