Trump to deliver first address of second term to joint session of Congress

By

Ballotpedia staff

Welcome to the Tuesday, March 4, Brew. 

By: Lara Bonatesta

Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:

  1. Trump to deliver first address of second term to joint session of Congress  
  2. Arkansas governor signs four bills revising initiative and referendum rules
  3. Intern with us!

Trump to deliver first address of second term to joint session of Congress 

President Donald Trump (R) is scheduled to give his first address to a joint session of Congress of his second term on March 4 (tonight). This will be Trump’s fifth speech before a joint session of Congress across his two terms in office. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R) sent a letter on Jan. 25 to Trump inviting him to give the address. 

Trump’s speech is not considered a State of the Union address. According to the Associated Press’ Meg Kinnard, “It’s not officially called the State of the Union, a title reserved for a president’s annual address to Congress during other years of an administration. But it is an opportunity for Trump to lay out his priorities for the year.”

According to the American Presidency Project, recently inaugurated presidents since Ronald Reagan have addressed joint sessions of Congress early on in their presidencies but have not called these speeches “State of the Unions.” According to the Congressional Research Service, “Scholars consider these speeches to serve the same ceremonial, rhetorical, and political function as a typical State of the Union.”

Here’s a list of these speeches from former presidents:

On Thursday, Feb. 27, Democrats announced that U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D) will deliver the party’s response. According to the American Presidency Project, the practice of opposition party responses began in 1966, one year after President Lyndon B. Johnson gave the first prime-time televised address. Harry Truman was the first president to give a televised address in 1947.

Here are some other notable facts about presidential addresses

  • President George Washington delivered the first annual message to Congress on Jan. 8, 1790. 
  • In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson began sending written annual messages to the House and Senate instead of giving in-person addresses. Presidents continued doing this until President Woodrow Wilson delivered an in-person address to a joint session of Congress in 1913.
  • Wilson, whose administration overlapped with World War I, delivered the most addresses with 23.
  • President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) delivered the second most with 19. These included a joint speech with the ambassador of France in 1934 and one address in which he was not present that was read on his behalf in 1945.
  • Among presidents who served between 1981 and 2025, Presidents Ronald Reagan (R) and Barack Obama (D) delivered the most addresses, with 11 and 10, respectively.

The following chart shows how many times each president addressed a joint session of Congress. 

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Arkansas governor signs four bills revising initiative and referendum rules

As we noted in our Jan. 21 edition of The Brew, state legislators introduced more than 300 bills related to the direct democracy process in 2024, including ballot initiatives, referendums, and recalls. Roughly 11% of those bills have or will take effect in 2025.  Since then, more states have considered legislative changes to their initiative and referendum processes. In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed four such bills into law in February: SB 102, SB 207, HB 1221, and HB 1222.

  • Senate Bill 102 encompasses a number of changes to how local initiative campaigns gather signatures, including provisions about running criminal background checks on circulators and banning the pay-per-signature model of compensating signature gathers.
  • Senate Bill 207 requires canvassers to notify petition signers verbally or in writing that petition fraud is a criminal offense. Failure to notify would result in a charge of falsifying materials related to initiative or referendum petitions, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and/or up to one year of jail time.
  • House Bill 1221 sets the expiration date of collected signatures on the date of the next general election following certification of the ballot language. The bill also sets the expiration date of certified ballot language on the date of the next general election.
    • Previously, Arkansas was one of two states with no law explicitly setting an expiration date for collected signatures. The change makes the circulation period in Arkansas 20 months. In the 26 states that allow statewide citizen initiatives, signature collection periods range from 90 days to two years.
  • House Bill 1222 allows the attorney general to reject proposed initiatives if they determine that the proposal conflicts with the U.S. Constitution or federal laws. Previously, proposals could be rejected if the attorney general determined the ballot language was misleading.
    • HB 1222 also prohibits sponsors from submitting conflicting measures, which are defined in the bill, to the attorney general for review and certification targeting the same election. 

For more information on the specific provisions of each bill, click on the links to their full texts: SB 102, SB 207, HB 1221, HB 1222.

State Sen. Kim Hammer (R), one of the legislative sponsors of the bills, said, “Each of these bills have been prepared working with the secretary of state’s office to assure that each bill safeguards the rights granted under the Constitution, while not infringing on the rights of citizens and their respective groups who want a safe, secure and integrity-driven process through which signatures can be gathered for an initiative.”

Nell Matthews, treasurer for the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, criticized the bill, saying they would “take away direct democracy from the average citizen” and that “the whole business is just to slow people down and intimidate people and prevent them from signing.”

Between 2018 and 2024, Arkansas passed five laws that added requirements for initiative and referendum campaigns. Two were constitutional amendments that voters rejected (Issue 2 and Issue 3). The three that went into effect were SB 346 (2019), SB 614 (2021), and HB 1419 (2023). 

From 2018 to 2024, an average of 12 initiatives were filed per year in Arkansas, with an average of between one and two appearing on the ballot, a certification rate of 18%. Arkansas has had a Republican trifecta since 2015. Currently, Republicans have a 29-6 majority in the state Senate and an 81-19 majority in the General Assembly.

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