[don-o]

I know there is the separation of powers thing which I am just about holding onto by the skin of my teeth which we do not have.

Just off the top of my head - the Constitution does provide immunity from arrest while en route to sessions of Congress, (That's what Paddy Kennedy was vabbling about when he was driving and crashing at 3 in the morning.

It would be interesting to look at the reasons this was thought important.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

Is anyone watching Murtha? This is unF...g believable. I am so nauseous and enraged that he gets away with this!!

[Bahbah]

It would be interesting to look at the reasons this was thought important.

Apparently, in the wilder early days of our republic, there was some skullduggery going on. Opponents would arrest and detain elected representative to prevent them from voting on various things. Hence, the protections.

[snugs]

Maybe originally it was something to do with ensuring that they were not hijacked on their way to vote by unscrupulous opponents reporting them for something they had not done.

[Phsstpok]

It would be interesting to look at the reasons this was thought important.

A common tactic of English Kings was to detain opposition members of parliment to keep them from supporting a bill the King didn't like or opposing a bill that he did.  IIRC the tactic was used against members of Colonial governments in the run up to the Revolutionary War and was, I believe, one of the complaints leveled against King George (it's only possible to infer this practice from the list of injuries in the Declaration of Independene).