Debate, Filibusters, and Cloture The presiding officer of the Senate may not use the power to recognize senators to control the flow of business. If no senator holds the floor, any senator seeking recognition has a right to be recognized, and then, usually, to speak for as long as he or she wishes but only twice a day on the same question. Once recognized, a senator can move to call up any measure or offer any amendment or motion that is in order.

Senate rules do not permit a majority to end debate and vote on a pending question. Generally, no debatable question can come to a vote if senators still wish to speak. Senators who oppose a pending bill or other matter may speak against it at indefinite length, or delay action by offering numerous amendments and motions. A filibuster involves using such tactics in the hope of convincing the Senate to alter a measure or withdraw it from consideration.

The only bills that cannot be filibustered are those few considered under provisions of law that limit time for debating them. The only procedure Senate rules provide for overcoming filibusters is cloture, which cannot be voted until two days after it is proposed in a petition signed by 16 senators. Cloture requires the support of three-fifths of senators normally 60 , except on proposals to change the rules, when cloture requires two-thirds of senators voting. If the Senate invokes cloture on a bill, amendment, or other matter, its further consideration is limited to 30 additional hours, including time consumed by votes and quorum calls, during which each senator may speak for no more than one hour.


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Scheduling Legislative Business Senate business includes legislative business bills and resolutions and executive business nominations and treaties. The Senate also sits as a court to try impeachments, for which a special, separate set of rules applies. When introduced or received from the House or the president, legislative or executive business is normally referred to the committee with appropriate jurisdiction. Business is placed on the legislative or executive calendar , and becomes available for floor consideration, if the committee reports it. The Senate accords its majority leader prime responsibility for scheduling.

He may carry out this responsibility by moving that the Senate proceed to consider a particular matter.

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By precedent, he and the minority leader are recognized preferentially, and by custom only he or his designee makes motions or requests affecting when the Senate will meet and what it will consider. For executive business, this motion to proceed may be offered in a nondebatable form, but for legislative business it usually is debatable. Whenever possible, therefore, the majority leader instead calls up bills and resolutions by unanimous consent. If senators object to unanimous consent to take up a measure, they are implicitly threatening to filibuster a motion to consider it. They may do so because they oppose that measure, or in the hope of influencing action on some other matter.

Senators can even place a "hold" on a measure or nomination, although this practice is not recognized in Senate rules. The majority leader will usually not even request consent to consider a measure if there is a hold on it. Senate rules also permit a measure to be placed directly on the calendar when introduced or received from the House. This process permits senators to bypass referral to a committee they believe unsympathetic. Alternatively, if a committee fails to report a measure, a new measure with exactly the same provisions may be introduced and placed directly on the calendar.

Finally, Senate rules do not require that amendments be germane or relevant, except to general appropriation bills, budget measures, and matters under cloture and a few other bills, pursuant to statutes. Consequently, if a committee fails to report a measure, a senator may offer its text as an amendment to any other measure under consideration, without regard to the scheduling preferences of the majority leader.

1 An outline of the process

The Daily Order of Business Each time the Senate convenes after an adjournment, a new legislative day begins. On each new legislative day, Senate rules provide for a "Morning Hour" during which routine "morning business" can occur, such as introducing bills and submitting committee reports. During this period, the Senate may also be able to take up bills on the calendar by nondebatable motions. In practice, the Senate often recesses at the end of the day, rather than adjourning.


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Party leaders sometimes prefer a recess because it gives them greater flexibility in shaping the Senate's daily business. Since there is then no Morning Hour when the Senate next convenes, the majority leader usually obtains unanimous consent for "a period for routine morning business," such as bill introductions. Senators often make brief speeches during this period.

After the Morning Hour or the period for routine morning business, the Senate normally resumes consideration of the business previously before it. This business may be set aside, temporarily or indefinitely, in favor of other business through motions or unanimous consent requests by the majority leader. At any point in the day, noncontroversial business also may be conducted by unanimous consent. Unanimous Consent Agreements Senators' rights to debate and to offer nongermane amendments encourage the leaders to seek unanimous consent agreements that limit the exercise of these rights during consideration of a specified matter.

Motion (parliamentary procedure) - Wikipedia

If any senator objects, the Senate cannot impose such an agreement, but once it is accepted, the Senate may later change its terms only by unanimous consent. Unanimous consent agreements limiting the time for debate on a measure are frequently called "time agreements. These agreements place the time provided under the control of managers. Other senators then may speak only if a manager yields them part of the time he or she controls. Unanimous consent agreements also may require that amendments to a measure be germane, or, alternatively, relevant to it. Relevancy is a somewhat less restrictive standard than germaneness.

An agreement may prohibit all amendments to a measure except those it specifically identifies. Responsibility for negotiating time agreements falls primarily on the party floor leaders and the leaders of the reporting committee. Individual senators advise the leaders of their preferences and intentions, and time agreements may include exceptions to their general provisions in order to satisfy these preferences.

The Senate begins consideration of most measures without first having reached a time agreement. For some measures, few amendments and little debate are expected, making an agreement unnecessary. For others, consideration may proceed while the floor leaders and managers try to arrange unanimous consent agreements for limited purposes.

Before consideration of a controversial amendment, for example, leaders may propose to limit debate on it. If extended consideration occurs, the leaders often seek an overall agreement limiting debate on each remaining amendment, or setting a time for a vote on final passage.

The Amending Process Floor consideration of a measure usually begins with opening statements by the floor managers, and often by other senators. The managers usually are the chair and ranking minority member of the reporting committee or pertinent subcommittee. The first amendments to be considered are those recommended by the reporting committee.

Senate Legislative Process

If the committee has proposed many amendments, the manager often obtains unanimous consent that these amendments be adopted, but that all provisions of the measure as amended remain open to further amendment. After committee amendments are disposed of, amendments may be offered to any part of the measure in any order.

If the committee recommends a substitute for the full text of the measure, the substitute normally remains open to amendment throughout its consideration. The Senate may dispose of each amendment either by voting on it directly or by voting to table it. The motion to table cannot be debated; and, if the Senate agrees to it, the effect is the same as a vote to defeat the amendment. If the Senate defeats the motion, however, debate on the amendment may resume. While an amendment is pending, senators may propose amendments to it called second-degree amendments and to the part of the measure the amendment would change.

The Senate votes on each of these amendments before it votes on the first-degree amendment the amendment to the measure. Many additional complications exist. When a complete substitute for a measure is pending, for example, senators can propose six or more first- and second-degree amendments to the substitute and the measure before any votes must occur.

If an amendment is considered under a time limitation, senators may make no motions or points of order, or propose other amendments, until all the time for debating the amendment has been used or yielded back. Sometimes, however, the Senate unanimously consents to lay aside pending amendments temporarily in order to consider another amendment to the measure. The amending process continues until the Senate orders the bill engrossed and read a third time, which precludes further amendment.

Then the Senate votes on final passage. Voting and Quorum Calls The Constitution requires a majority of senators to be present for the Senate to conduct business.

If a senator suggests the absence of a quorum, and a majority of senators do not respond to their names, the Senate can only adjourn, recess, or attempt to secure the attendance of additional senators. However, the purpose of a quorum call usually is to suspend floor activity temporarily to accommodate individual senators, discuss procedural or policy problems, or arrange subsequent proceedings.

As a result, quorum calls usually are ended by unanimous consent before the clerk completes a call of the roll. If a senator asks for the yeas and nays on a pending question, and the Senate orders them, it does not mean that a vote will occur immediately. Instead, ordering the yeas and nays means that whenever the vote does occur, it will be by roll call and will be recorded in the Journal. Otherwise, votes usually are taken by voice vote. A bill cannot become a law of the land until it has been approved in identical form by both houses of Congress.

Glossary of Senate terms

Once the Senate amends and agrees to a bill that the House already has passed—or the House amends and passes a Senate bill—the two houses may begin to resolve their legislative differences by way of a conference committee or through an exchange of amendments between the houses. Typically, the Senate gets to conference with the House by adopting this standard motion: President, I move that the Senate insist on its amendments or "disagree to the House amendments" to the Senate-passed measure , request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes thereon, and that the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees.

The Speaker names the House conferees.

Conferees are traditionally drawn from the committee of jurisdiction, but conferees representing other Senate interests may also be appointed. There are no formal rules that outline how conference meetings are to be organized. Routinely, the principals from each chamber or their respective staffs conduct pre-conference meetings so as to expedite the bargaining process when the conference formally convenes. Informal practice also determines who will be the overall conference chair each chamber has its own leader in conference.

Rotation of the chairship between the chambers is usually the practice when matched pairs of panels the tax or appropriations panels, for example convene in conference regularly. For standing committees that seldom meet in conference, the choice of who will chair the conference is generally resolved by the conference leaders from each chamber.

The decision on when and where to meet and for how long are a few prerogatives of the chair, who consults on these matters with his or her counterpart from the other body. Once the two chambers go to conference, the respective House and Senate conferees bargain and negotiate to resolve the matters in bicameral disagreement. Resolution is embodied in a conference report, signed by a majority of Senate conferees and House conferees. The conference report must be agreed to by both chambers before it is cleared for presidential consideration.

In the Senate, conference reports are usually brought up by unanimous consent at a time agreed to by the party leaders and floor managers. Because conference reports are privileged, if any senator objects to the unanimous consent request, a nondebatable motion can be made to take up the conference report. Brief Guide to Senate Procedure No. It has precedence over government business and general business for the day on which it is listed.

Closure motion - commonly known as a "gag", this motion, when successful, closes the current debate. The question before the chair is immediately put and determined. Amendments moved during this stage are to the text of the bill and may affect the final contents of the law. Cut-off refers to a deadline for the receipt of bills. The two-thirds cut-off date is marked on the sitting calendar by a pair of scissors. Similarly, bills are automatically adjourned until the next period of sittings if they are introduced in the Senate, or if they are introduced in the House and sent to the Senate within the same sitting period standing order 5.

With the agreement of the Senate, bills can be exempted from the cut-off, allowing them to be moved, considered and passed in the same period of sittings. All such delegated legislation must be tabled in both Houses of Parliament and is subject to disallowance by either House. If a regulation is disallowed, it ceases to have effect. See also Disallowance of delegated legislaton. Once a notice of motion for the disallowance of regulations is given in the Chamber, the Senate has 15 sitting days to deliberate and vote. If the matter is not resolved within the 15 sitting days, the regulation is automatically disallowed.

It includes motions to take note of answers, most notices of motion, consideration of committee reports and government responses and private senator's bills. Three Day Adjournment Limit C. Powers of the Speaker E. Approval of the Journal IV. Voting by Electronic Device V.

One Minute Speeches A. Suspension of the Rules IX. Special Rules for Major Bills A. Purpose of Special Rules B. Types of Rules C. Special Provisions or Procedures D. Consideration of Rules E. The Previous Question F. Adoption of the Rule X. Resolving into the Committee of the Whole XI. General Debate in the Committee of the Whole A. Speaking During General Debate B. How a Member Speaks C. Conduct During Debate D. Offering an Amendment B. Protecting an Amendment D.