“Holds” in the Senate
Mark J. Oleszek
Analyst on Congress and the Legislative Process
May 22, 2014
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R43563
“Holds” in the Senate
Summary
The Senate “hold” is an informal practice whereby Senators communicate to Senate leaders, often
in the form of a letter, their policy views and scheduling preferences regarding measures and
matters available for floor consideration. Unique to the upper chamber, holds can be understood
as information-sharing devices predicated on the unanimous consent nature of Senate decision
making. Senators place holds to accomplish a variety of purposes—to receive notification of
upcoming legislative proceedings, for instance, or to express objections to a particular proposal or
executive nomination—but ultimately the decision to honor a hold request, and for how long,
rests with the majority leader. Scheduling Senate business is the fundamental prerogative of the
majority leader, and this responsibility is typically carried out in consultation with the minority
leader.
The influence that holds exert in chamber deliberations is based primarily upon the significant
parliamentary prerogatives individual Senators are afforded in the rules, procedures, and
precedents of the chamber. More often than not, Senate leaders honor a hold request because not
doing so could trigger a range of parliamentary responses from the holding Senator(s), such as a
filibuster, that could expend significant amounts of scarce floor time. As such, efforts to regulate
holds are inextricably linked with the chamber’s use of unanimous consent agreements to
structure the process of calling up measures and matters for floor debate and amendment.
In recent years the Senate has considered a variety of proposals that address the Senate hold, two
of which the chamber adopted. Both sought to eliminate the secrecy of holds. Prior to these rules
changes, hold letters were written with the expectation that their source and contents would
remain private, even to other Senators.
In 2007, the Senate adopted new rules and procedures to make hold requests public in certain
circumstances. Under Section 512 of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (P.L. 110-
81), if objection was raised to a unanimous consent request to proceed to or pass a measure or
matter on the basis of a hold letter, then the Senator who originated the hold was expected to
deliver for publication in the Congressional Record, within six session days of the objection, a
“notice of intent to object” identifying the Senator as the source of the hold and the measure or
matter to which it pertained. A process for removing a hold was also created, and a new “Notice
of Intent to Object” section was added to both Senate calendars to take account of objection
notices that remained outstanding.
An examination of objection notices published since 2007 suggests that many hold requests are
likely to have fallen outside the scope of Section 512 regulation. In an effort to make public a
greater share of hold requests, the Senate adjusted its notification requirements by way of a
standing order (S.Res. 28) adopted at the outset of the 112th Congress (2011-2012). Instead of the
six session day reporting window specified in Section 512, S.Res. 28 provides two days of
session during which Senators are expected to deliver their objection notices for publication. The
action that triggers the reporting requirement also shifted from an objection on the basis of a
colleague’s hold request (under Section 512), to the initial transmission of a hold letter to the
party leader (under S.Res. 28). In the event that a Senator neglects to deliver an objection notice
for publication and a party leader nevertheless raises objection on the basis of that hold, S.Res. 28
requires that the name of the objecting party leader be identified as the source of the hold in the
“Notice of Intent to Object” section of the appropriate Senate calendar.
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“Holds” in the Senate
Contents
Background ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Types of Holds ................................................................................................................................. 2
Recent Efforts to Regulate Holds .................................................................................................... 2
Notification Procedures Established by Section 512 of P.L. 110-81 ......................................... 3
Notification Procedures Established by S.Res. 28 (2011) ......................................................... 4
Challenges Inherent in Regulating Hold Activity ............................................................................ 5
Appendixes
Appendix A. A Hold Letter .............................................................................................................. 6
Appendix B. The “Notice of Intent to Object” section of the Calendar of Business ....................... 7
Appendix C. A Notice of Intent to Object........................................................................................ 8
Contacts
Author Contact Information............................................................................................................. 8
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“Holds” in the Senate
Background
Senate rules, procedures, and precedents give significant parliamentary power to individual
Senators during the course of chamber deliberations. Many decisions the Senate makes—from
routine requests for additional debate time, to determinations of how legislation will be
considered on the floor—are arrived at by unanimous consent. When a unanimous consent
agreement is proposed on the floor, any Senator may object to it. If objection is heard, the consent
request does not take effect. Efforts to modify the original request may be undertaken—a process
that can require extensive negotiations between and among Senate leaders and their colleagues—
but there is no guarantee that a particular objection can be addressed to the satisfaction of all
Senators.1
The Senate hold emerges from within this context of unanimous-consent decision making as a
method of transmitting policy or scheduling preferences to Senate leaders regarding measures or
matters available for floor consideration.2 Many hold requests take the form of a letter addressed
to the majority or minority leader (depending on the party affiliation of the Senator placing the
hold) expressing reservations about the merits or timing of a particular policy proposal or
nomination. An example of a hold letter is displayed in Appendix A.
More often than not, Senate leaders—as agents of their party responsible for defending the
political, policy, and procedural interests of their conference or caucus colleagues—honor a hold
request because not doing so could trigger a range of parliamentary responses from the holding
Senator(s), such as a filibuster, that could expend significant amounts of scarce floor time.3
Unless the target of a hold is of considerable importance to the majority leader and a
supermajority of his colleagues—60 of whom might be required to invoke cloture on legislation
under Senate Rule XXII—the most practical course of action is often to lay the matter aside and
attempt to promote negotiations that could alleviate the concerns that gave rise to the hold.4 With
hold-inspired negotiations underway, the Senate can turn its attention to more broadly supported
matters.5
1 For information on unanimous consent agreements, see CRS Report 98-225, Unanimous Consent Agreements in the
Senate, by Walter J. Oleszek.
2 Senate leaders play an organizational role in the chamber by representing the interests and views of party colleagues
during negotiations with one another over scheduling legislation and nominations for floor consideration.
3 The linkages that exist among holds, filibusters, and the cloture process are described in CRS Report RL30360,
Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate, by Richard S. Beth and Valerie Heitshusen.
4 Senate leaders can act as intermediaries between Senators who place holds and bill sponsors who want to move
legislation forward. Leaders may also negotiate directly with holding Senators for potential future consideration.
5 As the Senate’s chief scheduler, if unanimous consent to proceed to or pass a measure or matter cannot be obtained,
the majority leader maintains the right to offer a motion to proceed to consider. This alternative method of bringing
measures and matters to the floor can require the use of cloture, especially on items subjected to a hold. For information
on the motion to proceed, see CRS Report RS21255, Motions to Proceed to Consider Measures in the Senate: Who
Offers Them?, by Richard S. Beth and Mark J. Oleszek.
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Types of Holds
Holds can be used to accomplish a variety of purposes. Although the Senate itself makes no
official distinctions among holds, scholars have classified holds based on the objective of the
communication.6 Informational holds, for instance, request that the Senator be notified or
consulted in advance of any floor action to be taken on a particular measure or matter, perhaps to
allow the Senator to plan for floor debate or the offering of amendments. Choke holds contain an
explicit filibuster threat and are intended to kill or delay action on the target of the hold. Blanket
holds are leveled against an entire category of business, such as all nominations to a particular
agency or department. Mae West holds intend to foster negotiations and bargaining between
proponents and opponents.7 Retaliatory holds are placed as political payback against a colleague
or administration, while rolling (or rotating) holds are defined by coordinated action involving
two or more Senators who place holds on a measure or matter on an alternating basis. Until
recently, many holds were considered anonymous (or secret) because the source and contents of
the request were not made available to the public, or even to other Senators.
Recent Efforts to Regulate Holds
Written hold requests emerged as an informal practice in the late 1950s under the majority
leadership of Lyndon B. Johnson as a way for Senators to make routine requests of their leaders
regarding the Senate’s schedule.8 Early usage was largely consistent with prevailing expectations
of Senate behavior at that time, such as reciprocity, deference, and accommodation of one’s
Senate colleagues.9 Over time, holds have evolved to become a potent extra-parliamentary
practice, sometimes likened to a “silent filibuster” in the press. “The hold started out as a courtesy
for senators who wanted to participate in open debate,” two Senators wrote in 1997. Since then,
“it has become a shield for senators who wish to avoid it.”10 These and other Senators were
concerned that keeping holds confidential tended to enable Senators placing holds to block
measures or nominations while leaving no avenue of recourse open to their supporters.
Accordingly, rather than restricting the process itself, recent attempts to alter the operation of
holds have focused on making the secrecy of holds less absolute.
6 See C. Lawrence Evans and Daniel Lipinski, “Holds, Legislation, and the Senate Parties” (prepared for delivery at the
Conference on Senate Parties, University of Oxford, April 1-3, 2005), for an analysis of holds placed during the tenure
of Republican Leader Howard Baker, available at http://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/clevan/oxford. For an account
of hold operations during the period when Robert Dole served as Republican leader, see Nicholas Howard and Jason
Roberts, “Holding Up the Senate: Bob Dole and the Politics of Holds in the U.S. Senate” (prepared for delivery at the
Congress and History Conference, University of Georgia, May 24-25, 2012), available at http://carson.myweb.uga.edu/
Roberts%20paper.pdf. Both studies draw upon archival research conducted by the authors using the personal papers of
former Republican Leaders Howard Baker and Robert Dole (respectively).
7 In the Hollywood production She Done Him Wrong (1933), actress Mae West asks of her co-star Cary Grant: “Why
don’t you come up sometime and see me?” A similar motivation—to have a bill sponsor visit the holding Senator’s
office to negotiate the removal of the hold—defines a Mae West hold.
8 On the evolution of Senate hold practices, see Gregory Koger, Filibustering (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
9 See Donald R. Matthews, U.S. Senators and Their World (University of North Carolina Press, 1960) for an account of
chamber norms and expectations of behavior during the 1950s.
10 Sens. Charles Grassley and Ron Wyden, “Let’s Shed Light on a Senate Secret,” The Washington Post, November 17,
1997, p. A23.
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The Senate has considered a variety of proposals targeting the Senate hold in recent years, two of
which the chamber adopted.11 Both sought to eliminate the secrecy of holds by creating a process
through which holds—formally referred to in the new rules as “notices of intent to object to
proceeding”—would be made public within some period of time if certain criteria were met. Prior
to these rules changes, hold letters were written with the expectation that they would be treated as
private correspondences between a Senator and his or her party leader.
Notification Procedures Established by Section 512 of P.L. 110-81
The first proposal, enacted in 2007 as Section 512 of the Honest Leadership and Open
Government Act (P.L. 110-81), established new reporting requirements that were designed to take
effect if either the majority or minority leader or their designees, acting on behalf of a party
colleague on the basis of a hold letter previously received, objects to a unanimous consent request
to advance a measure or matter to the Senate floor for consideration or passage. If objection is
raised on the basis of a hold letter, then the Senator who originated the hold is expected to submit
a “notice of intent to object” to his or her party leader and, within six days of session thereafter,
deliver the objection notice to the Legislative Clerk for publication in both the Congressional
Record and the Senate’s Calendar of Business (or, if the hold pertained to a nomination, the
Executive Calendar).
Under Section 512, objection notices were to take the following form: “I, Senator ___, intend to
object to proceeding to ___, dated ___ for the following reasons___.” To accommodate the
publication of these notices, a new “Notice of Intent to Object to Proceeding” section was added
to both Senate calendars as shown in Appendix B. Each calendar entry contains four pieces of
information: (1) the bill or nomination number to which the hold pertains; (2) the official title of
the bill or nomination; (3) the date on which the hold was placed; and (4) the name of the Senator
who placed the hold. Publication was not required if a Senator withdrew the hold within six
session days of triggering the notification requirement.12 Once published, an objection notice
could be removed from future editions of a calendar by submitting for inclusion in the
Congressional Record the following statement: “I, Senator ___, do not object to proceed to ___,
dated ___.”
On October 3, 2007, roughly two weeks after the new disclosure procedures were signed into law,
the first notice of an intent to object was published in the Congressional Record.13 A total of 5
such notices appeared during the 110th Congress (2007-2008), and 12 were published during the
111th Congress (2009-2010), but these numbers should not be interpreted to reflect the entirety of
hold activity that occurred during those two Congresses.14 Instead, they represent the subset of
11 For an analysis of various proposals the Senate has considered in recent years relating to the practice of holds, see
CRS Report RL31685, Proposals to Reform “Holds” in the Senate, by Walter J. Oleszek.
12 Some Senators announce their holds on the Senate floor at the time they are placed. If a hold is made public in this
way, then the Senator is exempt from the formal procedures described in this report.
13 The inaugural notice came in connection to S. 223, a bill that would have required Senate candidates to file election-
related statements and reports in electronic form.
14 This number is likely to understate the total number of holds placed during the 110th and 111th Congresses by at least
one order of magnitude in comparison to historical rates of hold activity. For instance, between 1985 and 1996,
Nicholas Howard and Jason Roberts identify 2,655 unique hold requests made of Republican Leader Robert Dole, an
average of about 220 per year. Evans and Lipinski find similar rates of hold activity during the tenure of Republican
Leader Howard Baker.
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holds that activated the notification requirements established in Section 512 of P.L. 110-81.
Recall that notification is required when three conditions are met: (1) the majority or minority
leader (or their designee) asks unanimous consent to proceed to or pass a measure or matter; (2)
objection is raised on the basis of a colleague’s hold letter; and (3) six days of session have
elapsed since the objection was made.
Many holds lodged during the 110th and 111th Congresses are likely to have fallen outside the
purview of Section 512 regulation. At least two reasons account for this. First, the new
notification requirements would not apply to holds placed on measures or matters the Senate did
not attempt to proceed to or pass (perhaps on account of an implicit filibuster threat contained in a
hold letter). When scheduling business for floor consideration, the content and quantity of hold
letters received on a particular measure or matter are likely to factor into the negotiations and
considerations Senate leaders make. Rather than take action that could have the effect of vitiating
the confidentiality of a holding Senator, Senate leaders might simply decide to advance other
matters to the floor instead (or at least try to).
A second reason the actual number of holds is likely to exceed the number published in the
Record during these two Congresses has to do with the six session day window between an
objection being raised and reporting requirements becoming mandatory. Designed to provide
Senators with sufficient time to study an issue before deciding whether to maintain a hold beyond
the six session day grace period, this provision may have encouraged the use of revolving (or
rotating) holds. If one Senator removes his or her hold within six session days of activating the
reporting requirement and another Senator puts a new hold in its place, the effect would be to
reset the six session day clock each time a new hold was placed on a given measure or matter. In
this way, two or more Senators could maintain the secrecy of their holds for an indefinite period
without running afoul of the new disclosure procedures.
Notification Procedures Established by S.Res. 28 (2011)
In response to the limited applicability of Section 512, the Senate established—by a 92-4 vote on
January 27, 2011—a standing order (S.Res. 28) that extends notification requirements to a larger
share of hold activity. Instead of a six-day reporting window, S.Res. 28 provides two days of
session during which Senators are expected to deliver their objection notices for publication. The
action that triggers the reporting requirement also changed; from an objection on the basis of a
colleague’s hold request (under Section 512), to the initial transmission of a hold letter to the
party leader (under S.Res. 28).
The proper language to communicate a hold remained largely the same as before, except that
holding Senators must now include a statement that expressly authorizes their party leader to
object in their name.15 In the event that a Senator neglects to deliver an objection notice for
publication within two session days and a party leader nevertheless raises objection on the basis
of that hold, S.Res. 28 requires that the name of the objecting party leader be identified as the
15 S.Res. 28 specifies the following language hold letters should take: “I, Senator ___, intend to object to ___, dated
___. I will submit a copy of this notice to the Legislative Clerk and the Congressional Record within 2 session days and
I give my permission to the objecting Senator to object in my name.” Notice that the new form no longer requires a
Senator to give reason for the hold.
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source of the hold in the “Notice of Intent to Object” section of the appropriate Senate calendar.16
The process of removing an objection notice from either calendar remains unchanged.
During the 112th Congress (2011-2012), a total of 24 objection notices were published in
accordance with the provisions of S.Res. 28; as of the publication date of this report, 6 have been
printed during the 113th Congress (2013-2014). See Appendix C for an example of how these
notices appear in the Congressional Record. As before, caution should be exercised when
interpreting these numbers. What looks like a drop-off in the use of holds could instead reflect
broader challenges inherent in efforts to regulate this kind of communication.
Challenges Inherent in Regulating Hold Activity
Senate holds are predicated on the unanimous consent nature of Senate decision making. The
influence they exert in chamber deliberations is based primarily upon the significant
parliamentary prerogatives individual Senators are afforded in the rules, procedures, and
precedents of the chamber. As such, efforts to regulate holds are inextricably linked with the
chamber’s use of unanimous consent agreements to structure the process of calling up measures
and matters for floor debate and amendment. While not all holds are intended to prevent the
consideration of a particular measure, some do take that form, and Senate leaders justifiably
perceive those correspondences as implicit filibuster threats.
As agents of their party, Senate leaders value the information that holds provide regarding the
policy and scheduling preferences of their colleagues. For this reason, rules changes that require
enforcement on the part of Senate leaders—as both efforts discussed here do—tend to conflict
with the managerial role played by contemporary Senate leaders and the expectation on the part
of their colleagues that leaders will defend their interests in negotiations over the scheduling of
measures and matters for floor consideration.17
A second challenge to hold regulation involves the nature of the transmission itself. Both recent
proposals address a particular kind of communication: a letter written and delivered to a Senator’s
party leader that expresses some kind of reservation about the timing or merits of a particular
proposal or nomination. Hold requests might be conveyed in less formal ways as well; in a
telephone call to the leader’s office, for instance, or in a verbal exchange that occurs on or off the
Senate floor. An objection to a unanimous consent request transmitted through the “hotline”
represents another common method of communicating preferences to Senate leaders.18 Some
Senate offices have circulated “Dear Colleague” letters specifying certain requirements
legislation must adhere to in order to avoid a hold being placed. It remains unclear, however,
whether or not these alternative forms of communication fall within the purview of recent hold
reforms.
16 To date, no Senate leader has been identified as the source of a hold on the basis of this provision.
17 See §512(a) of P.L. 110-81 and §1(a)(2) of S.Res. 28 (2011). Both sections include language specifying that Senate
leaders only recognize hold requests that comport with the new disclosure requirements.
18 The “hotline” is a special telephone and email system that connects Senate offices to the Office of the Majority or
Minority Leader. Senate leaders use the hotline to transmit notifications and unanimous consent requests regarding the
Senate’s legislative agenda and schedule.
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Appendix A. A Hold Letter19
19 This hold letter is drawn from archival research conducted by scholars Nicholas Howard and Jason Roberts.
Additional examples of hold letters can be found in their conference paper entitled “Holding Up the Senate: Bob Dole
and the Politics of Holds in the U.S. Senate” (prepared for delivery at the Congress and History Conference, University
of Georgia, May 24-25, 2012), available at http://carson.myweb.uga.edu/Roberts%20paper.pdf.
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Appendix B. The “Notice of Intent to Object”
section of the Calendar of Business20
20 Calendar of Business, December 27, 2012, p. 82.
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Appendix C. A Notice of Intent to Object21
Author Contact Information
Mark J. Oleszek
Analyst on Congress and the Legislative Process
moleszek@crs.loc.gov, 7-7084
21 Congressional Record, daily edition, vol. 159 (April 23, 2013), p. S2903.
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