The Senate’s Executive Calendar
Updated April 11, 2022
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
98-438
The Senate’s Executive Calendar
reaties and nominations constitute the executive business of the Senate and are the subjects
of the Senate’s Executive Calendar. When a Senate committee reports a treaty or
Tnomination, it is said to be placed “on the calendar” and is available for floor
consideration. In addition, there is a category of nominations that are not immediately
referred to committee, but instead placed directly on the Executive Calendar under the heading,
“Privileged Nominations.” In the 117th Congress, as long as the Senate is evenly divided between
the two parties, if there is a tie on the vote to report a nomination or treaty, that nomination or
treaty can also be placed on the calendar through a special discharge process established in S.Res.
27.1 Treaties and nominations must be placed on the calendar to be eligible for floor
consideration, unless the Senate gives unanimous consent to consider them without committee
action. If a treaty or nomination is not on the calendar, either it remains in the possession of the
committee to which it was referred, or is “held at the desk” by unanimous consent awaiting a
decision either to refer it to committee or to bring it directly to the floor for consideration by
unanimous consent.
The Senate’s other calendar, the Calendar of Business, identifies the bills, resolutions, and other
items of legislative business eligible for consideration.2 Both the Calendar of Business and the
Executive Calendar are published each day the Senate is in session and distributed to Senators’
personal offices and all committee and subcommittee offices. There are no cumulative issues of
the Executive Calendar; each issue documents the status of treaties and nominations as of its
publication. The most recent Executive Calendar is available on the Senate’s website:
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/executive_calendar/xcalv.pdf.
Each issue of the Executive Calendar contains eight sections.
First, the calendar presents the texts of any unanimous consent agreements concerning executive
business that have not yet been fully implemented. Such agreements may control when the Senate
will begin consideration of a treaty or nomination, for example, or how long Senators may debate
it.
Second, the calendar lists any Senate executive resolutions that concern executive business. A
measure to discharge a committee from further consideration of a treaty or nomination, for
example, would be an executive resolution. Such resolutions, however, are used very rarely.
Third, the calendar lists all treaties that have been reported from committee.3 A treaty becomes
eligible for floor consideration on the day after it is placed on the calendar. For each treaty, this
list provides:
the treaty’s calendar number, reflecting the chronological order in which it was
placed on the calendar;
the treaty document number, which is the number assigned to the Senate
document containing the text of the treaty and any accompanying documents that
were submitted by the President to the Senate. Each treaty document is assigned
a number that identifies the Congress during which the President submitted the
treaty and the order in which treaties were submitted during that Congress. Treaty
Doc. 114-7, for example, would refer to the seventh treaty submitted to the
Senate during the 114th Congress. Once received, a treaty remains before the
1 For more information, see CRS Report R46769, The Senate Powersharing Agreement of the 117th Congress (S.Res.
27), by Elizabeth Rybicki.
2 For more information, see CRS Report 98-429, The Senate’s Calendar of Business, coordinated by Elizabeth Rybicki.
3 For information on consideration of treaties in the Senate, see CRS Report 98-384, Senate Consideration of Treaties,
by Valerie Heitshusen.
Congressional Research Service
1
The Senate’s Executive Calendar
Senate until the Senate disposes of it (unlike nominations, which are returned to
the President, or legislation, which dies at the end of each Congress);
the subject of the treaty; and
information on how the treaty was reported, such as when and by whom it was
reported; whether the Foreign Relations Committee reported it favorably,
unfavorably, or without recommendation; whether the committee recommended
that the Senate adopt any amendments or any reservations, conditions,
declarations, understandings, or other statements; and the number of the printed
committee report, if any.
Fourth, the calendar lists nominations that have either been reported from committee, discharged
from committee by the Senate, or placed on this section of the calendar under the privileged
nominations procedures discussed below. Except by unanimous consent, the Senate may not
begin floor consideration of a nomination until it has been on the calendar for at least one day.
Any nominations appearing in this section of the calendar for the first time are listed under the
heading of “new reports.” For each nomination, this section of the calendar identifies:
the calendar number that is assigned to each nomination representing the order in
which it was placed on the calendar;
the number of the presidential message by which the nomination was transmitted
to the Senate;
the name of the nominee, the office to which he or she has been nominated, and
the name of the predecessor in that office; and
information on how the nomination was reported, such as when and by whom it
was reported, which committee reported it, whether the committee reported it
favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation, and the number of the
printed committee report, if any. Alternatively, this section will indicate if a
privileged nomination was placed on the calendar or if the committee was
discharged from consideration of the nomination.
Fifth, the calendar identifies lists of nominations placed on the Secretary’s desk. These are routine
nominations—in the armed services and the Foreign Service, for example—that the Senate
normally considers and approves by unanimous consent without committee action. When the
Senate receives such nominations, they are printed in the Congressional Record for the
information of all Senators. After being printed in the Record, these nominations are identified in
the Executive Calendar by entries such as “Air Force nominations (121) beginning Ashley N.
Adams, and ending Richard Chase Zanetti, Jr. III which nominations were received by the Senate
and appeared in the Congressional Record of January 31, 2022.”
Sixth, the calendar lists privileged nominations, those positions that the Senate has decided may
receive expedited consideration.4 These nominations are not referred to committee, unless any
Senator requests referral. (Ten session days after the committee has indicated it received
requested background information, the nomination is moved to the regular nominations section of
the calendar.)
For privileged nominations, the calendar provides:
4 See S.Res. 116, adopted in 2011 and CRS Report R46273, Consideration of Privileged Nominations in the Senate, by
Michael Greene.
Congressional Research Service
2
The Senate’s Executive Calendar
the number of the presidential message by which the nomination was transmitted
to the Senate;
the date the nomination was received;
the name of the nominee, the office to which he or she has been nominated, and
the name of the predecessor in that office;
a column to indicate whether the committee of jurisdiction has requested
biographical and financial information on the nominee;
the date the committee received the requested biographical and financial
information; and
a column to indicate whether any Senator has asked that the nomination be
referred to committee, in which case that nomination would be referred and
would only be placed in the nominations section of the calendar if it was
reported.
Seventh, the Executive Calendar includes a page to record a notice of intent to object. This
section of the calendar was established pursuant to Section 515 of P.L. 110-81, and a standing
order agreed to in the 112th Congress (S.Res. 28) also affects its content.5 It was created to
discourage Senators from only privately indicating their opposition to a matter and thereby
delaying or preventing its consideration, a practice known as placing a “secret hold.” Under
S.Res. 28, a Senator may submit to his or her leader, as well as to the Executive Clerk, a notice
stating that the Senator would object to a unanimous consent request to dispose of a nomination.
If a Senator does so, then, for that nomination, this section of the calendar records the number of
the presidential message by which the nomination was transmitted to the Senate, the name of the
nominee and the office to which he or she has been nominated, and the date of any notice of
intent to object and the name of any Senator who submitted it. The same information will be
recorded in this section of the calendar if a unanimous consent request to dispose of a nomination
is propounded on the floor and a Senator objects on behalf of another named Senator.
The final section of the Executive Calendar records any motion to reconsider entered in
connection with executive business and thus eligible to be taken up by the Senate through a
motion to proceed. Sometimes Senators “enter” a motion to reconsider, instead of “making” the
motion for the Senate to then consider immediately. For example, if a vote to invoke cloture on a
nomination failed, a Senator might enter a motion to reconsider the vote. Entering the motion
protects the ability of the Senate to agree to vote again, but at a later time.
Author Information
Elizabeth Rybicki, Coordinator
Specialist on Congress and the Legislative Process
5 For more on this topic, see CRS Report R43563, “Holds” in the Senate, by Mark J. Oleszek.
Congressional Research Service
3
The Senate’s Executive Calendar
Acknowledgments
This report was written by Stanley Bach, formerly a Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process at CRS.
The listed coordinator updated the report and is available to answer questions from congressional clients
concerning its contents.
Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan
shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and
under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other
than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in
connection with CRS’s institutional role. CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not
subject to copyright protection in the United States. Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in
its entirety without permission from CRS. However, as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or
material from a third party, you may need to obtain the permission of the copyright holder if you wish to
copy or otherwise use copyrighted material.
Congressional Research Service
98-438 · VERSION 15 · UPDATED
4