Senate Floor Procedure: A Summary

Senate Floor Procedure: A Summary

Order Code 97-368 GOV
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Senate Floor Procedure:
A Summary
Updated January 12, 2001
Stanley Bach
Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process
Government and Finance Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

Senate Floor Procedure: A Summary
Summary
The floor procedures of the Senate reflect a complex interplay among
constitutional requirements, standing rules, formally established precedents,
recognized customs and conventions, and practices that can be adapted and applied
in different ways, from day to day and from one bill to the next. In particular, the
Senate frequently sets aside its standing rules and conducts business under the terms
of unanimous consent agreements that organize and expedite its work. Among the
Senate’s most noteworthy floor procedures are those that create opportunities for
extended debate and delay, giving rise to the possibility of filibusters, and the right of
Senators to offer non-germane amendments to most of the bills the Senate considers.
These two characteristics of the Senate’s rules affect other aspects of Senate practice,
as the Senate deals with the potential uncertainties attributable to non-germane
amendments and the implications of actual and threatened filibusters. The result is a
unique system of procedure that often makes it difficult to anticipate what matters the
Senate will consider on the floor, and when and how the Senate will transact its
legislative and executive business.

Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Debate and Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Filibusters and Cloture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Principle and Pragmatism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Reliance on Unanimous Consent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Decision to Consider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Daily Order of Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Procedures Under Rule XIV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Committee Referrals and Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Considering a Bill on the Floor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Precedence of Motions and Amendments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Voting and Quorum Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Appropriations Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Resolving Differences With the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Nominations and Treaties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Related Congressional Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Related CRS Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
List of Figures
Figure 1. Amendment to Insert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Figure 2. Amendment to Strike and Insert
(Substitute for Section of a Bill) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Figure 3. Amendment to Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Figure 4. Amendment to Strike and Insert
(Substitute for Bill) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Senate Floor Procedure: A Summary
Introduction
The proceedings on the Senate floor are shaped by a set of standing rules
that have evolved over the course of more than two centuries. These rules establish
the basic procedures by which the Senate can decide what matters of legislative and
executive business to consider, and how each motion, bill, resolution, treaty, or
nomination is to be debated, sometimes amended, and ultimately approved or
disapproved. With very few exceptions, the Senate is free to adopt whatever rules it
chooses, as it exercises its constitutional authority under Article I, Section 5, to
“determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” Furthermore, because the Senate considers
itself to be a “continuing body,” its Rule V provides that its rules “shall continue from
one Congress to the next” until the Senate votes to amend them.
No body of formal rules, however, can be complete and detailed enough to
provide for every contingency that may arise. The Senate decides for itself how its
rules are to be interpreted and applied in particular situations, reaching these decisions
either by majority vote of its members (or by a larger majority in some cases) or by
accepting a ruling made by its presiding officer. The chair also may reply to Senators’
parliamentary inquiries; these responses have somewhat less precedential weight. The
precedents that the Senate establishes in these ways complement and supplement the
standing rules, and thereafter govern the Senate’s deliberations. By creating new
precedents as the need arises, the Senate has been able to adapt its procedures to
changing circumstances while preserving the underlying principles that are inherent
in its rules.
These principles emphasize the rights and prerogatives of individual Senators,
in order to ensure that there is ample opportunity for debate and deliberation before
the Senate reaches policy decisions. While providing that the majority should prevail
when the time for decision ultimately arrives, the Senate has traditionally protected
the right of any minority group of Senators to argue its position at length and to
attempt to persuade the majority before a vote takes place. In this way, the Senate’s
rules and precedents recognize that the principle of majority rule, if applied
automatically and mechanically, may not produce sound and lasting policies. The
Senate has insisted throughout its history that critical national policy decisions should
take account of the intensity of Senators’ opinions and preferences, as they reflect the
differing and sometimes conflicting needs and interests of such a large, diverse nation.
As a result, the Senate’s formal procedures encourage Senators to conduct their
business through a more informal process of consensus and accommodation,
whenever that is possible. A strict adherence to the rules themselves can create the
danger of deadlocks developing that cannot be resolved promptly by simple majority
vote. To avoid this danger, the Senate frequently expedites the conduct of its

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business by waiving the requirements of its standing rules in favor of alternative
arrangements that are better suited to each particular issue or choice it confronts.
Many of these arrangements, which Senators impose on themselves only by
unanimous consent, have become well-established practices that are now integral
elements of daily Senate activity. Understanding what happens on the Senate floor,
therefore, requires more than a knowledge of the standing rules themselves; it also
requires an appreciation of these unanimous consent agreements and the precedents
governing them.
The precedents and practices that surround the Senate’s standing rules and many
of its unanimous consent arrangements have been compiled and explained in Riddick’s
Senate Procedure (Senate Document No. 101-28), named in honor of Floyd M.
Riddick, for many years the parliamentarian of the Senate, who recognized the need
for all Senators to have access to a detailed exposition of Senate procedures. Since
the first edition was published in 1958, this one-volume compilation of Senate
precedents and practices has been recognized as the essential and authoritative source
of information on Senate consideration of its legislative and executive business. This
report attempts to summarize in narrative form many of the most important
procedures that Dr. Riddick and his successors as parliamentarian have discussed in
this seminal contribution to the contemporary work, as well as the history, of the
Senate.
This report only addresses selected aspects of the Senate’s procedures. It cannot
cover every detail and nuance of these procedures, and it also includes many
generalizations to which there are exceptions. Much of importance is omitted for the
sake of brevity. The full richness and complexity of the rules, precedents, and
practices of the Senate can only be appreciated from a study of Riddick’s Senate
Procedure itself, and from a close observation of the Senate at work. Also, this
report does not discuss the many and complex special procedures and requirements
that comprise the congressional budget process.
The equal division of the Senate between Democrats and Republicans when the
107th Congress convened in January 2001 created a very unusual–almost
unprecedented–situation. In response, on January 5, 2001, the Senate agreed to
S.Res. 8, adjusting the Senate’s organization and procedures during the 107th
Congress. References to pertinent provisions of this resolution appear in italics.
Debate and Recognition
The aspect of Senate rules that has the greatest impact, direct and indirect, on
how the Senate functions is the right of its members to debate. Paragraph 1(a) of
Rule XIX states in part that “no Senator shall speak more than twice upon any one
question in debate on the same legislative day without leave of the Senate, which shall
be determined without debate;” and each bill or resolution, each amendment, and each
debatable motion is a separate “question.” Senators usually do not insist that their
colleagues adhere to this rule. But even when the two-speech restriction is enforced,
it does not limit how many Senators may make two speeches or how long any speech

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may be. Under most circumstances, therefore, Senators enjoy the right of virtually
unlimited debate.
Once the presiding officer, addressed as “Mr. President,” has recognized a
Senator, the Senate’s standing rules permit that Senator to speak, and thereby hold
the floor, for as long as the Senator chooses. The Senator does lose the floor if he
attempts to yield to a colleague or, for example, if he makes a motion or proposes an
amendment. In general, however, so long as a Senator remains standing and
continues to speak, and yields to other Senators only for questions, the Senator may
not be deprived of the floor. Once that Senator yields the floor, other Senators have
a right to be recognized before the Senate votes on the question that is being debated.
If no Senator is speaking or seeking recognition to speak, the presiding officer
automatically puts the pending question to a vote. But the presiding officer may not
do so as long as any Senator wishes to speak.
Moreover, Senate rules usually do not require that a Senator’s speech be
germane (or relevant) to the issue the Senate is considering. Paragraph 1(b) of Rule
XIX, commonly known as the “Pastore rule” (after then Senator John Pastore of
Rhode Island), requires that debate be germane only during the first three hours after
the Senate resumes consideration of business from the previous day or takes up new
business. At all other times, each Senator is free to speak on whatever subjects he
chooses. In practice, though, Senators usually do not interrupt the flow of debate on
a bill by speaking on unrelated matters, in part out of courtesy to their colleagues and
in part because there are other opportunities to do so each day (during “periods for
transacting routine morning business” or at other times when there is a lull in the
transaction of business).
The right to speak at length under Rule XIX is critically important because it
enables determined minorities within the Senate, and even individual Senators, to
delay final action on matters that a majority of Senators support. There is no motion
by which a simple majority of the Senate can cut off debate and bring the Senate to
the point of voting for whatever motion, amendment, or measure it has been debating.
The motion to order the previous question, for example, which is used frequently in
the House of Representatives, is not permitted under Senate rules.
The one motion that Senators often make to stop debate, especially debate on
amendments, is the motion to table. Any Senator who has been recognized may move
to lay on the table the pending amendment (or motion or bill). This motion is not
debatable and is decided by a simple majority vote. If the Senate votes to table an
amendment, consideration of that amendment is ended because the amendment has
been rejected. To table an amendment, or any other matter, is to dispose of it
adversely. If the motion to table fails, however, debate may resume.
In other words, the motion to table can be used to dispose of an amendment,
motion, or other question that the Senate is debating, but only if the Senate is
prepared to reject that proposition. The effect of the motion is negative; it cannot be
used to stop debate and bring the Senate to an immediate affirmative vote. Tabling
motions also are used as test votes; if the motion to table an amendment fails on a
rollcall vote, the Senate often accepts the amendment itself shortly thereafter, and by
a voice vote. However, any Senator who adamantly opposes the amendment may

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resume the debate and, exercising his rights under Rule XIX, continue it as long as
he chooses.
A Senator may exercise the right to debate only if she or he has the floor, having
been recognized by the presiding officer. However, the presiding officer generally
cannot preclude a Senator from debating at length simply by declining to recognize
him. Paragraph 1(a) of Rule XIX also states that “the Presiding Officer shall
recognize the Senator who shall first address him.” If no Senator has the floor, any
Senator seeking recognition has a right to be recognized. The presiding officer may
not withhold recognition because he does not support what that Senator intends to
say or do. Only when two Senators seek recognition at the same time must the
presiding officer exercise some discretion; and even under these circumstances, such
discretion is limited in a most important respect.
Although the standing rules give all Senators an equal right to be recognized,
there is a long-established precedent under which the majority leader, and then the
minority leader, enjoy the right to preferential recognition when either leader and
another Senator seek recognition at the same time. S.Res. 8 reiterates the importance
of both points for the 107th Congress: “in keeping with the present Senate
precedents, a motion to proceed to any Legislative or Executive Calendar item shall
continue to be considered the prerogative of the Majority Leader, although the
Senate Rules do not prohibit the right of the Democratic Leader, or any other
Senator, to move to proceed to any item.” Also by custom, the majority and minority
floor managers of the bill the Senate is considering (the managers usually being the
chairman and ranking minority member of the committee or sometimes the
subcommittee that had considered the bill) may be recognized in preference to other
Senators. These prerogatives are essential to the party leaders if they are to fulfill
their responsibilities for arranging the Senate’s schedule and its order of business; they
are equally useful to the committee leaders if they are to play the pivotal role in
legislative policy debates that the Senate expects of them.
Filibusters and Cloture
Filibusters are possible because of two characteristics of the Senate’s standing
rules: first, the lack of time limits on the right of individual Senators to debate; and
second, the lack of any motion by which a majority of Senators can bring the Senate
to a vote on approving a debatable motion, amendment, or measure. Any Senator
who opposes a debatable proposition that the Senate is considering has the right to
prolong the debate unless the Senate has decided otherwise by unanimous consent or
by invoking cloture. Filibusters also are precluded in the relatively few instances in
which the Senate is operating under the terms of a law, such as the Congressional
Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, that limits the time for debating
certain bills or resolutions, such as reconciliation bills and budget resolutions.
In addition to the right to debate, there are other devices that Senators can use
to prolong the process of floor consideration and to delay the vote on a question they
oppose. For example, Senators usually can offer amendments to the matter under
consideration, and then insist that each amendment be read in full before they begin

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to debate it. They also may offer various other motions-—such as motions to
postpone or recommit–and then ask for a rollcall vote to dispose of each amendment
or motion. And a Senator who has the floor may suggest the absence of a quorum;
unless the Senate agrees by unanimous consent to dispense with further proceedings
under the quorum call, the Senate cannot resume its business until a majority of
Senators arrive on the floor and are recorded as present.
Filibustering by debating at length or delaying the Senate by using other devices
has been criticized on the ground that it prevents a majority of the Senate from
working its will, and so it undermines the fundamental principle of majority rule that
should control legislative decision-making. On the other hand, defenders of the right
to filibuster argue that extended debates give Senators (and their constituents) time
to evaluate the implications and likely consequences of the legislation they are
considering, and that controversial policy decisions should not be made in haste by
slim majorities. This debate has recurred at times throughout this century, and it may
be renewed whenever most Senators believe that a minority is obstructing
achievement of their legislative goals. But the right of virtually unlimited debate has
always been a fundamental and protected characteristic of the Senate’s rules.
Changing the debate rules to eliminate the possibility of filibusters would profoundly
alter the nature of the Senate and the individual rights and powers of its members.
The standing rules include only one formal procedure (other than a tabling
motion) for ending a filibuster or for bringing the Senate to a direct vote on any
debatable question when there are Senators still wishing to speak. This procedure
involves invoking cloture in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 2 of Rule
XXII. However, cloture may not be imposed by a simple majority of Senators, and
it does not bring a debate to an immediate end.
The cloture procedure begins with the filing of a cloture motion signed by at
least sixteen Senators. Presenting this motion to the Senate is a privileged matter, and
a Senator may file it even when another Senator has the floor. The motion may
propose to bring debate to a close on an amendment, a bill or resolution, a debatable
motion, or any other debatable question. However, a cloture motion can only be filed
on a matter that the Senate actually is considering; for example, a Senator cannot
present a cloture motion to end debate on a bill until after the Senate has begun to
consider it. S. Res. 8 provides that, during the 107th Congress, “in no case shall it
be in order for any cloture motion to be made on an amendable item during the first
12 hours of Senate debate. . . .”
The Senate does not vote on the cloture motion until two days later–for
example, if the motion is presented on Tuesday, the vote occurs on Thursday–after
the conclusion of a quorum call that is to begin one hour after the Senate convenes.
(The Senate may agree by unanimous consent to waive this quorum call and to have
the vote occur at some other time.) The cloture vote occurs at that time, even if the
Senate is not then considering the question on which cloture is proposed but is
debating another matter instead. Since Senators do not necessarily file cloture
motions on matters as soon as the Senate begins to consider them, there can be
considerable debate, and opportunity for amendment, before a cloture vote occurs.

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Invoking cloture normally requires the support of three-fifths of the Senators
duly chosen and sworn–60 votes if there are no vacancies in the Senate’s membership.
However, if cloture is filed on a proposal to amend the Senate’s standing rules, the
required majority is two-thirds of the Senators present and voting (a quorum being
present)–a maximum of 67 votes if all 100 Senators participate in the vote. There
may be votes on two or more cloture motions concerning the same bill or amendment;
these votes sometimes occur on successive days, in the hope that some Senators who
oppose the first cloture motion will eventually agree that imposing cloture is necessary
if the Senate is to be able to complete its business in a timely manner.
The effect of cloture is not to end the debate immediately, but only to assure that
it will not continue indefinitely. Even after the Senate invokes cloture, Rule XXII
allows a maximum of 30 hours for further consideration of the question on which
cloture has been voted. This ceiling may be raised only by another three-fifths vote
of all Senators. During this 30-hour period, each Senator may speak for an hour, to
the extent that time permits, and each Senator is guaranteed an opportunity to speak
for 10 minutes even if the 30 hours have expired. The time consumed by activity
other than debate–for example, conducting votes and quorum calls–is not charged to
any Senator’s hour, but it is charged to the total of 30 hours. At the end of the 30
hours, a vote does occur–debate is no longer unlimited–but even 30 hours is a long
time for the Senate to devote to any one question, especially when the end of a
session or some other deadline draws near. Thus, cloture does restrict Senators’
rights to debate, but the time available for post-cloture consideration remains rather
generous. Once the Senate does invoke cloture on a question, that question remains
the business before the Senate until it is decided (unless, of course, it is set aside by
unanimous consent).
Invoking cloture does more than limit the right to debate; it also affects the
amendments and other motions that Senators can propose.
First, the Senate’s standing rules generally do not require that amendments be
germane to the measure or amendment they would amend. Under cloture, however,
all amendments must be germane, even committee amendments and amendments that
have been offered but not yet voted on when the cloture vote occurs. Moreover, the
standards for germaneness are stricter than a standard of relevancy. In general, an
amendment to a bill is germane (1) if it proposes to strike out something from the bill,
(2) if it proposes to change a number or date in the bill, (3) if it narrows the scope of
the bill or the authority it grants, or (4) if it expresses the sense of Congress or the
Senate on a matter within the jurisdiction of the committee that reported the bill. The
Senate is strongly inclined to support its presiding officer when he rules that an
amendment proposed under cloture is not germane. Invoking cloture, therefore, can
preclude consideration of alternative approaches to the same issue or problem that the
bill or amendment addresses.
Second, the only germane amendments that are in order under cloture are
amendments that Senators submitted in writing before the cloture vote. Amendments
that would change the text of a bill (by adding, deleting, or changing provisions) are
known as first-degree amendments, and must be submitted by 1:00 p.m. on the day
after the cloture motion is presented. Senators can then examine each first-degree
amendment that may be offered and decide if they wish to amend it when it is

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proposed. Amendments to first-degree amendments, known as second-degree
amendments, must be submitted at least one hour before the cloture vote begins.
When amendments are submitted to meet the requirements of Rule XXII, they are
printed in the Congressional Record. If a large number of amendments concerning
the same bill are printed, it often is an indication that cloture may be proposed and
invoked on the bill. Amendments that have been available in printed form for not less
than 24 hours need not be read when they are offered under cloture.
Third, the presiding officer of the Senate has considerable authority under cloture
to rule amendments and motions out of order—powers that the presiding officer does
not normally possess. For example, the cloture rule prohibits dilatory motions and
amendments, and the chair may rule that a motion or amendment is dilatory without
a Senator first making a point of order to that effect. The presiding officer also may
rule that amendments are not germane or not in order for other reasons, again without
a point of order first having been made. On more than one occasion, the presiding
officer also has taken the initiative to rule quorum calls out of order as dilatory.
Except in extreme circumstances, any of these rulings may be submitted to the Senate
and decided by majority vote if a Senator appeals from the ruling of the chair.
However, the Senate is inclined to support a strict interpretation of the rules and
precedents that apply under cloture.
Principle and Pragmatism
The ever-present possibility of extended debate, the difficulty of invoking
cloture, and the time available for post-cloture consideration all combine to create the
danger of procedural delay leading to legislative inaction. If each Senator took full
advantage of his or her rights under the standing rules every time the Senator was in
the minority on an impending vote, the Senate would confront stalemate. Senators
would not be able to achieve their individual legislative goals, and the Senate as an
institution could not meet its constitutional responsibilities in an orderly and timely
way. By their nature, legislative bodies usually are not efficient organizations; the
unique rules of the Senate, however, create special problems for responsive decision-
making, especially in an era of rapidly emerging and changing policy demands.
The Senate has been most reluctant to make changes in its standing rules that
would undermine the principles that the value of deliberation must not be sacrificed
to the pressures for decision and that the rights of the minority must be protected
against the sheer numerical weight of the majority. Yet all Senators recognize that
their use of their powers under the Senate’s rules must be tempered by the pragmatic
necessity for the Senate to act. This sense of pragmatism is manifested both in the
self-restraint exercised by Senators individually and in their willingness to accept a
variety of customs and practices that moderate the effects of the standing rules. For
example, the majority leader enjoys a right to preferential recognition only because
his colleagues have been prepared to forego insisting on the equal right to recognition
they enjoy under Rule XIX.

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Reliance on Unanimous Consent
The Senate usually finds that it can conduct its business more smoothly and
efficiently if it sets aside many of its rules by mutual agreement in favor of other
arrangements that are more expeditious and better suited to the particular situation
it confronts. Some requirements and prohibitions of the rules can be waived by a
simple majority vote; others can be waived by a three-fifths vote of all Senators, as
provided by certain rules or provisions of rulemaking statutes (laws that include
provisions affecting the internal operations of the Senate), such as the Congressional
Budget Act and the Budget Enforcement Act. The Senate’s rules also include a rarely
used procedure for suspending a rule by a two-thirds vote. Most often, however, the
Senate waives enforcement of its standing rules by unanimous consent.
The Senate relies on unanimous consent agreements in many ways every day.
Many of them are relatively routine and predictable—for example, to waive the
reading of an amendment or to dispense with further proceedings under a quorum
call. Other unanimous consent requests are limited in effect. One Senator may ask
unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment temporarily in order to offer
a different amendment at that time. Another Senator may ask unanimous consent to
yield to a colleague for a statement without losing the right to the floor. A third may
ask unanimous consent to insert material in the Record to accompany a floor
statement that Senator has made. When the chair advises a Senator that what he or
she proposes to do is not in order, the Senator often responds by asking unanimous
consent to be permitted to do it anyway.
All that it takes to block a unanimous consent request is for one Senator to
object. More often than not, however, there is no objection. Many such requests are
intended to expedite the business of the Senate in ways that do not put anyone at a
disadvantage. Other unanimous consent requests may not be as neutral in their effect,
but Senators often refrain from objecting anyway because they expect to make similar
requests themselves in the future. Just as Senators exercise self-restraint in using the
rules, they often do not insist that the rules be enforced when others propose to set
them aside. It is in each Senator’s interests to accommodate colleagues in the
expectation that they will return the same courtesy and cooperation.
It would be virtually impossible to compile a catalogue of all the unanimous
consent requests that Senators have made or could make. There are very few
prohibitions or requirements in the standing rules that the Senate cannot set aside by
unanimous consent. Almost any statement about the Senate’s floor procedures carries
with it an implicit caveat: except by unanimous consent. In some cases, the standing
rules of the Senate even take account of unanimous consent arrangements. For
instance, paragraph 4 of Rule XII requires that there must be a quorum call before the
Senate may act on a unanimous consent request to set a date for voting on final
passage of a bill or joint resolution. But this requirement itself may be waived—by
unanimous consent.
Two of the ways in which the Senate depends on unanimous consent
arrangements deserve special attention because they are critical to its legislative
procedures, affecting what bills the Senate considers and how it considers them.

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The Decision to Consider
The Senate may decide to consider any bill or resolution that is on its legislative
“Calendar of Business” under the heading of “General Orders.” By determining
which measure to take from the calendar and bring to the floor for debate,
amendment, and passage, the Senate establishes its immediate legislative agenda. The
procedure for doing so is simple. Any Senator who has been recognized may move
that the Senate proceed to the consideration of a bill or resolution that is on the
calendar; this motion is decided by simple majority vote. However, the normal
practice of the Senate is quite different in two respects.
While every Senator has the right to make the motion to consider (or the motion
to proceed, as it is usually called), in practice only one Senator does so—the majority
leader, or another Senator acting at his behest or with his consent. In this respect,
Senators relinquish one of their rights under the standing rules in the interests of
predictability and order. Without such an understanding, it would be difficult for the
Senate to approach its legislative workload in an orderly way, and it would be equally
difficult for Senators as individuals to anticipate and prepare for floor consideration
of legislation in which they are particularly interested. During consideration of one
bill, any Senator could propose that the Senate proceed to the consideration of a
different bill instead. Senators could not predict the Senate’s schedule nor plan their
own schedules with any confidence. By refraining from exercising one of their
important powers under the standing rules, Senators gain a measure of predictability
which also serves the needs of the Senate as an institution.
As noted above, to guide the Senate during the 107th Congress, S.Res. 8
reiterated both the equal right of all Senators under the Senate’s rules to make
motions to proceed and the well-established practice of treating these motions as the
prerogative of the majority leader and his designees. The resolution restated these
established elements of Senate procedure in the context of urging that both party
leaders “seek to attain an equal balance of the interests of the two parties when
scheduling and debating legislative and executive business generally....”
The responsibility for scheduling legislation for floor consideration rests primarily
on the majority leader. However, he may not impose his preferences on the Senate;
he may only propose a bill for floor debate because any motion to proceed can be
rejected by a simple majority of his colleagues. Moreover, this motion usually is
debatable, and so is subject to a filibuster. The result is two possible filibusters on
each bill: one on the motion to proceed to its consideration, and then extended debate
on the bill itself. Senators cannot invoke cloture on the bill until they have first
decided to consider it, and this can require invoking cloture on the motion to proceed.
In practice, therefore, the Senate usually decides to take up bills by agreeing to
unanimous consent requests to consider them. If there is objection when the majority
leader makes such a request, he then may make a motion to consider the bill. But any
Senator who objects to the request is implicitly reserving the right to debate the
motion at length. This may be an acceptable risk or cost if the bill is a particularly
important one. However, the majority leader has an institutional responsibility to use
the limited time available for floor sessions with as much efficiency as circumstances

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and the nature of the Senate permit. If there are two bills he wishes the Senate to
consider, only one of which can be called up by unanimous consent, he is likely to
give preference to that bill—especially as adjournment dates approach and time
becomes even more precious. Under these circumstances, Senators can use their right
of extended debate (or merely the threat to exercise it) to discourage the Senate from
considering a bill they oppose, and perhaps even to delay action on it indefinitely.
A unanimous consent agreement affecting the legislative schedule can be limited
to a single bill, or it can establish the order in which a series of bills will be considered.
For example, on June 28, 1996, the Senate entered into the following agreement:
Ordered, That the Majority Leader, after notification of the Democratic
Leader, may proceed to the consideration of each of the following three bills; that
they be considered in the following order, with no intervening business in order
between the three bills; and that no amendments or motions be in order to these
bills: . . .
To delay or prevent floor consideration of a bill, Senators do not always have to
actually exercise their right to debate. Instead, the very threat or prospect of
extended debate on a bill, or the motion to consider it, may be sufficient to achieve
the same result. It would be impractical for a Senator to remain on the floor at all
times to object to a unanimous consent request to consider a bill that Senator strongly
opposes. But often it is not even necessary for a Senator to be present on the floor
at all in order to delay consideration of a bill. The Senator may place a “hold” on the
bill (or other matter) by requesting her or his party leader to protect the Senator’s
interests: by asking the majority leader to refrain from making any unanimous consent
request to consider that bill, or by asking the minority leader to object on the
Senator’s behalf to any such request that the majority leader may make.
In this way, the Senator keeps the bill off the floor without having to be there in
person to exercise the right to object. This practice is not recognized by Senate rules
or precedents, but even the majority leader generally attempts to honor such requests
from party colleagues when this can be done without jeopardizing what the majority
leader considers to be essential legislation. The alternatives are to risk a filibuster led
by a member of the majority leader’s own party or, at a minimum, to disappoint a
colleague whose cooperation the majority leader will need again and again in the
future.
Thus, Senators’ powers under the standing rules are so great that the Senate
prefers to set those rules aside as it makes essential decisions about its legislative
program. Most Senators refrain from making motions to consider, and thereby
delegate the responsibility for scheduling to the majority leader. But the majority
leader in turn recognizes that scheduling decisions are subject not only to majority
vote, but also to each Senator’s exercise of the right to engage in extended debate.

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Complex Unanimous Consent Agreements
Not only does the Senate rely on unanimous consent agreements to call up
bills (and other matters), it also considers many individual bills under the terms of
complex unanimous consent agreements affecting how Senators may debate and
amend each bill. The effect of these agreements often is to preclude filibusters by
limiting the time available for debating the bill, amendments to it, and other debatable
questions that may arise during its consideration. For this reason, such agreements
are frequently referred to as “time agreements.” But they may have other important
effects as well. For example, they frequently require that all amendments to the bill
be germane or relevant, and they may even preclude amendments to the bill except for
those specifically identified in the agreement. In short, these unanimous consent
agreements often constitute a set of procedural ground rules for considering a
particular bill that are very different from those that would apply if the Senate were
to consider that bill under its standing rules.
Such unanimous consent arrangements have been used so frequently and they
have become so important to the Senate that a body of precedents has developed to
govern how unanimous consent agreements are to be interpreted and applied in
various situations. However, there is no requirement that unanimous consent
agreements take a certain form or include certain provisions; the virtue of such
agreements is that each one can be designed to suit the circumstances surrounding an
individual bill. Some agreements are limited in their scope and effect; others are more
inclusive, controlling the entire process of debate and amendment and even specifying
the time at which the vote on final passage shall occur. Whether a particular
agreement is comprehensive and exhaustive or only establishes a flexible framework
depends on the preferences of the majority leader and the willingness of all other
Senators to agree to its provisions.
The most inclusive time agreements often have been in a form similar to the
following agreement:
Ordered, That when the Senate proceeds to the consideration of S. 1651
(Order No. 636), the Veterans’ Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Compensation
Standards Act, debate on any amendment in the first degree shall be limited to 1
hour, to be equally divided and controlled by the mover of such and the manager
of the bill, and debate on any amendment in the second degree, debatable motion,
appeal, or point of order which is submitted or on which the Chair entertains
debate shall be limited to 30 minutes, to be equally divided and controlled by the
mover of such and the manager of the bill: Provided, That in the event the manager
of the bill is in favor of any such amendment or motion, the time in opposition
thereto shall be controlled by the minority leader or the minority leader’s designee:
Provided further, That no amendment that is not germane to the provisions of the
said bill shall be received.
Ordered further, That on the question of final passage of the said bill, debate
shall be limited to 4 hours, to be equally divided and controlled by the Majority
Leader and the Minority Leader, or their designees: Provided, That the said
Senators, or either of them, may, from the time under their control on the passage
of the said bill, allot additional time to any Senator during the consideration of any
amendment, debatable motion, appeal, or point of order.

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This agreement set aside all Senate rules that were inconsistent with its
provisions, especially the right of each Senator to speak at length. Debate on the bill
itself (on “the question of final passage”) was limited to four hours, and to one hour
or less on each amendment, motion, appeal, or point of order. Moreover, each period
of time for debate was divided between the control of two Senators. In each case,
they were the only ones with a right to speak; another Senator could participate in the
debate only if one of the Senators controlling time chose to yield some of that time
to him. In addition to limiting the opportunity to debate each amendment, the
agreement also imposed an important restriction on what amendments Senators could
offer, by requiring that all amendments to this bill had to be germane.
There is a fundamental difference between the Senate operating under an
agreement such as this and the Senate operating under its standing rules. The
standing rules permit virtually unlimited debate; the agreement severely limits time for
debate and the right of Senators to speak. The standing rules usually permit Senators
to offer amendments on any subject; the agreement permits only germane
amendments. From time to time, the Senate even has been willing to accept
unanimous consent agreements that prohibit all floor amendments to a bill, except
perhaps for whatever amendments had been approved by the committee that reported
the bill. Notice, for example, that the agreement quoted above precluded all
amendments and motions during consideration of each of the three bills the agreement
made in order.
It is precisely because time agreements differ so fundamentally from the standing
rules that the Senate has never been willing to impose such an agreement on its
members if even one of them objects. Time agreements, like all other unanimous
consent agreements, require the explicit or implicit concurrence of every Senator.
Any Senator may object when the agreement is proposed on the floor, and thereby
preserve all the rights and powers he enjoys under the standing rules.
Not all bills are the subject of successful time agreement negotiations before they
are called up on the floor. If the leaders of the committee that reported a bill expect
few amendments and relatively little controversy on the floor, they may consider a
unanimous consent agreement unnecessary. In other cases, the majority leader may
conclude that a bill is so important and timely that he must call it up even if he has
been unsuccessful in attempting to negotiate a time agreement that all Senators will
accept. In the contemporary Senate, in fact, it has become increasingly difficult to
arrange such comprehensive agreements on bills before the Senate begins to debate
them.
When the Senate does consider a major bill without having agreed in advance to
any limitations on debate and amendments, the party and committee leaders may
attempt to reach such agreements after consideration has begun. Senators who
initially insist on preserving their right to filibuster may be willing to accept time
limitations after several days of debating a bill, during which it may have been
amended to their satisfaction. Other Senators may have no objection to a
germaneness (or relevancy) requirement once the Senate has acted on their own non-
germane amendments. If Senators have offered many amendments to a bill, and many
more amendments are anticipated, the party leaders and the floor managers may
canvas their colleagues to identify the additional amendments that Senators are

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thinking of proposing, and the majority leader then may propound an agreement that
only those amendments be in order. Such a unanimous consent agreement may list
only a few amendments or it may include dozens of additional amendments that
Senators may offer to the bill.
Unanimous consent agreements that are reached during the consideration of a
bill also may list the order in which a series of amendments shall be offered, and may
even specify a day and time for voting on final passage of the bill. These agreements
lend some order to what might otherwise be a very unpredictable process. They assist
individual Senators in anticipating the floor schedule and making their own plans
accordingly. If the Senate agrees to consider a series of amendments in a certain
order, Senators can begin to gauge when each will be able to propose an amendment.
Otherwise, a Senator might have to remain on the floor without knowing exactly
when she could be recognized to offer an amendment. By the same token, these
agreements give the bill’s floor managers an assurance that the amendment process
will not continue indefinitely, and preclude the possibility of Senators drafting new
amendments as others are being debated. Establishing a time certain for the vote on
final passage also encourages Senators to come to the floor and offer their
amendments, instead of waiting until the last minute.
If Senators will not accept a comprehensive unanimous consent agreement, the
majority leader may propose agreements that are even more limited in scope. For
example, such agreements sometimes limit the time for debate on a single amendment,
specify the next amendment to be considered, or postpone a series of rollcall votes on
amendments until a certain hour that is most convenient for Senators. Any such
agreements tend to arrange and expedite floor action in ways that benefit all Senators,
but each Senator retains the right to object to any agreement that the majority leader
or the bill’s floor manager proposes.

In light of the impact such voluntary agreements have on Senators’ procedural
rights, it is not surprising that comprehensive or even partial unanimous consent
agreements can be difficult to negotiate. The primary responsibility for promoting the
negotiations rests with the majority leader, in cooperation with the minority leader and
the floor managers of the bill. They must consult with the Senators who are known
to be interested in the bill; but since it is impractical for the party and committee
leaders to consult with every Senator about every bill, individual Senators take the
initiative to advise the leaders of their interest in specific bills on the calendar.
Negotiations to produce the kinds of unanimous consent agreements discussed
in this section involve an attempt to find an acceptable balance between the interests
of the majority leader and the majority floor manager in expediting floor action on a
bill, and the interests of the minority and those of individual Senators in protecting
their rights and promoting their own legislative goals. The majority leader may urge
colleagues to accept stringent debate limitations and a germaneness or relevancy
requirement on amendments; however, any Senator may insist that the agreement
accommodate his interests–for example, by permitting him to offer a non-germane
amendment and allowing him additional time for debating it. Senators prefer to
cooperate with the party and committee leaders whenever doing so would not put
them at an unacceptable disadvantage, but Senators cannot be compelled to waive
their rights under Senate rules. If even one Senator is dissatisfied with the terms of

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whatever agreement the majority leader ultimately propounds on the floor, that
Senator may object until the agreement is modified satisfactorily, or the Senator may
insist that the bill be considered under the standing rules, if it is considered at all.
The Daily Order of Business
The rights each Senator enjoys under the standing rules, and the extent to which
the Senate sets aside these rules and relies instead on unanimous consent agreements,
combine to make it difficult to predict with confidence what will occur on the Senate
floor each day. Nonetheless, some generalizations can be made about what happens
at the beginning and end of a more or less “typical” day the Senate is in session.
One of the first actions the Senate takes at the beginning of a new Congress is
to agree to a resolution that fixes the hour at which the Senate is to meet each day it
is in session. However, the majority leader often asks unanimous consent that the
Senate meet at a different time when it convenes on the following day or on the next
day of session. Making such scheduling arrangements is an accepted prerogative and
responsibility of the majority leader.
When the President pro tempore (or another Senator acting in this capacity) calls
the Senate to order, the Chaplain delivers the opening prayer. The majority leader
and the minority leader are then recognized for 10 minutes each—a period sometimes
known as “leader time”—pursuant to a standing unanimous consent agreement. The
leaders use this time to comment on current issues, to discuss the legislative schedule,
and perhaps even to transact routine business by unanimous consent.
What occurs thereafter depends on whether the Senate is meeting at the start of
a new “legislative day.” A legislative day begins when the Senate convenes after an
adjournment and continues until the next time the Senate adjourns. If the Senate were
to adjourn at the end of each day, the legislative day would always coincide with the
calendar day. But if the Senate recesses at the end of a calendar day, as it generally
does, it continues in the same legislative day when it next meets. Thus, the same
legislative day may extend over two or more calendar days; in some cases, the same
legislative day has continued for months. The standing rules (Rules VII and VIII)
prescribe what is to happen at the beginning of each new legislative day, and it is
largely to circumvent these requirements that the Senate usually recesses instead.
Even when the Senate does adjourn, it often agrees by unanimous consent to waive
most or all of the requirements for the following legislative day.
Under Rule VII, the first two hours of session on each new legislative day are
known as the Morning Hour (even if the Senate convenes in the afternoon). The first
of these two hours, or as much of it as may be required, is to be devoted to
transacting “morning business”, when the presiding officer presents to the Senate any
presidential messages, executive communications, and messages from the House that
the Senate has received. This is also when Senators may present petitions and
memorials, file committee reports, introduce bills and joint resolutions, and submit
concurrent and Senate resolutions. No debate is permitted during the conduct of
morning business, except by unanimous consent. After morning business, Rule VIII

CRS-15
provides for a call of the calendar, a rarely-invoked procedure under which each bill
on the Calendar of Business may be taken up in order and debated under strict time
limitations, but only if no Senator objects.
A primary purpose of these rules is to set aside a regular and predictable period
at the beginning of each day for the Senate to transact routine business. The Senate
then can turn its attention to other business without interruption. In practice,
however, the Senate prefers to have the flexibility to begin considering scheduled
legislation whenever it chooses to do so, and to avoid the Morning Hour requirements
by recessing instead of adjourning.
When the Senate convenes after a recess, the majority leader often arranges by
unanimous consent for there to be a period of time for transacting routine morning
business after the two leaders have used their time or reserved it for use later in the
day. As part of this unanimous consent agreement, Senators are authorized to speak
briefly during this period on subjects that may be unrelated to whatever legislation is
before the Senate. The majority leader also may arrange for periods for transacting
routine morning business at other convenient times during the course of the day.
Although by standing order the Senate authorizes its members to present bills and
resolutions and to file reports at the desk at any time the Senate is in session, not just
during morning business, there should be some period for morning business each day
if the measures and reports are to be received and recorded in accordance with the
standing rules. In practice, Senators use these periods for making brief statements.
At other times when there is a lull in the proceedings, a Senator may ask unanimous
consent to speak for some period of time “as if in morning business.”
When the Senate convenes after having recessed, and usually after “leader time”
and a period for transacting routine morning business, the Senate returns to the
consideration of the pending business. The pending business generally is the matter
the Senate was considering at the time it recessed. On a new legislative day, however,
and after morning business or the first hour of the Morning Hour, the majority leader
may make a non-debatable motion that the Senate proceed to consider any bill on the
legislative Calendar of Business. If the majority leader takes advantage of this
opportunity, he avoids the possibility of extended debate on the motion. At the
conclusion of the Morning Hour, however, the Senate resumes consideration of the
unfinished business, if any; a bill that is considered but not passed during the Morning
Hour is returned to the calendar. Generally, the unfinished business is the matter the
Senate was considering at the time it adjourned.
At the end of the Morning Hour, or after a period for transacting routine
morning business, the Senate usually resumes consideration of whatever it had been
debating when it adjourned or recessed–that is, the unfinished or pending business.
At any time, however, the Senate may turn to other legislative business, or go into
executive session to consider a treaty or nomination (discussed at the end of this
report), either by motion or unanimous consent. As already noted, the majority leader
is responsible for such scheduling decisions, although he consults closely with the
minority leader and with the Senators who are particularly interested in each measure
or matter. These decisions are made by unanimous consent whenever possible; when
unanimous consent cannot be obtained, the majority leader usually can count on the

CRS-16
Senators of his party to support the motions to proceed that he may be obliged to
make.
It is often possible for the Senate not only to consider but also to pass a bill by
unanimous consent, with few if any amendments and with virtually no discussion.
Often at the end of a day’s session, the majority leader asks the minority leader if
certain bills and resolutions, usually identified by their legislative calendar order
numbers, have been “cleared” by the members of his party—that is, if all interested
Senators have agreed that the measures should be passed and that no live debate is
necessary. If a series of measures have been “cleared,” the majority leader calls them
up in order, or en bloc by unanimous consent, and proposes any amendments on
which the interested Senators may have agreed in advance. Each measure is called
up and passed in a matter of minutes or less; there usually is no debate, although
Senators may have statements inserted in the Congressional Record.
Toward the end of each day’s session, the majority leader typically makes certain
arrangements, by unanimous consent, for the following day. For example, he
proposes the time at which the Senate will meet, and often provides for a period for
transacting routine morning business during which Senators may speak briefly. He
may then comment on the anticipated legislative program for the next day before he
moves that the Senate recess or adjourn.
Procedures Under Rule XIV
When there is a Morning Hour, Senators also may invoke another procedure
affecting bills and resolutions in accordance with the provisions of Rule XIV. The
effect of this procedure is to bypass the Senate’s system of standing committees. The
committees play an essential part in developing and refining almost all of the major
measures that reach the Senate floor, and Rule XXV lists the basic jurisdiction of each
standing committee. However, Rule XIV, which deals with the referral of bills and
resolutions to committee (among other matters), provides a procedure by which a
Senator can introduce a bill, or submit a resolution, and then have it placed directly
on the Senate’s legislative Calendar of Business, without first having been referred to
one or more committees.
The procedure that applies to Senate and concurrent resolutions differs from the
procedure that applies to joint resolutions and bills. In either case, once a measure is
placed directly on the calendar under Rule XIV, that bill or resolution enjoys the same
status as if it had been referred to committee and then had been the subject of
extended hearings and markup meetings as well as a formal vote to order it reported
back to the Senate. In effect, therefore, bills and resolutions are referred to
committee in the Senate by unanimous consent.
When a Senator submits a simple or concurrent resolution by presenting it at the
desk when the Senate is in session, the resolution is considered as having been read
(implicitly by unanimous consent) and is referred to the committee with legislative
jurisdiction over the subject. Alternately, however, the Senator may seek recognition
from the floor, send the resolution to the desk, and ask unanimous consent for its

CRS-17
immediate consideration. The resolution is then read. If a Senator objects to
considering the resolution at that time, the presiding officer announces that the
resolution is to “go over, under the Rule.” The “Rule” at issue is paragraph 6 of Rule
XIV:
All other [meaning simple and concurrent] resolutions shall lie over one day for
consideration, if not referred, unless by unanimous consent the Senate shall
otherwise direct. When objection is heard to the immediate consideration of a
resolution or motion when it is submitted, it shall be placed on the Calendar under
the heading of “Resolutions and Motions over, under the Rule,” to be laid before
the Senate on the next legislative day when there is no further morning business
but before the close of morning business and before the termination of the morning
hour.
When the resolution is laid before the Senate on the next legislative day, it may
be debated until the end of the Morning Hour. If the Senate has not voted on it by
that time, the resolution is returned to the calendar unless the Senate agrees, by
debatable motion, to continue with its consideration. But even during consideration
of the resolution during the Morning Hour, the Senate may agree, by unanimous
consent or motion, to turn to other matters instead. Thus, a Senator can attempt to
use this procedure to bring an issue to the Senate floor for debate, but there is no
requirement for the Senate to vote on the resolution, and this procedure may not be
used to promote action on bills and joint resolutions that could ultimately become law.
Rule XIV provides a different procedure for placing bills and joint resolutions
directly on the calendar without first having been considered in committee. But this
procedure does not assure that the bill or joint resolution will come before the Senate
for debate and a vote.
Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 of Rule XIV require that a bill (or joint resolution) be
read three times (by title) before there may be a vote on passing it, and that these
readings must occur on different legislative days. Moreover, the bill may not be
referred to committee until after its second reading. (The third reading comes just
before the vote on final passage, after the bill has been debated and amended on the
floor.) When a Senator introduces a bill routinely, it is considered as having been read
twice (again, with the implicit unanimous consent of the Senate) and referred to
committee by the Parliamentarian, acting on behalf of the presiding officer. The same
routine procedures normally occur when the Senate receives a bill from the House.
On rare occasions, the Senate has debated referral questions and decided them by
majority vote.
Instead, a Senator may introduce a bill from the floor and ask unanimous consent
for its immediate consideration, or he may ask for the immediate consideration of a
House bill when the Senate receives it. The bill normally is then read for the first time
(although, under paragraph 1 of Rule XIV, any Senator may object, in which case the
introduction of the bill is postponed for one calendar day). If a Senator objects to a
second reading on the same legislative day, the bill cannot yet be referred to
committee, so it is held at the desk until the beginning of the next legislative day when
it receives its second reading. At that point, if any Senator, including the Senator who

CRS-18
introduced the bill, objects to further proceedings on the bill–which would be referral
to committee–the bill is placed directly on the calendar.
By this means, a Senator can introduce a bill and have it placed directly on the
calendar, and do so as a matter of right; she may invoke the same procedure with
respect to a House bill the Senate has received. Unanimous consent is not required.
The process can take time, depending on how many days elapse between legislative
days, and there is no guarantee that the bill will reach the floor for consideration.
Furthermore, Senators do not invoke Rule XIV for this purpose very often. All
Senators appreciate the importance of committee deliberations and no Senator wishes
to undermine the powers of her committees or the committee system generally. But
when a Senator is convinced that the committee to which a bill would be referred is
not prepared to act on it, this recourse is available.
A Senator may use the same procedure in case one of the standing committees
fails to act on a bill he has introduced. The Senate’s rules do not include a specific
procedure by which its members can vote to take a bill away from a committee and
either place it on the legislative calendar or bring it directly to the floor for
consideration. This situation can present a problem in the case of a House bill that has
been referred to a Senate committee. But a Senator whose own bill is languishing in
committee may introduce an identical bill (with precisely the same text but a different
bill number) and have it placed directly on the calendar. For this reason, Senate
committees cannot necessarily determine the fate of a measure by failing to act on it.
Committee Referrals and Reports
Even though these procedures under Rule XIV are available, most bills and
resolutions come to the Senate floor only after having been considered and reported
by one or more of the Senate’s standing committees.
In most cases, a measure is referred, under paragraph 1 of Rule XVII, to “the
committee which has jurisdiction over the subject matter which predominates in such
proposed legislation.” However, the Senate may refer a bill to more than one
committee if each has jurisdiction over part or all of it. The bill may be referred
concurrently to two or more committees when it is introduced; alternatively it may be
divided among the committees, with each committee having authority over the part
of the bill within its jurisdiction. Finally, the Senate may arrange for a bill to be
referred sequentially: it is referred to one committee and then, if that committee
reports it, to a second committee. The second committee usually is given a limited
period of time to consider the bill; if the committee fails to act, it usually is
automatically discharged from further consideration of the bill, which is placed on the
legislative calendar. The Senate arranges multiple referrals by unanimous consent,
though paragraph 3(a) of Rule XVII permits the majority and minority leaders, acting
jointly, to make a motion providing for a multiple referral. The two floor leaders have
not yet found it necessary or desirable to make such a motion.
The Senate’s committees enjoy great latitude in deciding what bills they will
consider and when. However, Senate rules and practices do affect how a committee

CRS-19
returns a bill to the full Senate, after considering it and ordering it reported, usually
with the recommendation that it should pass.
The committee normally prepares a written report to accompany the bill,
although Senate rules do not require that there be a report. In addition to presenting
the text of whatever amendments to the bill the committee proposes, the report
usually includes a discussion of the policy issue, the state of current law, and the
reasons for new legislation. It normally contains both a general and a section-by-
section analysis of the committee’s recommendations, and often includes a discussion
of the committee’s deliberations as well as a summary of its hearings and the
information the committee received by other means. The report is completed by the
committee staff after the committee has decided to report the bill favorably. Thus, the
report is more reflective of the committee’s position than a detached evaluation of the
bill’s advantages and disadvantages.
In addition, Rule XXVI includes a number of requirements that generally govern
what must be included in the report when the committee chooses to prepare one. For
example, the report is to contain:
1. a tabulation of rollcall votes taken by the committee on the bill and proposed
amendments to it;
2. a five-year estimate of the bill’s cost if it were enacted, prepared either by the
committee or by the Congressional Budget Office;
3. a regulatory impact statement, discussing the prospective effect of the bill on
the individuals and businesses that would be affected by its enactment, as well
as the bill’s probable impact on the economy, personal privacy, government
paperwork, and private record-keeping;
4. a comparative print using various typographical devices to show how the bill
would change the language of current law (known as the “Cordon rule”
requirement); and
5. any supplemental, minority, or additional views of committee members, if the
members announce their intention to prepare such statements when the
committee orders the bill reported, and if the statements are filed with the
committee clerk within the next three calendar days.
Collectively, these reporting practices and requirements are intended to provide
Senators with important information about the background, provisions, and likely
effects of the bill before they consider it on the floor. To ensure an opportunity for
Senators and their staffs to review the report, paragraph 5 of Rule XVII requires that
the report must have been available to Senators for at least two calendar days before
the Senate may consider the bill. When a committee decides not to file a written
report, the two-day layover requirement does not apply. But even in such cases, the
committee chairman sometimes submits for printing in the Record much the same
information that would normally be contained in a written committee report. In
addition, paragraph 4(a) of Rule XVII requires that a bill reported from committee
lie over one legislative day before being considered. This requirement applies even

CRS-20
if there is no written report accompanying the bill; however, it can be satisfied by a
very brief adjournment during the course of a day’s proceedings.
After a Senate committee has held hearings on a bill that was referred to it, it
may vote at a business meeting to order the bill reported with an adverse
recommendation or with no recommendation at all, but there usually is no reason for
doing so. If the committee does not favor the bill, it has the option of simply
declining to take any further action. On the other hand, if the committee does decide
that some legislation should be enacted, it votes to order the bill reported, usually
after a markup session at which its members debate and vote on possible amendments
to the bill.
In providing for equal party representation on the Senate’s committees during
the 107th Congress (so long as the Senate remains equally divided between the two
parties), S.Res. 8 anticipated the possibility of tie votes in committee on ordering a
measure or nomination to be reported. The resolution provides that, in such a case,
the majority leader or the minority leader may make a motion on the Senate floor to
discharge the committee from further consideration of the measure or nomination.
If the Senate agrees to this motion after no more than four hours of debate, the
matter in question is placed on the Senate’s Calendar of Business, if it is a bill or
resolution, or on the Executive Calendar, if it is a nomination. This motion to
discharge is not available if the committee simply fails to act on the measure or
nomination. In that case, a Senator may introduce an identical bill or resolution and
invoke Rule XIV to have it placed directly on the Calendar of Business. However,
Rule XIV cannot be used to protect a nomination from dying because of committee
inaction.
The committee may order a bill reported without amendment if it is satisfied with
the provisions of the bill as it was introduced. When marking up major bills, however,
a majority of the committee is almost certain to support one or more amendments.
The purpose of the markup is to decide what amendments, if any, the committee
wishes to recommend to the Senate. The committee does not actually amend the bill;
only the Senate itself has that authority. Each committee amendment is subject to
virtually the same process of consideration on the Senate floor as amendments that
individual Senators decide to offer.
If the committee is not fully satisfied with any of the bills on the same subject
that were referred to it, it has three options for reporting its recommendations to the
Senate. First, it may report one of the bills with a series of discrete amendments, each
proposing to change a different part of the bill in some way. Second, it may
incorporate all its proposed changes in the bill into a single complete substitute
amendment to replace everything after the enacting clause of the bill. The committee
then reports the same bill that was introduced and referred to it, but with one
amendment that would entirely replace the original text of the bill and that may
constitute a wholly different approach to the subject. Third, Senate committees have
the authority to write their own bills, so the committee may report an original bill
instead of any of the bills referred to it. In other words, the committee may hold
hearings on an issue, or on a number of bills dealing with that issue, and then mark up
the draft of a new bill prepared by the committee staff at the chairman’s instructions.
When the committee orders an original bill reported, the bill normally carries the name

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of the committee chairman as its sponsor and it is assigned a bill number when it is
reported to the Senate.
Considering a Bill on the Floor
Floor consideration of a major bill normally begins with opening statements by
the two floor managers (usually the chairman and ranking minority member of the
committee or subcommittee that considered it), and perhaps by other Senators,
especially members of the committee. This is a matter of custom and practice, and
is neither required nor authorized by the standing rules. If the bill is being considered
under a complex unanimous consent agreement limiting all time for debate in
connection with the bill, the time for these statements comes from the time allocated
to the two floor managers for debate on the question of final passage. In this case,
other Senators may make opening statements only if one of the floor managers yields
time to them for that purpose.
How the amending process then proceeds depends on how the committee
reported the bill. If the committee reported an original bill, there are no committee
amendments so individual Senators may immediately offer their own amendments.
The same would be true for a measure that was referred to a committee and that the
committee reported without amendment.
If the committee reported the bill with a series of discrete amendments, these
amendments are automatically presented to the Senate in the order in which they
would amend the bill. As the Senate considers each committee amendment, Senators
usually may propose amendments to it and to the part of the bill that the committee
amendment would strike out or replace. But Senators may not offer other
amendments to the bill until the Senate has disposed of all the committee amendments
or has agreed by unanimous consent to lay one or more of them aside temporarily.
Alternatively, the Senate may approve a unanimous consent request made by the
majority floor manager to agree en bloc to all the committee amendments and then to
consider the bill as amended to be the text that Senators may amend.
Finally, if the committee reported the bill with a complete substitute, Senators
may propose amendments to both the substitute and the original text of the bill; the
Senate usually does not vote on the committee substitute, as it may have been
amended, until the end of the amending process. When the Senate imposes a
germaneness requirement on amendments by unanimous consent, committee
amendments are considered germane per se.
Except for any discrete committee amendments to be considered, there is no
order to the amending process on the Senate floor. Senators may offer amendments
to any part of the bill (or the committee substitute) in any order; there is no
requirement, for example, to consider amendments to the first section of the bill
before amendments to the second section. The order in which amendments actually
are offered depends on when Senators wish to call them up and when they are
recognized to do so. If no Senator has the floor and no amendment is then pending,
any Senator who seeks recognition has a right to be recognized and may offer an

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amendment to the bill. And there usually is no requirement that the amendment be
germane to the bill, unless all Senators have agreed to such a requirement by
unanimous consent or unless the Senate has invoked cloture. Senators may submit
amendments in advance for printing in the Congressional Record, but this is
obligatory only under cloture.
When an amendment is offered, one of the Senate’s clerks must read it in full
unless the Senate agrees by unanimous consent to dispense with the reading, as it
usually does. The Senator offering the amendment then must seek to be recognized
again to begin the debate. If there is no unanimous consent agreement limiting the
time for debate on that amendment, or on all amendments, the Senator may speak for
as long as he wishes. When he concludes his remarks and yields the floor, another
Senator may be recognized to speak. Debate on the amendment continues in this way
until no Senator seeks recognition to speak further—in which case the presiding
officer automatically puts the amendment to a vote—or until a Senator who has been
recognized moves to table the amendment. As noted earlier, this motion is not
debatable, and to table an amendment is to reject it; if the tabling motion is defeated,
however, debate on the amendment may resume.
If there is no general time agreement, a Senator may seek recognition to offer
an amendment or simply to speak on the bill itself or whatever amendment may be
pending. But if there is such an agreement, a Senator may speak only if he controls
time on the bill or the pending amendment, or if a Senator who does control time
yields part of it to him. The effect of a time agreement on an amendment is to impose
a ceiling on the length of debate; after the time expires or is yielded back by the
Senators controlling it, the presiding officer puts the amendment to a vote. However,
the agreement constitutes a floor on debate as well. No motion to table the
amendment, or point of order against the amendment, or amendment to the
amendment is in order so long as time remains for debate under the agreement.
Senators are not as likely to move to table amendments when there is a time
agreement because, under these conditions, the motion does not have the effect of
cutting off debate.
During consideration of an amendment, the Senator who proposed it may either
modify or withdraw the amendment as a matter of right unless the Senate has already
taken some action on it. If the amendment has been amended, if the yeas and nays
have been ordered on the amendment, or if the Senate has agreed to limit debate on
that specific amendment, its sponsor may no longer modify or withdraw it except by
unanimous consent. However, the sponsor of the amendment now may offer an
amendment to it, something that Senator is otherwise prohibited from doing. Also,
any Senator may demand that certain kinds of amendments be divided into two or
more parts if the chair determines that each part of the amendment in question could
stand as an independent proposition. Amendments to insert or to strike out are
divisible; amendments to strike out and insert are not. When an amendment is
divided, the Senate proceeds to consider each division in turn as if it were a separate
amendment.
A Senator may make a point of order against an amendment at any time that the
Senate is considering it, unless there is a time agreement governing debate on the
amendment, in which case the point of order may not be made until debate has ended.

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For example, the amendment may violate some provision of the congressional budget
process, or, in the case of an amendment to a general appropriations bill, it may
violate a provision of Rule XVI that governs such bills. At other times, a Senator
may contend that an amendment is not germane, if the unanimous consent agreement
governing consideration of the bill proscribes non-germane amendments.
Alternatively, an amendment may be subject to a point of order because it
violates one of several general principles of the amending process that have developed
under Senate precedents. For example, an amendment may not propose only to
amend a part of the bill that has already been amended. It is also not in order to
propose an amendment that would change the bill in two or more separate places.
However, several amendments, usually closely related to each other, may be
considered together (en bloc) by unanimous consent.
These and other restrictions on amendments are not self-enforcing, and Senators
do not always make points of order that might lie against amendments their colleagues
have offered. When a point of order is made, the presiding officer usually makes a
ruling, after permitting as much debate on the question as he or she wishes; on the
other hand, the presiding officer may choose to submit any point of order to the
Senate, which debates and decides it by majority vote. In some cases, Senate rules
and precedents require that points of order be submitted to the Senate—for example,
points of order that amendments violate the Constitution or that amendments to
general appropriations bills are not germane. When the chair does rule on a point of
order, any Senator then may appeal the ruling and ask the Senate to vote whether to
sustain the ruling of the chair. In this way, Senators retain collective and ultimate
control over the application of their own rules and over the interpretation of
constitutional provisions affecting the legislative process in the Senate.
The amending process may consume minutes or weeks, depending on the level
of controversy surrounding the bill and the number of amendments that Senators offer
to it. The process ends when Senators have no more amendments to propose or when
the Senate agrees to a complete substitute for the text of the bill. (In the latter event,
any further amendment to the bill could only propose to amend what has already been
amended, and so would not be in order.) The Senate then votes routinely to order the
bill read a third time and engrossed, a formal stage after which amendments may be
proposed only by unanimous consent. The bill is read for the third time, again by title,
before the Senate votes on final passage.
Precedence of Motions and Amendments
The first paragraph of Rule XXII lists the motions that Senators may make while
a question is pending:
To adjourn
To adjourn to a day certain, or that when the Senate adjourn it
shall be
to a day certain
To take a recess
To proceed to the consideration of executive business

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To lay on the table
To postpone indefinitely
To postpone to a day certain
To commit
To amend.
The same rule also states that these motions “shall have precedence as they stand
arranged; and the motions relating to adjournment, to take a recess, to proceed to the
consideration of executive business, to lay on the table, shall be decided without
debate.”
To say that one motion has precedence over another is to say that the motion
may be made and voted on while the other motion is pending. For example, a Senator
may move to table an amendment because the motion to lay on the table has
precedence over the motion to amend. When a Senator does move to table, that
motion is not debatable, so the presiding officer begins to put it to a vote. Before the
Senate votes on the tabling motion, however, another Senator may move that the
Senate adjourn, because the motion to adjourn has precedence over the motion to
table. For the same reason, the Senate first votes on whether to adjourn, and then
votes on the motion to table only if the motion to adjourn is defeated. All the other
motions listed in Rule XXII have precedence over the motion to amend; thus,
Senators may offer any of them while an amendment is pending, and the Senate votes
on the motion or motions before it may vote on the amendment.
There also are relations of precedence among amendments; some amendments
have precedence over others. For example, a second-degree amendment has
precedence over a first-degree amendment. After a Senator proposes an amendment
to a bill (known as a first-degree amendment), but before the Senate votes on it,
another Senator may offer an amendment to that amendment (known as a second-
degree amendment). The Senate then votes on the second-degree amendment before
voting on the first-degree amendment, as it may have been amended. As a general
rule, Senate rules and precedents prohibit amendments to second-degree amendments,
which would be amendments in the third degree. When first- and second-degree
amendments have been proposed, a motion to table has precedence over both. A vote
to table a first-degree amendment also kills any second-degree amendment that has
been offered to it.
Other relations of precedence among amendments are less obvious, and are
based on several ways of distinguishing among amendments.
An amendment can take one of three possible forms. First, it may propose to
insert new language without changing any language already present. Second, it may
propose to strike out language without replacing it with different language. Or third,
it may propose to both strike out and insert. These are the only logical possibilities.
A special kind of amendment to strike out and insert is a complete substitute for the
text of a bill or resolution—an amendment which proposes to replace everything after
the measure’s enacting or resolving clause.
In some contexts, the Senate also distinguishes between substitute and perfecting
amendments. When a Senator offers a complete substitute amendment—an

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amendment to strike out and insert that would replace the entire text of the
bill—when no other such amendment is already pending, that amendment is
considered to be a an original question for purposes of amendment. This means that
the complete substitute amendment is amendable in two degrees. Also, when a
Senator proposes an amendment to an amendment, it is considered to be a second-
degree substitute amendment if it proposes to replace the entire text of the first-
degree amendment. If, instead, it would leave part of the first-degree amendment
unchanged, it is considered to be a second-degree perfecting amendment.
According to Senate precedents, the form of the first-degree amendment that a
Senator offers determines what other amendments may be proposed before the Senate
votes on that first-degree amendment. The second-degree amendments that are in
order depend on whether the first such amendment to be offered proposes (1) to
strike out, (2) to insert, or (3) to strike out and insert. Only some of the complicated
precedents governing the amendment process can be summarized here, but these
precedents are generally consistent with the following two propositions:
1. when a first-degree amendment to strike out and insert is offered, both the
language proposed to be stricken and the language proposed to be inserted may
be amended; and
2. the Senate votes on amendments to the language proposed to be stricken
before voting on amendments to the language proposed to be inserted.
These propositions assist in understanding the complex amendment situations
that can arise on the Senate floor, in which Senators may offer three or sometimes as
many as seven or more amendments before the Senate votes on any one of them. The
precedents on this subject have been codified into a series of four diagrams in
Riddick’s Senate Procedure, that depict the maximum number of amendments that
Senators may offer before any votes must occur. These diagrams govern the
amendment process on the Senate floor. Fortunately, the most complex and elaborate
of these amending situations rarely occur.
In the case of a motion to insert, the amendment process is governed and limited
by the following diagram reproduced from page 74 of Riddick’s Senate Procedure.
As a first-degree amendment, the motion to insert (Amendment A in the diagram)
is amendable in the second degree. If a Senator offers a second-degree perfecting
amendment (Amendment C), no other amendments are in order until after the Senate
votes on the perfecting amendment. But if the second-degree amendment is a
substitute (Amendment B, proposing to strike out all of what the first-degree
amendment would insert and to insert different language in its place), then another
Senator may propose an amendment that would perfect the language proposed to be
replaced by the substitute. This perfecting amendment is in order before the Senate
votes on the second-degree substitute; and if both amendments are proposed, the
Senate votes on the second-degree perfecting amendment before voting on the
second-degree substitute.
In other words, a second-degree perfecting amendment has precedence over a
second-degree substitute amendment. The perfecting amendment is in order while the

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Figure 1. Amendment to Insert

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substitute is pending, and the Senate acts first on the perfecting amendment. If the
Senate rejects or tables the perfecting amendment, the first-degree amendment
remains fully open to any other perfecting amendment. If the Senate agrees to one
perfecting amendment, Senators may still offer other perfecting amendments that
would change different parts of the first-degree amendment. But if the Senate
ultimately agrees to the substitute for the amendment, that vote obviates the effect of
any perfecting amendments previously adopted. The final vote then occurs on the
first-degree amendment as amended either by the perfecting amendments or by the
substitute.
In the case of a motion to strike out and insert, the diagram from page 84 of
Riddick’s Senate Procedure governs what other amendments Senators may offer.
The language that this amendment proposes to insert in the bill is amendable (by
Amendments A and B in the diagram) in the same way and to the same extent as a
motion to insert. In addition, the language the substitute proposes to strike out from
the bill also is amendable in two degrees. The first-degree amendment to the language
proposed to be stricken (Amendment C in the diagram) can only be a perfecting
amendment, and may only deal with the part of the bill that the substitute would
replace. This perfecting amendment may propose to insert, to strike out, or to strike
out and insert. But whatever form it takes, it is only subject to one second-degree
amendment at a time; if that second-degree amendment (Amendment D) is a
substitute, in other words, a second-degree perfecting amendment is not in order
unless and until the Senate rejects the substitute.
The Senate votes on any amendments to the text proposed to be stricken before
voting on any amendments to the text proposed to be inserted; then it votes on the
first-degree substitute itself. In other words, the Senate has an opportunity to perfect
language in the bill before deciding to replace it.
When a Senator proposes a motion to strike out—an amendment to remove
language from a bill without replacing it—the diagram on page 75 of Riddick’s Senate
Procedure applies.
A motion to strike out is not amendable. However, Senators can offer
amendments in two degrees to change the language of the bill that the motion to
strike out proposes to remove. The Senate first votes on any such amendments,
which enables it to improve language in the bill before deciding whether or not to
strike it out altogether.
A Senator may propose to replace everything that the motion to strike out would
eliminate (Amendment A in the diagram). In this case, that substitute amendment is
amendable in the same way and to the same extent as if no motion to strike out had
been offered. The language the substitute would insert is amendable in the second
degree, by either a substitute amendment (Amendment B) or a perfecting amendment
(Amendment C), and both may be pending at the same time if the substitute is offered
first. Also, Senators may propose amendments in two degrees (Amendments D and
E) to the language the substitute would strike out. If the Senate ultimately votes for
the substitute, there is no vote on the motion to strike out itself. That motion falls

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Figure 2. Amendment to Strike and Insert
(Substitute for Section of a Bill)

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Figure 3. Amendment to Strike

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automatically, because the Senate has replaced everything in the bill that the motion
proposed to strike.
Alternatively, a Senator may propose to perfect the language proposed to be
stricken (by offering Amendment D), but not to replace it entirely. This first-degree
perfecting amendment may insert additional language, change part of the language the
motion to strike out would eliminate, or even strike out a smaller part of the bill than
the original motion to strike out. Except in the last case, the perfecting amendment
itself may be amended in the second degree (Amendment E), but the Senate must
dispose of each second-degree amendment before another one can be offered. Once
the Senate has voted on amendments to perfect the language of the bill, it then votes
on the original motion to strike out that language as it may now have been amended.
Finally, a different amendment situation may arise when the Senate is considering
an amendment that is a complete substitute for the text of a bill or resolution. Such
amendments usually are committee amendments, but Senators also may offer them
from the floor. In either case, the diagram on page 89 of Riddick’s Senate Procedure
governs the other amendments that Senators then may propose.
A complete substitute permits the Senate to choose between two different
versions of a bill–the original version of the bill as introduced, and the version that is
proposed to be inserted in its place by the amendment–and both versions are
amendable in two degrees. Under Senate precedents, the version proposed to be
inserted is considered an original question for the purpose of amendment. This means
that, even though the complete substitute is an amendment, Senators still may offer
first- and second-degree amendments to it, just as they can propose amendments in
two degrees to perfect the original text of the bill.
Consequently, the Senate has roughly equal opportunities to amend both
versions before choosing between them by voting on the complete substitute. When
this substitute is a committee amendment, it is before the Senate for action as soon
as the bill is called up for consideration. But only at the very end of the amendment
process does the Senate vote on the complete substitute, as it may have been
amended. When the Senate agrees to such a substitute for the entire text of a
measure, that ends the amendment process because any further amendment could only
propose to amend something that already had been completely amended.
A Senator may offer either a perfecting amendment to, or a substitute
amendment for, the text proposed to be inserted. If he proposes a substitute
(Amendment A in the diagram), which would be still another version of the bill,
another Senator may propose (Amendment C) to perfect the text the substitute would
strike before the Senate votes on the substitute. Moreover, either or both of these
first-degree amendments is itself amendable by a second-degree perfecting or
substitute amendment (Amendments B and D); but under these circumstances, the
Senate votes on each second-degree amendment before another may be offered. (If
Amendment C takes the form of a motion to strike out, the text it proposes to strike
is subject to Amendments D through H, just as in the case of a motion to strike out
part of a bill; refer to the diagram reprinted from page 75 of Riddick’s Senate
Procedure.

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Figure 4. Amendment to Strike and Insert
(Substitute for Bill)

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In addition, because amendments to the language proposed to be stricken have
precedence over amendments to the language proposed to be inserted, Senators also
may propose first and second-degree amendments to the original text of the bill
(Amendments E and F). Thus, Senators may call up as many as six (or even eleven)
amendments to the bill and the complete substitute for it before any votes must occur.
These diagrams display the maximum number of amendments that Senators may
offer before the Senate must begin to vote, either by voting “up or down” on the
amendments themselves or by voting on motions to table them. For all the “branches”
of these “amendment trees” to be occupied at the same time, the amendments must
be offered in the order indicated by the letters marked on each diagram. For example,
if a Senator offers a second-degree perfecting amendment (Amendment C on the first
diagram) to an amendment that would insert a new title in a bill (Amendment A), a
second-degree substitute (Amendment B) for the proposed new title is not in order
until after the Senate votes on the perfecting amendment. But once the substitute is
offered and before the Senate votes on it, Senators also may offer second-degree
perfecting amendments, so long as these amendments do not propose merely to
change language in the proposed new title that already has been perfected. Only after
the Senate votes on these perfecting amendments does it then vote on the substitute.
Whichever amendments Senators decide to offer, there is a specified order for
voting on them. This order also reflects the relative precedence among the
amendments and is indicated by the numbers marked on each diagram. To repeat the
general rule: the Senate first votes on amendments to the language proposed to be
stricken before it votes on amendments to the language proposed to be inserted. But
after the Senate disposes of an amendment, a Senator usually may propose a different
amendment on the same branch of the amendment tree. When a committee proposes
a complete substitute for a bill, for instance, and a Senator then offers an amendment
to perfect the bill’s original text, the Senate does not vote on the substitute, and no
amendments to it are in order, until after the vote on that perfecting amendment and
any other perfecting amendments that Senators are prepared to offer at that time. If
the Senate ultimately agrees to the complete substitute, that completes the amending
process. Once the Senate has amended a measure or an amendment in its entirety, no
further amendments to that text are in order.
Voting and Quorum Procedures
There are three ways in which the Senate may vote on a motion, amendment,
bill, or any other question presented to it for decision. First, questions that are not
seriously contested usually are decided by voice vote, with those in favor first calling
out, “Aye,” and then those opposed calling out, “No,” after which the chair
announces which side prevailed. As a shortcut, the chair may state that a bill is passed
or some other action is taken “without objection;” however, any Senator may object
and require that a formal vote take place.
Second, if any Senator disagrees with the chair’s decision on a voice vote, or if
the chair is in doubt about the outcome, either may demand a division vote. In that
case, the Senators in support raise their hands to be counted, followed by those in

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opposition. The chair announces which side prevailed without giving a count of the
Senators voting each way. Division votes do not occur often.
The third form of vote is the “yea and nay” or rollcall vote. Article I of the
Constitution provides that “the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any
question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.”
The Constitution requires that those present must constitute a quorum, or a majority
of all Senators. Since a Senate quorum is 51 Senators, at least 11 Senators are
required to demand the yeas and nays on any question. In practice, when a Senator
is adamant on having a rollcall vote on a question, a sufficient number of colleagues
usually support the request. Moreover, the Constitution requires yea and nay votes
on some questions (on overriding presidential vetoes), as do Senate rules on others
(on invoking cloture).
A Senator may ask for the yeas and nays on a question after a voice or division
vote has begun but before the result is announced. If there is to be a rollcall vote,
however, the Senate usually orders the yeas and nays some time before the vote
actually begins. A Senator may ask for the yeas and nays on a question whenever it
is pending, but ordering the yeas and nays on that question does not stop the debate
on it and bring the Senate to an immediate vote. Instead, ordering the yeas and nays
means that whenever the vote occurs, it will be a rollcall vote.
Thus, a Senator may offer an amendment and immediately ask for the yeas and
nays even before she begins to explain the amendment. Ordering the yeas and nays
also has other consequences that can be important. Once the Senate has ordered the
yeas and nays on a motion, amendment, or bill, it may only be withdrawn by
unanimous consent. By the same token, a Senator may no longer modify her own
amendment, except by unanimous consent, after the yeas and nays have been ordered
on it.
At the beginning of each Congress, the Senate agrees by unanimous consent to
limit the time for each rollcall vote to 15 minutes; however, the length of votes often
has been extended to accommodate Senators who are on their way to the chamber.
At other times, the Senate agrees by unanimous consent to postpone two or more
rollcall votes, and to have one occur immediately after the other at some later and
more convenient time. When a series of votes occurs in this way, the Senate may
agree to limit the time for the second and each subsequent vote to five minutes, since
no extra time is needed to enable Senators to come to the floor.
Immediately after the chair announces the result of any vote, a Senator who
voted on the prevailing side normally moves to reconsider that vote. Senate Rule XIII
permits one opportunity to reconsider each vote the Senate takes, so long as the
motion to reconsider is made on the same day as the vote or on either of the next two
days the Senate is in session. As soon as one Senator moves to reconsider, another
Senator usually moves to lay that motion on the table, and the Senate agrees “without
objection” to the motion to table. The effect of these routine proceedings is to use
up the one opportunity to reconsider, and thereby make the result of the vote final.
But from time to time, and especially after a very close rollcall vote on a bill or
amendment, there also may be a rollcall vote on the motion to reconsider. If the

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Senate votes to reconsider, there will be another rollcall vote on the bill or
amendment, with the possibility that the result may be reversed.
A rollcall vote is not valid if fewer than 51 Senators vote because the
Constitution requires the presence of a quorum in the Senate to do business.
However, it is relatively unusual for a majority of Senators to be on the floor unless
a rollcall vote is in progress or about to occur, and most voice votes are decided with
far fewer than 51 Senators present. The Senate presumes that a quorum is present
unless a call of the roll demonstrates that it is not.
Under the standing rules, a Senator who has been recognized generally may
suggest the absence of a quorum, and the presiding officer immediately directs the
clerk to call the roll. (Under a time agreement, however, a Senator may suggest the
absence of a quorum only if he controls at least 10 minutes of the time for debate.)
Except under cloture, the presiding officer may not count to determine the presence
of a quorum, so it is only by calling the roll that the Senate can determine whether or
not a quorum actually is present.
The Senate normally terminates quorum calls by unanimous consent before the
clerk has finished calling the roll. But in the case of a “live” quorum call, in which the
names of all Senators are called, the Senate cannot resume its business until a quorum
responds. If a majority of Senators fails to appear and announce their presence, the
only motions that the Senate may then consider are to adjourn (or recess pursuant to
a previous order) or to direct its Sergeant at Arms to request or compel the
attendance of the absentees. The Senators who are present usually order a rollcall
vote on whichever motion the majority leader makes. When a majority of Senators
participate in the vote, as they almost always do, that demonstrates the presence of
a quorum, so the Senate can then resume its business.
The purpose of quorum calls on the Senate floor usually is not to determine
whether a quorum is actually present or even to compel a majority of Senators to
come to the chamber. Instead, Senators most often suggest the absence of a quorum
in order to suspend Senate proceedings temporarily. If the Senate is about to begin
consideration of a bill, for example, and one of the floor managers has not yet arrived
on the floor, a colleague may suggest the absence of a quorum until he does appear.
By the same token, a quorum call can be useful if the floor manager of a bill wants to
speak informally with the Senator who has offered an amendment, or if the majority
leader needs to speak with several Senators about a possible time agreement.
Suggesting the absence of a quorum permits more informal discussion than is possible
under the rules governing Senate debate. When the discussion is over, a Senator asks
unanimous consent to dispense with further proceedings under the quorum call, and
the Senate resumes its official proceedings. The quorum call may be called off in this
way because it had not been completed and, therefore, the absence of a quorum had
not yet been demonstrated.

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Appropriations Procedures
Senate Rule XVI imposes several special restrictions and requirements on
consideration of appropriations bills—the bills by which Congress provides funds for
most operations of the federal government and thereby exercises its constitutional
“power of the purse.” By and large, the purpose of these provisions is to prevent
Senate action on appropriations bills from being complicated by proposals that do not
deal with the question of funding levels. Rule XVI applies to Senate amendments to
House appropriations bills, rather than to Senate appropriations bills. The House has
traditionally insisted that the constitutional requirement for all bills “raising revenue”
to originate in the House applies to both tax and appropriations bills—to bills
affecting taxes and to bills affecting how tax receipts are spent. The Senate has never
accepted this contention, but in practice has deferred to the insistence of the House.
Three provisions of Rule XVI are particularly important, and apply both to the
floor amendments proposed by the Senate’s Appropriations Committee and to the
amendments that individual Senators decide to offer. First, all amendments to an
appropriations bill must be germane, a requirement that Senate rules do not impose
during consideration of most other measures. Second, amendments should not
constitute new or general legislation, legislation making changes in the laws governing
how the appropriated funds may be spent. However, amendments to an
appropriations bill may limit the purposes for which the funds appropriated in that bill
may be used, so long as the limitation does not (1) impose a new duty or
responsibility on an executive branch official or (2) make use of the funds contingent
upon some other action or event.
Amendments that would constitute new or general legislation should more
properly be proposed during consideration of authorization and re-authorization bills
that establish federal agencies and programs and set the terms and conditions for their
operation, as well as authorize the appropriations of funds for operating them. Third,
therefore, Rule XVI prohibits amendments to increase appropriations or add new
items of appropriations that have not been authorized by law or treaty or by a measure
passed by the Senate during that session of Congress, unless the appropriation has
been (1) formally requested by the President or (2) proposed either by the Senate’s
Appropriations Committee or by the committee with jurisdiction over authorizing
legislation for that agency or program.
A Senator may make a point of order against an amendment that violates any one
of these prohibitions, or against the bill as a whole in the case of an Appropriations
Committee amendment that would constitute new or general legislation. Rule XVI
requires the Senate to decide, without debate, questions of the germaneness of
amendments to appropriations bills; the presiding officer decides other points of order
based on Rule XVI, subject to the right of any Senator to appeal and submit the
question to the Senate for it to decide by majority vote.
A special problem arises when the Senate considers a House appropriations bill
that already contains a provision constituting new or general legislation or a limitation
on the availability of appropriations. The Senate must have the opportunity to amend
such a House provision if it is to have the same ability as the House to determine the

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final provisions of appropriations laws. Thus, under the precedents of the Senate, the
prohibitions of Rule XVI against adding legislation on a subject to an appropriations
bill do not apply when the House has already done so.
If a Senator makes a point of order that an amendment proposes new or general
legislation, another Senator may raise the “defense of germaneness,” acknowledging
that the amendment would constitute legislation but contending that it is germane to
a legislative provision of the House bill. The Senate then votes on whether in fact the
amendment is germane. If the Senate decides that it is, the amendment is in order
even if it does propose legislation. On the other hand, if the amendment is not
germane, it is prohibited by Rule XVI, whether or not it is not legislative in character.
There have been instances in which the Senate has voted that a legislative amendment
was germane, even when it was not, because a majority of the Senate wished to
consider the amendment at that time.
Resolving Differences With the House
Even after the Senate passes a concurrent or joint resolution or a bill, the
legislative process is not complete until any differences between the House and Senate
versions of that measure have been resolved. Except for Senate resolutions, on which
only the Senate acts, the two houses must pass the same measure in precisely the
same form before it can take effect. This means that the Senate and House must first
pass the same “vehicle”—for example, S. 1, H.J.Res. 1, or S.Con.Res. 1—before they
can begin the formal process of trying to reach agreement on its text.
If the House passes a bill and sends (or “messages”) it to the Senate well before
a Senate committee has reported a Senate bill on the same subject, the House bill is
usually referred to that committee. (The House bill may not be referred if it is so
noncontroversial that it can pass the Senate by unanimous consent without first being
considered in committee.) Under these circumstances, the Senate committee is likely
to report the House bill with one or more committee amendments. The Senate then
debates, amends, and passes the House bill.
If, on the other hand, the Senate committee has already reported its bill (or is
about to do so) when the Senate receives a House bill on that subject, the House bill
usually is held at the desk by unanimous consent or it is placed directly on the
calendar. Under these circumstances, the Senate normally debates and amends its
own bill, but stops as soon as the bill is read a third time and ordered engrossed—the
formal stage that ends the amending process and immediately precedes the vote on
final passage. At that point, the Senate takes up the House bill by unanimous consent,
strikes out all after its enacting clause and replaces the text of the House bill with the
text of the Senate bill, as amended. Finally, the Senate votes on passing the House
bill, now containing the Senate’s entire text as a single amendment. In one of these
two ways, the Senate arranges to pass a House bill. The House has comparable
procedures that it typically follows when the Senate passes its bill first.
Once the Senate and House have passed different versions of the same measure,
they attempt to reach agreement on precisely what it should say. This can be a

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complicated process with many possible twists and turns, but it is based on the
principle that each house can amend the other house’s version of the bill in the hope
that the two bodies will be able to reach a mutually acceptable compromise. One way
of doing this is through a formal process of amendments between the houses. Each
house has one opportunity to amend the amendments of the other. For example, the
Senate can amend the House amendments to a Senate bill, and then send those Senate
amendments to the House for it to accept, reject, or amend with further House
amendments. At any point during this process, however, or if it is unsuccessful, the
Senate and House can agree to send their respective versions of a bill to a conference
committee. This committee is composed of Senators and Representatives who are
specially appointed for the purpose of considering all the differences between the
Senate and House versions of a bill and agreeing on a conference report that
recommends a package settlement of all those differences.
When the Senate amends and passes a House bill, it may simply send the bill
back to the House if Senators believe that the House may accept the Senate’s
amendments. Instead, the Senate may immediately insist on its amendments and
request a conference with the House. The House then has the options of agreeing to
the Senate amendments, or proposing amendments to them, or disagreeing to the
Senate amendments and either requesting a conference with the Senate or agreeing
to the Senate’s request for a conference. The same options are available in reverse,
of course, when the House amends and passes a Senate bill. The Senate may agree
to the House amendments, or propose amendments to the House amendments, or
disagree to the House amendments and either request or agree to a conference
(depending on whether the House has already requested one).
House amendments to Senate bills (or to Senate amendments) and other
messages from the House—for instance, a message informing the Senate that the
House has requested a conference—are privileged business on the Senate floor. A
motion to consider House amendments, for example, is not debatable, and after the
Senate completes action on them, it automatically returns to whatever business it had
been considering. Once the Senate has agreed to consider House amendments,
however, motions to dispose of those amendments are subject to extended debate
under the Senate’s standing rules. Various motions are in order and some have
precedence over others. For example, a motion to amend a House amendment has
precedence over a motion to agree to it, and both of these motions have precedence
over a motion to request or agree to a conference. The Senators who are most
interested in the bill usually decide in advance whether to agree to the House
amendments, amend them, or go to conference, so there usually is little controversy
on the floor over these decisions.
The Senate and House may agree to go to conference whenever they reach the
stage of disagreement—each house either insisting on its own position or disagreeing
to the position of the other. When a Senator offers a motion to go to conference, he
or she also proposes that the presiding officer be authorized to appoint the Senate’s
conferees. The Senate may elect its conferees; in practice, however, the chair
appoints a list of Senators that has been assembled by the chairman and ranking
minority member of the committee that had originally considered the bill, perhaps
after consultation with the majority and minority leaders.

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A motion to instruct Senate or House conferees is in order after either house
agrees to go to conference but before its conferees are named. However, Senators
rarely offer motions to instruct and instructions to conferees are not binding; no point
of order can be made against a conference report that is inconsistent with instructions
that Senate or House conferees received.
There are rules governing conference meetings and voting procedures. First,
there is no need for the Senate and House to appoint the same number of conferees,
because all votes in conference take place within each house’s delegation. The final
conference report must be acceptable to a majority of the Senate conferees and also
to a majority of the House conferees. Second, conference committee meetings are
open to the public unless national security questions are involved. Otherwise, the
Senate and House do not impose procedural rules or requirements on how the
conferees negotiate and reach agreement.
Although the conferees may devise whatever procedures they wish, including the
creation of informal subconferences to negotiate separate issues, there are important
restrictions on what agreements the conferees may reach. They are appointed to
resolve differences between the Senate and the House, so they are only to consider
matters that are in disagreement. The conferees should not address matters on which
the two houses already agree or matters that are not contained in either house’s
version of the bill. In resolving each matter that is in disagreement, they may accept
either the Senate position or the House position or a compromise between them. But
the conferees should not reach any agreements that exceed the “scope” of the
differences between the Senate and House positions. A conference report that
violates these restrictions in any respect is subject to a point of order on the Senate
or House floor.
When the conferees consider a complete substitute of one house for a bill of the
other—for example, a House amendment that replaces everything after the enacting
clause of a Senate bill—the two houses must give their conferees somewhat more
latitude because the Senate and House versions of the bill may take fundamentally
different approaches to the same issue. In these cases, which occur frequently, the
conferees may write their own conference substitute. A Senator cannot make a point
of order against a conference report proposing such a substitute unless it contains
matter that is completely irrelevant to the Senate and House versions of the bill. (The
House does not give its conferees quite as much latitude under these circumstances.)
In general, the Senate has given its conferees more latitude than House
conferees enjoy by limiting the basis on which Senators can make points of order
against conference reports on the ground that the conferees made decisions that were
beyond their authority. However, the authority of Senate conferees is not entirely
unlimited, and both Senate and House conferees must remain mindful of the
somewhat tighter restrictions on the content of conference reports that the House
imposes. If conferees do violate their authority, as defined by the rules and
precedents of either or both houses, their conference report is subject to a point of
order on the floor. The House, however, has the option of waiving points of order
against a conference report by agreeing to a special rule that its Rules Committee
reports for that purpose.

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When the conferees resolve all the disagreements before them, they prepare a
conference report that contains their recommendations. It may propose, for instance,
that the House recede from some of its amendments, that the Senate recede from its
disagreement and accept other House amendments, and that the two houses agree to
certain new Senate amendments to the remaining House amendments. A majority of
the Senate conferees and a majority of the House conferees must agree to sign two
copies of the conference report, one to be considered by the House and the other by
the Senate. They also sign two copies of a joint explanatory statement that
summarizes the original Senate and House positions on each amendment or issue in
disagreement and discusses the conference committee’s recommendation for resolving
it.
The house that agreed to the request for a conference usually acts first on the
conference report, though this is not required by Senate or House rules. Like House
amendments and other messages, conference reports are privileged business on the
Senate floor. When the Senate agrees to take up a conference report, it automatically
considers whether to agree to the report. This question is fully debatable and,
therefore, subject to a filibuster. However, neither the Senate nor the House may
amend the conference report because the report is a proposed package settlement of
a number of disagreements.
The first house to act on the report may vote for or against it, or it may recommit
the report to the conference committee for revision. But when either the Senate or
the House agrees to the report, the conference committee is disbanded, so the other
house only has the options of accepting or rejecting it. If either house defeats the
report, the Senate and House may agree to a new conference, or one house may
propose a new position to the other in the form of an amendment between the houses.
The bill dies at the end of the Congress if no agreement is reached. If both houses
approve the conference report, on the other hand, it is enrolled for presentation to the
President.
Very often, Senate and House conferees are confronted with an amendment in
the nature of a substitute from one house that completely replaces the other house’s
version of the bill. Under these circumstances, there is only one amendment in
conference, and the conferees may not report part of that amendment in agreement
and part of it in disagreement. Sometimes, however, conferees have before them a
bill from one house and a series of numbered amendments to it from the other. When
the conferees can reach agreement on some of those amendments but not on others,
they generally return to the Senate and House with a partial conference report on the
matters they could resolve, and with one or more amendments that remain in
disagreement. The two houses first vote on agreeing to the partial conference report,
and then consider motions, usually made by the majority floor manager, to dispose of
each amendment in disagreement (such as motions to recede from the amendment, to
recede from disagreement to the amendment, or to recede and concur in the
amendment with a further amendment). If the Senate and House cannot resolve the
remaining disagreements through such motions, they may agree to a new conference
to consider only those issues still in disagreement.
Conferees also report in partial disagreement when they have reached a
compromise on an amendment, but that compromise exceeds their authority in some

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respect. In such cases, they avoid a point of order against their report by returning
to the Senate and the House with a partial conference report and an amendment that
is characterized as being in technical disagreement. After each house agrees to the
partial report and turns to the remaining amendment, the majority floor manager
offers a motion to dispose of it by proposing the compromise the conferees had
reached. This procedure is used because the limitations on the authority of conferees
apply to conference reports, not to amendments between the houses. Again,
however, conferees may not report part of a complete substitute in either true or
technical disagreement. Furthermore, Congress may not present a bill to the President
until the Senate and House have reached agreement on all its provisions.
Several special issues can arise in the process of resolving legislative
disagreements between the two houses because of differences between their
procedures. Notwithstanding its rules, the Senate can amend House appropriations
bills by adding appropriations that have not yet been authorized by law as well as
provisions that change existing law. These amendments would not be in order on the
House floor. If the Senate adopts two or more such amendments and the House
conferees decide to accept any of them, House rules require the conferees to report
those Senate amendments in disagreement. In this way, the House can vote separately
on each conference recommendation to accept a Senate proposal that is inconsistent
with the House’s rules. If, however, the Senate proposals are included in a single
complete substitute amendment and the conferees want to accept even one of them,
the conference report will be subject to a point of order on the House floor unless the
House first votes for a resolution to waive the point of order.
Also, the Senate usually can amend a bill on the floor to include non-germane
provisions; the House usually cannot. When the Senate and House go to conference,
these non-germane Senate provisions are matters in disagreement which the conferees
may include in their report, with or without modification. This situation could require
the House to cast one vote on agreeing or disagreeing to a conference report that
includes non-germane provisions it had not considered. For this reason, the rules of
the House permit motions to reject non-germane provisions of conference reports.
If the House agrees to such a motion, it then normally proposes that the two houses
agree to the remainder of the conference agreement, often in the form of a House
amendment to the Senate’s bill or amendment. If the Senate is unwilling to agree, it
may propose a new conference to renew negotiations over all the differences between
the Senate and House versions of the bill.
Nominations and Treaties
The Senate and House must reach agreement on bills and joint resolutions before
they can become law, but confirming nominations and advising and consenting to the
ratification of treaties are the exclusive constitutional prerogatives of the Senate.
Nominations and treaties constitute the Senate’s executive business and are the
subjects of special rules and procedures.
Each nomination is referred to the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the
legislation creating and governing the agency or office in question. All treaties are

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referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, although other committees have
occasionally held hearings on issues related to a treaty. At the time the Senate
receives a treaty, the majority leader normally asks unanimous consent to “remove the
injunction of secrecy,” so that the treaty and any accompanying documents can be
printed for the use of the Senate.
When a Senate committee orders a nomination or treaty reported favorably, it
is placed on the Executive Calendar (and given an order number on that calendar), not
on the legislative Calendar of Business. Treaties usually are accompanied by
committee reports; nominations usually are not, although the committee chairman
often inserts information about the nominee in the Congressional Record during the
confirmation debate. Committee actions on nominations and treaties are more
conclusive than their actions on legislation. If a committee does not act on a bill, a
Senator may introduce an identical bill and have it placed directly on the legislative
calendar; there is no such option when a committee does not consider or report a
nomination or treaty.
Neither the Senate nor its committees can amend a nomination—for example,
by making confirmation conditional on some action or event. On the other hand, the
Foreign Relations Committee may propose amendments to a treaty. When that
committee reports a treaty, it also reports a resolution of ratification; if approved by
the Senate, this resolution authorizes the President to proceed with ratification of the
treaty. Ratification is an executive action; the role of the Senate is to decide whether
to give its advice and consent to ratification.
The Senate considers its executive business in executive session. Under
paragraph 1 of Rule XXII, a motion to proceed to the consideration of executive
business is not debatable and has precedence over other motions except motions to
recess and adjourn. If the Senate simply goes into executive session, by motion or
unanimous consent, it takes up the first item on the Executive Calendar, whether it
is a treaty or a nomination. A motion made in executive session to consider a
different matter on the Executive Calendar is debatable. In practice, therefore, the
majority leader moves, in legislative session, that the Senate go into executive session
for the consideration of a specific item of business. Even in this form, the motion is
not debatable, so it permits the Senate to take up any item on the Executive Calendar
without delay. The Senate often transacts routine executive business, such as
receiving executive reports, by acting “as in executive session” by unanimous consent.
Similarly, once in executive session, the Senate may agree by unanimous consent to
consider a legislative matter briefly “as in legislative session.”
Except by unanimous consent, the Senate may not consider a treaty or
nomination on the same day it is received from the President or reported from
committee. Once the Senate has taken up an item of executive business, the rules
governing debate in executive session are the same as in legislative session.
Consequently, nominations and treaties have been the subjects of filibusters. When
the Senate considers a nomination, the question of confirmation is automatically
pending: “Will the Senate advise and consent to this nomination?” After debate, the
Senate decides this question by simple majority vote. Any nominations that the
Senate has not yet confirmed lapse automatically when the Senate adjourns sine die
at the end of the session or whenever the Senate adjourns or recesses for more than

CRS-42
30 days, unless the Senate decides otherwise by unanimous consent. The President
may then re-submit the nominations when the Senate reconvenes.
The procedures for considering treaties on the Senate floor are somewhat more
complicated. The Senate first acts on the text of the treaty; then it acts on the
accompanying resolution of ratification. During consideration of the treaty, the
Senate considers amendments that propose to change its text, just as the Senate
considers amendments to the text of a bill or resolution in legislative session.
However, the Senate only votes on amendments to a treaty; it does not ultimately
vote on the treaty itself. Rule XXX states that, at the completion of this process, at
least one day is to elapse before the Senate takes up the resolution of ratification,
unless the Senate waives this requirement by unanimous consent.
If the Senate has agreed to any amendments to the text of the treaty, they are
incorporated in this resolution. During floor consideration of the resolution,
additional amendments to the treaty itself are no longer in order, but the Foreign
Relations Committee and individual Senators can propose amendments to the
resolution in the form of reservations, understandings, declarations, and other
statements that may affect the interpretation and impact of the treaty without
changing its actual wording. If the Senate agrees to any such statement, it is attached
to the resolution, following any proposed amendments to the text of the treaty. The
Senate is less likely to approve amendments to the text of a treaty than to attach
reservations and other statements to the resolution of ratification. The former require
that the treaty be re-negotiated; the latter usually do not.
After acting on reservations and other statements, the Senate finally votes on the
resolution of ratification, which may contain both amendments proposed to the treaty
and amendments to the resolution itself. The final vote on adopting the resolution of
ratification requires a two-thirds majority for approval. Other votes in connection
with the treaty—on amendments and reservations, for instance—require only a simple
majority.
By agreeing to the resolution of ratification, the Senate gives its advice and
consent to ratification of the treaty by the President. If the Senate has not acted on
a treaty by the end of a Congress, the treaty remains on the calendar of the Foreign
Relations Committee, or is returned to it if the committee had reported the treaty to
the Senate. Under Rule XXX, consideration of the treaty “shall be resumed at the
commencement of the next Congress as if no proceedings had previously been had
thereon.”
Related Congressional Publications
The Senate publishes its standing rules periodically, both in a separate pamphlet
and as part of a larger document. Standing Rules of the Senate (Senate Document
106-15) contains only the text of the rules. The Senate Manual (Senate Document
104-1) contains the text of the rules in addition to other materials such as provisions
of general and permanent laws that affect the Senate. As discussed in the first section
of this report, the Senate’s precedents are compiled and discussed in Riddick’s Senate
Procedure (Senate Document 101-28).

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Senators and staff are advised to consult with the Senate parliamentarian (ext.
46128) for authoritative explanations and interpretations of Senate procedures.
Related CRS Reports
CRS analysts also are available to discuss Senate procedures and their
application to specific situations. In addition, CRS has prepared reports, updated
periodically, on aspects of Senate organization and procedures, including:
The Amending Process in the Senate. Library of Congress, CRS Report 93-113
GOV.
Conference Committee and Related Procedures: An Introduction. Library of
Congress, CRS Report 96-708 GOV.
Filibuster and Cloture in the Senate. Library of Congress, CRS Report RL30360.
Hearings in the U.S. Senate: Guide for Preparation and Procedure. Library of
Congress, CRS Report RL30548.
How Measures are Brought to the Senate Floor: A Brief Introduction. Library of
Congress, CRS Report RS20668.
The Legislative Process on the Senate Floor: An Introduction. Library of Congress,
CRS Report 96-548 GOV.
The Motion to Proceed to Consider a Measure in the Senate. Library of Congress,
CRS Report 93-854 GOV.
Parliamentary Reference Sources: Senate. Library of Congress, CRS Report
RL30788. The President Pro Tempore of the Senate: History and Authority of
the Office. Library of Congress, CRS Report 91-181 GOV.
Resolving Legislative Differences in Congress: Conference Committees and
Amendments Between the Houses. Library of Congress, CRS Report 91-538
GOV.
Senate Rules Affecting Committee Activities. Library of Congress, CRS Report 98-
311 GOV.
Senate Rules and Practices on Committee, Subcommittee, and Chairmanship
Assignment Limitations as of November 4, 2000. Library of Congress, CRS
Report 98-912 GOV.
The Senate’s Byrd Rule Against Extraneous Matter in Reconciliation Measures.
Library of Congress, CRS Report 95-362 GOV