Suspension of the Rules in the House: Principal Features
Suspension of the Rules in the House:
Principal Features
Updated July 22, 2022
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
98-314
Suspension of the Rules in the House: Principal Features
Suspension of the rules is a procedure that the House of Representatives often uses on the floor to
act expeditiously on legislation. This procedure is governed primarily by clause 1 of House Rule
XV. When a bill or some other matter is considered “under suspension,” floor debate is limited,
all floor amendments are prohibited, and a two-thirds vote is required for final passage.
Typically, a Member whom the Speaker has recognized will say, for example, “I move to suspend
the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 1234.” By making that motion, the Member triggers the use of the
suspension procedure under Rule XV. However, this same procedure can be used for other
legislative purposes. For example, a Member can move to suspend the rules and agree to a
conference report, or concur in a Senate amendment to a House bill, or take some other action.
There are eight principal features of the suspension procedure.
1. The Speaker controls the use of this procedure. No Member has a right to
make a suspension motion. The Speaker decides whom to recognize for
suspension motions. The process for selecting measures for suspension usually
begins in the committee with jurisdiction over the legislation. If there is
bipartisan agreement in the committee that a measure is a good candidate for
suspension, committee leaders make that recommendation to the Speaker.
2. There are only 40 minutes of debate on a suspension motion and the bill (or
other action) to which it relates. Time control is often divided between the
chairman and the ranking minority Member of the committee or subcommittee with
jurisdiction over the bill. However, if the ranking minority Member supports the bill,
another Member who opposes it can claim control of half the time for debate.
3. When a bill is considered under suspension, no floor amendments are in
order. The Member making the motion, however, can include amendments as
part of his or her motion. In that case, the Member moves to suspend the rules
and pass the bill as amended. These amendments might be those formally agreed
to in a public meeting of the committee of jurisdiction, or they might be the
product of informal negotiations.
4. A two-thirds vote of the House is required to pass a bill under suspension of
the rules. This is a two-thirds vote of the Members present and voting, a quorum
being present. If a suspension motion fails to receive the required two-thirds vote,
the House can consider the bill in question again. The House could, for example,
take up and pass the bill under the terms of a rule from the Rules Committee, a
process that requires only simple majority support.
5. After the 40 minutes of debate, there is a single vote on suspending the rules
and passing the bill. The House does not vote first on whether to suspend the
rules and then on whether to pass the bill. Both questions are decided by one
vote.
6. The Speaker can postpone roll-call votes on suspension motions until later
on the same day or within the next two legislative days1 and cluster them to
occur one after the other. When there is a series of such roll-call votes,
Members have 15 minutes to vote on the first suspension motion, but they
usually have only five minutes to vote on each of the other motions.
7. There is no requirement that a bill must be reported from committee before
the House can consider it under suspension. One advantage of the suspension
1 A “legislative day” begins when the House meets after an adjournment and ends when the House next adjourns.
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Suspension of the Rules in the House: Principal Features
8. procedure is that the committee to which a bill was referred does not have to
meet formally to vote on reporting it or to prepare a written report on the bill.
9. The suspension procedure automatically waives all points of order against
the bill (or other action) and against its consideration. The procedure
suspends all rules of the House except those that govern the suspension
procedure itself.
There is no suspension calendar. Instead, during the last floor session of each week, a Member of
the majority party leadership usually makes a public announcement on the floor about the bills
that have been scheduled tentatively for consideration under suspension during the following
week. Bills scheduled to be considered under suspension of the rules are generally made available
in advance at http://docs.house.gov/floor/.
For additional information, see the Parliamentarian’s notes following clause 1 of Rule XV in the
House Rules and Manual; pages 897-905 of House Practice; and volume 6, chapter 21, sections
9-15 of Deschler’s Precedents, available through the website of the House Committee on Rules
(https://rules.house.gov/rules-and-resources/manuals-house-representatives and
https://rules.house.gov/rules-and-resources/additional-volumes).
Author Information
Elizabeth Rybicki
Specialist on Congress and the Legislative Process
Acknowledgments
This report was written by Stanley Bach, a former Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process at CRS. The
listed author updated the report and can respond to inquiries from congressional clients on the subject.
Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan
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under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other
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