As for ‘goes to the Senate’, nowadays, that the House passed a measure doesn’t necessarily mean that it will send it to the Senate.

Martial law!

Special orders are alive and well; they’re just made by unanimous consent now rather than by resolution.

Strictly speaking, only bills and joint resolutions can be ‘defeated’. The previous question would be ‘refused’.

For no particular reason... The last time the previous question was defeated on a rule was in 1988. ⬇️ (The amendment that was then offered was kind of complicated, but in essence it allowed an education bill to be amended to add a ban on dial-a-porn.)

Update:

The House will be structuring the SAVE Act as an amendment to a Senate bill, so that the Senate doesn’t have to deal with a debatable motion to proceed. But you can filibuster a motion to proceed even if it’s nondebatable, such that it becomes necessary to use cloture:

I tried my hand at a video explainer of the talking filibuster. open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...

Speaking of the talking filibuster (though this happens a lot)... No senator is seeking recognition, and the Senate is not in a quorum call, so why is the chair not putting the question on the pending nomination?

Re the talking filibuster: There was not even a second of debate (not even irrelevant debate) on this nomination. Was cloture *really* necessary?

Private bills! Sadly, they were considered by UC, not through the Private Calendar.

This would be slightly more exciting if Congress followed the parliamentary rule that rejecting a motion to concur is equivalent to disagreeing to the amendments.

It’s that time of the week again.

Any guesses as to how many floor amendments are made in order by the rule...?

For the first time this Congress, the speaker has referred a Senate bill to committee. If anyone was hoping to bring this bill up using a discharge petition, you’re in luck!

The first thing I look at in a special rule will forever be the last line of each section.

The last time the House considered Senate amendments in the 🐄 without the help of a special rule, members really struggled with it, so much so, I guess, that one member decided to interrupt the proceedings to request an indefinite leave of absence.

The House could also adjourn for a moment or two after the rule is reported, but that, too, might be a little too sophisticated for them.

It’s possible to set this up so that all the motions involved are privileged, no rule/suspension needed: 1. The House disagrees to the Senate amendments and requests a conference. 2. The Senate tables the House message. 3. The House recedes from its disagreement and concurs in the Senate amendments.

Errr... what about ‘the Morning Hour be deemed expired’? 😳

Seeing as the Speaker is so fond of unilateral adjournment/recess authorities...

UC agreement:

I guess a member complained, because the Record has now been edited to add, for every morning-hour speech, the actual words used by the chair in recognising the member.

"The Chair is making a statement of fact that the gentleman from Kentucky is present. Does he deny it?" With these words, Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed of ME ended the dilatory practice of the "Disappearing Quorum" #OTD 1890. https://loom.ly/oj2B4Vg

👍

It’s always fun to see senators’ facial expressions as they go through this process.

It will take unanimous consent to pass the bill(s) in time for 31 January.*

And now also a placeholder joint resolution, presumably for tariffs, war powers stuff etc. www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

The House is fighting back and (maybe) adopting legislative concurrent resolutions anyway. NB: The vote is still open.

Seems nongermane, though no one made that point of order, of course.

This was not necessary; the amendment hadn’t been proposed, so there was nothing to withdraw.

That was much easier than I thought it would be!

Corrected in the Record 👍

The chair could have saved Vance the trouble of breaking the tie by overruling the point of order (instead of submitting it to the Senate) and letting Risch appeal the ruling. On a tie vote on an appeal in the Senate, the chair loses.

Another round of ignorance of congressional procedure coming ~soon.

The House not only passed the ACA extender over Mike Johnson's objections, rather than leave it to him to get it sent to the Senate in short order, it voted to REQUIRE it be sent swiftly. So, then what happened? It was sent swiftly… with the WRONG language. Mike Johnson did this on purpose! 1/

😳 It seems that the text that was sent to the Senate was the placeholder bill as introduced (yes, the one providing for a time capsule and so forth), not reflecting the amendment adopted by the House which turned it into the ACA subsidies bill that they actually wanted to pass.

They came very close to passing it by voice vote! The Democrats did not demand a record vote; the Republican manager did, in the end.

In Parliament, the member in charge of a bill often unnecessarily ‘moves’ that each clause stand part of the bill. It’s fascinating to see that this mistake has spread to Congress.

In parliamentary terms: the indolence of ſome, the inattention of others, or the love of amuſement in many.

The placeholder bill + rule + related discharge petition remains one of the more interesting procedural innovations of last two congresses.

Good enough. The House could not actually message the bill to the Senate within one calendar day, as required by the rule, because the Senate will not receive House bills during adjournments/recesses.

A new placeholder bill (and rule) to be used with a discharge petition in the future, replacing the one they used for the ACA subsidies bill: www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c... www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

Oh, a bill taken up from the Consensus Calendar! It’s crazy that this is now rarer than successful discharge petitions.

Members of Congress can only dream of this kind of freedom to offer amendments.

Here’s a CRS report with the details: www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

This would be so much more fun if the speaker didn’t have unilateral adjournment, recess and postponement authorities.

And again:

Would darkly enjoy learning much more about the circumstances in the conference committee deliberations in 1983 that produced this arrangement.

Very cool 👍