(Are they going to remake the order, or just pretend this whole thing never happened?)
š³ļøāš šŖšŗ šµš± š¬š§ He/him. Armchair parliamentarian. I type at 140 wpm.
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(Are they going to remake the order, or just pretend this whole thing never happened?)
Meanwhile, a certain other upper house still hasnāt revised its book of precedents, nearly two decades after deciding to do so.
Exciting stuff
And now, a Canadian Senate Hansard classic -- "ginger-ale research" (1986) (The image is a composite because the intervention splits a page in Hansard)
They couldnāt come up with a translation?
Reading snippets of 100 years of federal statutes (for research!). It really does remind you that Congress can do things, even extremely precise things, when it wants to. For example:
Sometimes they donāt have an opening line, so I guess it must be when they tap the gavel.
The latter, I think. In the Senate, the presiding officer often sits in the chair for some time before calling the Senate to order.
(It wouldnāt surprise me too much if this ended up just like her last discharge petition. ā¬ļø)
A member will be able to present a discharge petition for this rule probably on 11 September.
Fun fact: The House rules require the speaker to take the chair āpreciselyā at the hour to which it last adjourned. The Senate has no such rule.
In other news:
I thought I was reading Hansard for a moment... Great read. www.congress.gov/51/crecb/189...
From 1927... (click to expand)
'PoliticsHome analysis of Hansard shows that the phrase āI rise to speakā¦ā has been used 601 times across the Commons and the Lords so far this year ā compared to only 131 in the first eight months of 2024...' www.politicshome.com/news/article...
š¤
... and the other question is a matter for DMs š.
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~Two years
For real.
I am pleased to report that this is no longer current.
It might be easier if the Senate just set its clocks back one second.
The single subject of this legislation is: Legislating.
It took me a while to get that.
(It can be a motion in the US House of Representatives too.)
FUN FACT: Bills do not die when Congress adjourns its 2nd session* sine die. š¤Æ That is, if there's time between sine die and the start of the next Congress for the president to call it back, and the president does, those bills are still there for consideration. #HRules #SRules (* ā standard 2nd)
Yet another thing they don't talk about on the parliament tour
A list of members voting by proxy was printed in the Record after each vote (but see ā¬ļø).
Come back in two years for an examination of the SCOTUS opinion.
11. You can vote by proxy while being physically present.
BTW, my absolute favourite procedural fact: In the Lords, proxies could not be used in a committee of the whole House. Several hundred years later, the House of Representatives also did not allow proxy voting in the š. (I assume they just forgot; they fixed it in 2022.)
Two extra points I like to make on this issue: 10. Proxy voting existed in Parliament. historyofparliamentblog.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/p...
8. Good to know that unanimous-consent agreements (and, similarly, voice votes and divisions) are not unconstitutional.
6. I wonāt go into the enrolled-bill rule too much, because I am not an expert in such things, but instinctively, I was surprised they held that the matter is justiciable. The reasoning seems plausible, though (TL;DR: this is a question of constitutionality, not of facts).
Overall, much better than the district courtās opinion. Turning to the big stuff...
5. Tbc, Roy reserved the right to object to tabling the motion to reconsider the vote, not to anything quorum-related. (At least they get the key point here: that no member made a point of order that a quorum was not present.)
4. Under the precedents, a quorum is āa majority of those Members chosen, sworn, and living whose membership has not been terminated by resignation or by the action of the Houseā. There were 431 members at the time, so a quorum was 216.
3. A recurring issue: the number of a House resolution begins with the abbreviation āH. Res.ā, not āH.R. Res.ā.
2. This āļø is not right. Maybe itās not necessary to set out the whole history of the legislative vehicle, but the final text originated in the Senate and was concurred in by the House.
Now for the pedantry...
Part 1 here:
www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub...
šļø NEW EPISODE: On 12 Sept, the House of Lords debates the Assisted Dying Bill. We get an insiderās guide from ex-Clerk of the Parliaments Sir David Beamish who explains the legislative process in the Upper House and its unique procedures. š§ buff.ly/6H7WAnb
Congressional Record readers heard it first.
chipsy, krakersy, nuggetsyā¦
By āfascinatingā I really mean āinsaneā. It was the only time Iāve ever needed to research when and how one house can discharge its conferees.
Itās impossible to capture in one tweet, but the history of Endless Frontiers/USICA/COMPETES/CHIPS and Science (and its relationship to the IRA and the PACT Act) is absolutely fascinating.
Or, as itās properly known ā¬ļø, because they forgot to amend the title after repurposing the bill.
Working on my next piece to fill a gap in the literature
Why :05? š¤
(They do not do this anymore, AFAIK.)
TIL: Suggested Twitter hashtags for bills, āby order of the Speakerā.
Fun fact: Lee voted against (cloture on the motion to proceed to) that resolution, as well as against nuking the next day; Collins voted against nuking. Resolution: www.senate.gov/legislative/... Nuclear option #1: www.senate.gov/legislative/... Nuclear option #2: www.senate.gov/legislative/...
Assuming they did this by overturning a ruling of the chair or, as is currently trendy, sustaining a point of order submitted to the Senate, I donāt think I would even call that ānuclearā; it wouldnāt conflict with the text of the cloture rule.
I wonder whether theyāll resurrect this half of S.Res.50 (116th C.), which got filibustered. (The other half, reducing postcloture time to 2 hours for some nominations, was effected by the nuclear option the next day.) Being able to yield back half of postcloture time would really speed things up.
Tom Wickham's 5 Most Memorable Moments as House Parliamentarian. He witnessed first-hand some of most dramatic and iconic moments in House history...now he's back on C-SPAN! In new episode C-SPAN Radio podcast "The Weekly." Now on top here: www.c-span.org/podcasts/sub... Or wherever you get podcasts
And in other contexts too.
Oh, this is great. blogs.loc.gov/law/2025/08/...
Cotton is (unknowingly) saying that he wants to expand the filibuster. Without cloture, nominations would be subject to unlimited debate.
On quorums during pro-forma sessions:
![It would take unanimous consent. Before each lot of pro-forma sessions, the Senate always orders that āno business be[] conductedā. That order prevents a senator from even being recognised and thus prevents them from suggesting the absence of a quorum. Excerpt from Riddickās, p. 1062. āA Senator who does not have the floor may not suggest the absence of a quorum.ā](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:eglu6mapioovb3skqrab2kwl/bafkreifmmxgxksmxbi4ihfi4tve6x4r3gxdkeetkeoyoxajjb7s7wyeccq@jpeg "Click to view full size")
Fun fact: For the first 32 years of the cloture rule, it could not be used on nominations (only on the āpending measureā).
Eliminate cloture motions? OK then...
After all that talk of recess appointmentsā¦
Plenipotentiary
The trick is to say it fast.
Whatever that word is.
THESIS: While the so-called "Rule of Five" has the force of law as to the Executive Branch, as to the Senate it has the force of a rule of the Senate ā ie, it's another exercise of the Senate's rulemaking authority under Article I, Section 5, clause 2. #SRules 1/ www.axios.com/2025/07/30/d...
I probably saw it at the time but paid no attention to it.
šļø NEW EPISODE: 1642: The King marches on Parliament. Soldiers at the Commons door. A failed arrest becomes a turning point in parliamentary history. Historian @jonathanhealey.bsky.social tell us the gripping story in The Blood in Winter. š§ Listen now: buff.ly/JqOi8xH
On holiday in France and obviously had to buy this particular Monet print; you could have heard my husbandās eyeroll from space. Anyway, I reckon there should have to be a painting of Parliament by every art movement. Rococo Parliament. Dadaist Parliament. Abstract expressionist parliament.
You can already do this, though...
From Canadian parliamentary Hansard on this day in 1975
š§µ1/ Something appears to have gone wrong with a new piece of legislation (and shows why even Government departments should be using our Statutory Instrument Tracker!) Here's what happened š
By my count, the first day you could do this would be ~12 August. Given the speakerās unilateral adjournment authority during district work periods, it would be difficult to do this in a pro-forma session, but itās something to look out for in September.
In the first instance, the amendment would be to the rule, not to the underlying resolution. Instead of deeming the resolution adopted, as the rule currently does, Democrats might want to try to make debate and amendments in order.
Note that the member calling up the rule would, in particular, be able to offer an amendment to it.
On Monday, the Rules Committee reported a rule providing for the adoption of some Epstein-related resolution, and the House seems to have forgotten about it...
The snippet is from Riddickās (riddick.gpo.gov); that portion still holds true today.
Yes.
By UC, he could still change his vote.
Surprisingly, discharge petitions are not one of the things that get turned off during district work periods.
I think about this bill way too much
Itās the same, right?
Something tells me Higgins wonāt get a chance to offer this resolution within the two-legislative-day period specified in rule IX.
On a side note, Janet Fookes (on the Woolsack here) once gave a wonderful interview on C-SPAN explaining Parliament and comparing it to Congress. www.c-span.org/program/inte...
Another intriguing event: the Commons message on the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill was omitted from the Order Paper, so it was read and considered āforthwithā. Normally this would only be done if the Commons message were being considered on the same day it was received.
