[House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House]
[Front Matter]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
A Guide to the Rules,
Precedents, and
Procedures of the House
Wm. Holmes Brown
Parliamentarian of the House
1974-1994
Charles W. Johnson
Parliamentarian of the House
1994-2004
John V. Sullivan
Parliamentarian of the House
2004-
www.gpo.gov/housepractice
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2011
______________________________________________________________________
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ISBN 0-16-053786-X
[[Page iii]]
PREFACE
HOUSE PRACTICE
The Parliamentarian of the House of Representatives is appointed
by the Speaker without regard to political affiliation. The Office of
the Parliamentarian and its subsidiary Office of Compilation of
Precedents comprise lawyers and clerks who render nonpartisan
assistance to the Speaker, to the other presiding officers, and to the
House on legislative and parliamentary procedure and, in addition,
compile the parliamentary precedents of the House.
The parliamentary law of the House of Representatives emanates
from the Constitution and from rules adopted pursuant to section 5 in
article I of the Constitution. These rules include not only the
standing rules adopted from Congress to Congress but also Jefferson's
Manual, as customarily incorporated by reference in the standing
rules. They also include rules enacted as law and special rules
adopted from time to time. On this foundation rests a body of
precedent established by decisions of presiding officers on actual
parliamentary questions or by long custom and tradition.
The overarching role of the Office of the Parliamentarian is to
strive for consistency in parliamentary analysis by attempting to
apply pertinent precedent to each procedural question. In resolving
questions of order, the Speaker and other presiding officers of the
House adhere to the jurisprudential principle of stare decisis - a
commitment to stand by earlier decisions. This fidelity to precedent
promotes analytic consistency and procedural predictability and
thereby fosters legitimacy in parliamentary practice. The commitment
of the House to stand by its procedural decisions requires rigor
concerning what constitutes precedent. In the parliamentary context,
the term does not refer to a mere instance in which something occurred
or was suffered; rather, it refers to a decision or order actually
disposing of a question of order.
The compilation of the parliamentary precedents of the House is as
important as any other function of the Office of the Parliamentarian.
For each procedural decision made on the floor of the House, the
Parliamentarian extracts the proceedings from the daily Congressional
Record and writes a parliamentary syllabus. These ``headnotes'' must
be precise, stating the real substance of the decision and its legal
rationale in suitably narrow terms. To ensure a current digest of
these matters, the Parliamentarian biennially publishes a House Rules
and Manual. For the longer term, the Parliamentarian compiles the most
salient precedents for formal, scholarly publication. These precedents
presently fill 28 volumes comprising thousands of deci
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sions over the 224 years of parliamentary practice in the House. They
are published as Hinds' Precedents (1907); Cannon's Precedents (1936);
and Deschler's, Deschler-Brown, and Deschler-Brown-Johnson Precedents
(ongoing).
To bridge the span between a digest of decisions and formally
published precedents, the Parliamentarian also publishes this work as
a condensed compilation of procedures of current application as of the
first session of the 112th Congress. The scope of this volume is thus
limited. It is a summary review of selected precedents and not an
exhaustive survey of all applicable rulings. The House Rules and
Manual and the published volumes of precedents remain the primary
sources for more comprehensive analysis and authoritative citation.
An earlier, condensed work of this kind is Cannon's Procedure in
the House of Representatives. That summary by Clarence Cannon was
first published in 1949 and last published in 1959. A later summary,
entitled Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives,
was prepared by Lewis Deschler in 1974 and was revised and updated in
1978, 1979, 1982, 1985, and 1987.
This third edition of House Practice reflects the efforts of all
of the members of the Office of the Parliamentarian - Tom Wickham,
Ethan Lauer, Carrie Wolf, Jay Smith, Anne Gooch, Brian Cooper, Lloyd
Jenkins, Monica Rodriguez - and of its Office of Compilation of
Precedents - Andrew Neal, Max Spitzer, Deborah Khalili, and Bryan
Feldblum - as well as former Parliamentarian Charles W. Johnson, III.
Their diligence in annotating the decisions of the Chair and other
parliamentary precedents reflected in this volume and their devotion
to the pursuit of excellence in the procedural practices of the House
are gratefully acknowledged. Particular appreciation goes to Max
Spitzer for his skilled management of the project.
References to frequently cited works are to the House Rules and
Manual for the 112th Congress, by section (e.g., Manual Sec. 364); to
the volume and section of Hinds' or Cannon's Precedents (e.g., 6
Cannon Sec. 570); to the chapter and section of Deschler's, Deschler-
Brown, or Deschler-Brown-Johnson (e.g., Deschler Ch 5 Sec. 2); to the
Congressional Record, by Congress, session, date and page (e.g., 108-
2, May 20, 2004, pp 10618-29); and to the United States Code, by title
and section (e.g., 2 USC Sec. 287).
John V. Sullivan
Parliamentarian
2004-
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CHAPTER OUTLINE
HOUSE PRACTICE
Chapter 1. Adjournment (p. 1)
Chapter 2. Amendments (p. 13)
Chapter 3. Appeals (p. 63)
Chapter 4. Appropriations (p. 69)
Chapter 5. Assembly of Congress (p. 153)
Chapter 6. Bills and Resolutions (p. 163)
Chapter 7. Budget Process (p. 185)
Chapter 8. Calendar Wednesday (p. 217)
Chapter 9. Calendars (p. 225)
Chapter 10. Chamber, Rooms, and Galleries (p. 229)
Chapter 11. Committees (p. 235)
Chapter 12. Committees of the Whole (p. 299)
Chapter 13. Conferences Between the Houses (p. 333)
Chapter 14. Congressional Procedures Enacted in Law (p. 369)
Chapter 15. Congressional Record (p. 373)
Chapter 16. Consideration and Debate (p. 381)
Chapter 17. Contempt (p. 449)
Chapter 18. Delegates and Resident Commissioner (p. 455)
Chapter 19. Discharging Measures From Committees (p. 457)
Chapter 20. District of Columbia Business (p. 465)
Chapter 21. Division of the Question for Voting (p. 471)
Chapter 22. Election Contests and Disputes (p. 481)
Chapter 23. Election of Members (p. 487)
Chapter 24. Electoral Counts; Selection of President and Vice
President (p. 493)
Chapter 25. Ethics; Committee on Ethics (p. 499)
Chapter 26. Germaneness of Amendments (p. 531)
Chapter 27. Impeachment (p. 591)
Chapter 28. Journal (p. 609)
Chapter 29. Lay on the Table (p. 617)
Chapter 30. Messages Between the Houses (p. 625)
Chapter 31. Morning Hour; Call of Committees (p. 629)
Chapter 32. Motions (p. 633)
Chapter 33. Oaths (p. 637)
Chapter 34. Office of the Speaker (p. 643)
Chapter 35. Officers and Offices (p. 651)
Chapter 36. Order of Business; Privileged Business (p. 659)
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Chapter 37. Points of Order; Parliamentary Inquiries (p. 667)
Chapter 38. Postponement (p. 683)
Chapter 39. Previous Question (p. 689)
Chapter 40. Private Calendar (p. 705)
Chapter 41. Question of Consideration (p. 711)
Chapter 42. Questions of Privilege (p. 717)
Chapter 43. Quorums (p. 743)
Chapter 44. Reading, Passage, and Enactment (p. 765)
Chapter 45. Recess (p. 779)
Chapter 46. Recognition (p. 785)
Chapter 47. Reconsideration (p. 803)
Chapter 48. Refer and Recommit (p. 815)
Chapter 49. Resolutions of Inquiry (p. 831)
Chapter 50. Rules and Precedents of the House (p. 837)
Chapter 51. Senate Bills; Amendments Between the Houses (p. 843)
Chapter 52. Special Orders of Business (p. 869)
Chapter 53. Suspension of Rules (p. 881)
Chapter 54. Unanimous-Consent Agreements (p. 891)
Chapter 55. Unfinished Business (p. 901)
Chapter 56. Unfunded Mandates (p. 907)
Chapter 57. Veto of Bills (p. 911)
Chapter 58. Voting (p. 919)
Chapter 59. Withdrawal (p. 947)
Index (p. 953)