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Enactment of a Law
The Amendment Process
Once a bill or resolution is before the Senate, it is subject to
the amendatory process, both by the committee reporting it and by individual
Senators offering amendments from the floor. A committee amendment reported
as a total substitute (striking all after the enacting clause and inserting
new language for the entire bill) for the pending measure is always voted
on last, inasmuch as once a total substitute is agreed to, further amendments
are precluded. With this exception, however, committee amendments take
priority and are considered in order as they appear in the printed copy
of the measure before the Senate. The only amendments from the floor in
order during the consideration of these committee amendments are amendments
to the committee amendments or sometimes to the part of the bill the committee
amendments would affect.
Once the committee amendments have been disposed of, however, any
Senator may propose amendments to any part of the bill not already amended,
and while an amendment is pending, an amendment to the amendment is in
order. By precedent, an amendment to an amendment to an amendment, being
an amendment in the third degree, is not in order. However, the first amendment
in the nature of a substitute for a bill, whether reported by a committee
or offered by an individual Senator, is considered an original question
and is amendable in two more degrees.
There are certain special procedures in the Senate which limit the
amendatory process. For example, during the consideration of general appropriation
bills, amendments are subject to the strictures of Rule XVI under which
it is not in order to offer non-germane amendments or amendments proposing
new or general legislation or increasing the amount of an appropriation
if that increase has not been previously authorized or estimated for in
the President's budget. Likewise, when operating under a general unanimous
consent agreement in the usual form on a bill or resolution, amendments
must be germane. Germaneness of amendments is also required once the Senate
has invoked cloture; in addition, any amendments considered under cloture
must have been submitted in writing before the Senate's vote on cloture.
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