 | The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(November 2011) |
 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2019) |
Markup (or mark-up) is the process by which a U.S. congressional committee or state legislative session debates, amends, and rewrites proposed legislation. [1]
The process of marking up bills and resolutions in committees of the House of Representatives generally resembles, but does not perfectly replicate, the process of amending measures on the House floor.
At the beginning of a markup, committee members often make opening statements, usually not exceeding five minutes apiece. The first reading of the text of the bill to be marked up can be waived, either by unanimous consent or by adopting a non-debatable motion. The bill then is read for amendment, one section at a time, with committee members offering their amendments to each section after it is read but before the next section is read. By unanimous consent only, the committee may agree to dispense with the reading of each section, or to consider a bill for amendment by titles or chapters instead of by sections. Also by unanimous consent, the committee may consider the entire bill as having been read and open to amendment at any point.
Each amendment must be read in full unless the committee waives that reading by unanimous consent. Committees debate amendments under the five-minute rule. A committee can end the debate on an amendment by ordering the previous question on it, or by agreeing to a motion to close debate on it. A committee also can order the previous question or close debate on the entire bill, once it has been read or that reading has been waived by unanimous consent. However, the committee can only close debate, not order the previous question, on individual sections (titles, chapters) of the bill. The various kinds of amendments, as well as most of the other motions, that are in order on the House floor are in order in committee as well.
Committees do not change the texts of the bills they mark up. Instead, committees vote on amendments that their members want to recommend that the House adopt when the House considers the bill on the floor. The committee concludes a markup not by voting on the bill as a whole, but by voting on a motion to order the bill reported to the House with the amendments that the committee has approved. A majority of the committee must be present when this final vote occurs. For all other stages of markups, committees may set their own quorum requirements, so long as that quorum is at least one-third of the committee's membership.
Like the Speaker of the House, committee chairs are responsible for maintaining order and for enforcing proper procedure, at their own initiative or by ruling on points of order that other committee members make. Chairs also frequently respond to questions about procedure in the form of parliamentary inquiries.
A committee may report a bill back to the House without amendment, with several amendments, or with an amendment in the nature of a substitute that proposes an entirely different text for the bill. Alternatively, a committee may report a new or "clean" bill on the same subject as the bill (or other text) that it has marked up.
State governments and various kinds of municipalities also markup legislation and the process varies by locality. In some, the legislative branch marks up the legislation (or budget since it is a piece of legislation) by deleting parts and adding sections, etc.
Cloture, closure or, informally, a guillotine, is a motion or process in parliamentary procedure aimed at bringing debate to a quick end.
An act of parliament, as a form of primary legislation, is a text of law passed by the legislative body of a jurisdiction. In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of parliament begin as a bill, which the legislature votes on. Depending on the structure of government, this text may then be subject to assent or approval from the executive branch.
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a group necessary to constitute the group at a meeting. In a deliberative assembly, a quorum is necessary to conduct the business of that group. In contrast, a plenum is a meeting of the full body. A body, or a meeting or vote of it, is quorate if a quorum is present.
Ratification is a principal's legal confirmation of an act of its agent. In international law, ratification is the process by which a state declares its consent to be bound to a treaty. In the case of bilateral treaties, ratification is usually accomplished by exchanging the requisite instruments, and in the case of multilateral treaties, the usual procedure is for the depositary to collect the ratifications of all states, keeping all parties informed of the situation.
Suspension of the rules in the United States Congress is the specific set of procedures within the United States Congress that allows for the general parliamentary procedure of how and when to suspend the rules.
Congressional Debate is a competitive interscholastic high school debate event in the United States. The National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA), National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL) and many state associations and national invitational tournaments offer Congressional Debate as an event. Each organization and tournament offers its own rules, although the National Speech and Debate Association has championed standardization since 2007, when it began to ask its districts to use one of a number of procedures for qualification to its National Tournament.
In parliamentary procedure, unanimous consent, also known as general consent, or in the case of the parliaments under the Westminster system, leave of the house, is a situation in which no member present objects to a proposal.
The clerk of the United States House of Representatives is an officer of the United States House of Representatives, whose primary duty is to act as the chief record-keeper for the House.
The Standing Rules of the Senate are the parliamentary procedures adopted by the United States Senate that govern its procedure. The Senate's power to establish rules derives from Article One, Section 5 of the United States Constitution: "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings ..."
A conference committee is a joint committee of the United States Congress appointed by the House of Representatives and Senate to resolve disagreements on a particular bill. A conference committee is usually composed of senior members of the standing committees of each house that originally considered the legislation.
A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature.
A committee of the whole is a meeting of a legislative or deliberative assembly using procedural rules that are based on those of a committee, except that in this case the committee includes all members of the assembly. As with other (standing) committees, the activities of a committee of the whole are limited to considering and making recommendations on matters that the assembly has referred to it; it cannot take up other matters or vote directly on the assembly's business. The purpose of a committee of the whole is to relax the usual limits on debate, allowing a more open exchange of views without the urgency of a final vote. Debates in a committee of the whole may be recorded but are often excluded from the assembly's minutes. After debating, the committee submits its conclusions to the assembly and business continues according to the normal rules.
A grand committee has a different meaning in different countries. For example, in Finland, the Grand Committee is a committee of the Parliament of Finland. In the United Kingdom Grand Committees are made up of all MPs from each of the constituent countries.
In parliamentary procedure, a motion is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take a particular action. These may include legislative motions, budgetary motions, supplementary budgetary motions, and petitionary motions.
In United States parliamentary procedure, a suspension of the rules allows a deliberative assembly to set aside its normal rules to do something that it could not do otherwise. However, there are rules that cannot be suspended.
In parliamentary procedure, requests and inquiries are motions used by members of a deliberative assembly to obtain information or to do or have something done that requires permission of the assembly. Except for a request to be excused from a duty, these requests and inquiries are not debatable nor amendable.
An Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom is primary legislation passed by the UK Parliament in Westminster, London.
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress. The United States Senate and the lower chamber of Congress, the United States House of Representatives, comprise the federal bicameral legislature of the United States. Together, the Senate and the House have the authority under Article One of the U.S. Constitution to pass or defeat federal legislation. The Senate has exclusive power to confirm U.S. presidential appointments to high offices, approve or reject treaties, and try cases of impeachment brought by the House. The Senate and the House provide a check and balance on the powers of the executive and judicial branches of government.
A filibuster is a tactic used in the United States Senate to delay or block a vote on a measure by preventing debate on it from ending. The Senate's rules place few restrictions on debate; in general, if no other senator is speaking, a senator who seeks recognition is entitled to speak for as long as they wish. Only when debate concludes can the measure be put to a vote.
Procedures of the United States Congress are established ways of doing legislative business. Congress has two-year terms with one session each year. There are rules and procedures, often complex, which guide how it converts ideas for legislation into laws.