Stopping the clock is a controversial practice in American and Canadian parliamentary procedure in which a legislature literally or notionally stops the clock (or moves the hands backwards), usually for the purpose of meeting a constitutional or statutory deadline. Riddick's Rules of Procedure notes, "The official clock is stopped by agreement of the 'powers that be' without any motion or announcement one minute before the designated hour." [1] Sometimes it is done to allow more time for lobbying or deal-making to obtain the necessary votes for one side to prevail on a measure. [2] Some legislatures actually stop the clock, and others simply use it as a metaphor for continuing business after a time deadline has passed. [3] [4] Stopping the clock is also sometimes done for ceremonial purposes to ensure that both houses of a bicameral legislature adjourn simultaneously. [5]
The glossary of the Alabama State Legislature notes that the plug to the electric clock in the Senate or House chamber is sometimes pulled to allow the staff to complete the massive paper work required before sine die adjournment. [6] Sometimes a legislature will even take a recess while the clock is stopped and then resume its work. [7] The New York Legislature used to literally stop the clock at midnight on April 1 in order to pass the budget by the constitutional deadline, but eventually ended the practice and began simply disregarding the requirement. In 2004, it finally moved the deadline back to May 1. [8]
In a debate of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, it was noted that stopping the clock is done by tradition and with unanimous consent, when the Opposition agrees with the Government that valuable business can be done by extending the hours. [9] In contrast, the speaker of the Illinois Legislature unilaterally stopped the clock at midnight on the last day of its session on June 30, 1988, to allow further debate before approving money to replace Comiskey Park, a decision that ultimately passed by one vote. [10] Had this maneuver not been done, the White Sox presumably would have moved to Florida. Stadium consultant Marc Ganis noted, "As the clock struck down in St. Petersburg, they started popping champagne corks and didn't realize that the speaker of the house can literally stop the clock in Illinois. At the stroke of midnight, we got to 60 votes." [11]
Cloture, closure or, informally, a guillotine, is a motion or process in parliamentary procedure aimed at bringing debate to a quick end.
A filibuster is a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent a decision. It is sometimes referred to as "talking a bill to death" or "talking out a bill", and is characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body.
A pocket veto is a legislative maneuver that allows a president or other official with veto power to exercise that power over a bill by taking no action, thus effectively killing the bill without affirmatively vetoing it. This depends on the laws of each country; the common alternative is that if the president takes no action a bill automatically becomes law.
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. According to Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, the "requirement for a quorum is protection against totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons." 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.
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, they can be appended to the constitution as supplemental additions, thus changing the frame of government without altering the existing text of the document.
The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past-the-post system to represent their respective constituencies, and they hold their seats for five years or until the body is dissolved by the President on the advice of the council of ministers. The house meets in the Lok Sabha Chambers of the Parliament House, New Delhi.
The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland that convenes within the State House in Annapolis. It is a bicameral body: the upper chamber, the Maryland Senate, has 47 representatives, and the lower chamber, the Maryland House of Delegates, has 141 representatives. Members of both houses serve four-year terms. Each house elects its own officers, judges the qualifications and election of its own members, establishes rules for the conduct of its business, and may punish or expel its own members.
Adjournment sine die is the conclusion of a meeting by a deliberative assembly, such as a legislature or organizational board, without setting a day to reconvene. The assembly can reconvene, either in its present form or a reconstituted form, if preexisting laws and rules provide for this. Otherwise the adjournment effectively dissolves the assembly.
In United States parliamentary procedure, a discharge petition is a means of bringing a bill out of committee and to the floor for consideration without a report from the committee by "discharging" the committee from further consideration of a bill or resolution. The signatures of an absolute majority of House members are required.
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 government of Alabama is organized under the provisions of the 2022 Constitution of Alabama. Like other states within the United States, Alabama's government is divided into executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Also like any other state, these three branches serve a specific purpose in terms of power.
The Alabama Legislature is the legislative branch of the government of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is a bicameral body composed of the House of Representatives and Senate. It is one of the few state legislatures in which members of both chambers serve four-year terms and in which all are elected in the same cycle. The most recent election was on November 8, 2022. The new legislature assumes office immediately following the certification of the election results by the Alabama Secretary of State which occurs within a few days following the election.
The Legislature of the State of Oklahoma is the state legislative branch of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma House of Representatives and Oklahoma Senate are the two houses that make up the bicameral state legislature. There are 101 state representatives, each serving a two-year term, and 48 state senators, who serve four-year terms that are staggered so only half of the Oklahoma Senate districts are eligible in each election cycle. Legislators are elected directly by the people from single member districts of equal population. The Oklahoma Legislature meets annually in the Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City.
A legislative session is the period of time in which a legislature, in both parliamentary and presidential systems, is convened for purpose of lawmaking, usually being one of two or more smaller divisions of the entire time between two elections. A session may last for the full term of the legislature or the term may consist of a number of sessions. These may be of fixed duration, such as a year, or may be determined by the party in power. In some countries, a session of the legislature is brought to an end by an official act of prorogation, in others by a motion to adjourn sine die. In either event, the close of a session generally brings an end to all unpassed bills in the legislature, which would have to be introduced anew to continue debate in the following session.
In parliamentary procedure, reconsideration of a motion may be done on a matter previously decided. The motion to "reconsider" is used for this purpose. This motion originated in the United States and is generally not used in parliaments. A special form of this motion is reconsider and enter on the minutes.
In certain countries, a motion in parliamentary procedure is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. Such motions, and the form they take are specified by the deliberate assembly and/or a pre-agreed volume detailing parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order; The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure; or Lord Citrine's The ABC of Chairmanship. Motions are used in conducting business in almost all legislative bodies worldwide, and are used in meetings of many church vestries, corporate boards, and fraternal organizations.
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.
A legislative calendar is used by legislatures in the United States to plan their business during the legislative session.
A lame-duck session of Congress in the United States occurs whenever one Congress meets after its successor is elected, but before the successor's term begins. The expression is now used not only for a special session called after a sine die adjournment, but also for any portion of a regular session that falls after an election. In current practice, any meeting of Congress after election day, but before the next Congress convenes the following January, is a lame-duck session. Prior to 1933, when the 20th Amendment changed the dates of the congressional term, the last regular session of Congress was always a lame-duck session.
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.