Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Preface
- PART I COSTLY CONSIDERATION
- PART II SENATE PROCEDURE AND CONSIDERATION COSTS
- 4 Committees and Senate Agenda Setting
- 5 Scheduling Bills in the Senate
- 6 The Effects of Filibusters
- 7 The Disposition of Majority and Minority Amendments
- 8 Killing Amendments with Tabling Motions and Points of Order
- 9 The Effects of Amendments
- PART III TESTING THE COSTLY-CONSIDERATION THEORY
- Appendix A Relaxing the Model's Assumptions
- Appendix B Last Actions and Coding Amendment Disposition
- Works Cited
- Index
8 - Killing Amendments with Tabling Motions and Points of Order
from PART II - SENATE PROCEDURE AND CONSIDERATION COSTS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Preface
- PART I COSTLY CONSIDERATION
- PART II SENATE PROCEDURE AND CONSIDERATION COSTS
- 4 Committees and Senate Agenda Setting
- 5 Scheduling Bills in the Senate
- 6 The Effects of Filibusters
- 7 The Disposition of Majority and Minority Amendments
- 8 Killing Amendments with Tabling Motions and Points of Order
- 9 The Effects of Amendments
- PART III TESTING THE COSTLY-CONSIDERATION THEORY
- Appendix A Relaxing the Model's Assumptions
- Appendix B Last Actions and Coding Amendment Disposition
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
My proposed amendment ought to get 100 votes in the U.S. Senate, but it will not. People will walk up to the door and up to the manager and say, “What is our vote on this?” Well, they will not have to ask, they know what their vote is. They know there has been a motion to table every single amendment. What kind of democracy is that?
Senator Dale Bumpers, Congressional Record, February 24, 1995Look at what we have been doing this morning. What a joke. We had a vote on a noncontroversial committee amendment saying that a specified amount of money may be used for environment or agriculture in Nicaragua. I think it was a unanimous vote. Then we had a vote on whether or not to sustain the ruling of the Chair. I realize that this body just systemically disregards the ruling of the Chair. If we want to, we go to the substance and do not pay any attention to whether it is germane or not.
Senator Trent Lott, Congressional Record, April 27, 1990These quotes underscore two procedures used frequently to kill amendments on the floor: tabling motions and points of order. Bumpers, a Democrat, made his statement during the early days of the 104th Congress, as the Senate worked on one of the major components of the new Republican majority's Contract with America, a balanced-budget proposal. A long series of Democratic amendments to the measure triggered a long series of successful motions to table (kill) Democratic amendments.
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- Information
- Agenda Setting in the U.S. SenateCostly Consideration and Majority Party Advantage, pp. 130 - 145Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011