{
  "id": "RS21255",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RS21255",
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  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
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      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 441389,
      "date": "2015-05-18",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-06T19:03:14.299217",
      "title": "Motions to Proceed to Consider Measures in the Senate: Who Offers Them?",
      "summary": "In recent practice, the Senate generally cedes to its majority leader the prerogative of calling up items of business for floor consideration. Most measures are brought to the floor by unanimous consent, but when this consent cannot be obtained, a motion to proceed to consider can be used to accomplish the same purpose. Sometimes a Senator other than the majority leader offers this motion, but usually this occurs in coordination with the majority leader. \nThis report examines motions to proceed to consider items of legislative business (\u201cmeasures\u201d); it does not cover nominations or treaties (\u201cexecutive business\u201d). Motions to proceed to legislative business are normally debatable unless the underlying measure is \u201cprivileged,\u201d which includes conference reports and measures subject to statutory expedited procedures. The data in this report do not distinguish between debatable and non-debatable motions to proceed. In some cases, as well, more than one motion to proceed was offered on the same measure; the report considers each motion as a separate unit for purposes of analysis.\nOf 628 motions to proceed to consider measures in the Senate from 1979 through 2014, all but 28 were offered either by the majority leader or apparently at his direction. In the four most recent Congresses (2007-2014), the number of motions to proceed offered per Congress has been significantly greater than before. Reasons for this increase may relate to changes in (1) the use of daily adjournments rather than recesses, (2) the way cloture is used in relation to these motions, or (3) the degree of deference paid to the majority leader in the exercise of his scheduling function. \nThe report presents no overall data on the disposition of motions to proceed, but few are defeated outright, because those unlikely to command majority support are seldom offered, and those that are not adopted usually reach no final vote (for example, because they are withdrawn). Of the 28 motions clearly not offered by direction of the majority leader, by contrast, the Senate adopted 2, defeated 15, and laid 5 on the table. Four were abandoned after the Senate rejected cloture and two were ruled out of order.\nOf these 28 motions, 15 were non-debatable because they addressed privileged matters (14 of them subject to expedited procedures under budgetary statutes or for congressional disapproval of executive actions). Of the 28 motions, 18 occurred in the 3 most recent Congresses (2009-2014), including 12 of the 14 that were non-debatable under expedited procedure statutes. These 18 motions also include 14 of the 20 offered by the minority leader, all 15 of those that the Senate defeated outright, and 12 of the 16 that the Senate considered under unanimous consent agreements. \nThe report concludes by describing the essential procedural features of the proceedings on each of these 28 motions. It will be updated to reflect action in later Congresses.",
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      "topics": [
        {
          "source": "CongOpsList",
          "id": 4140,
          "name": "Senate Floor Proceedings"
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    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc816076/",
      "id": "RS21255_2003Sep15",
      "date": "2003-09-15",
      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
      "title": "Motions to Proceed to Consider in the Senate: Who Offers Them?",
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      "type": "CRS Report",
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}