What is ‘Suspension of the Rules’ in the House?
How do you feel about suspension of the rules in the House?
Bills that are considered under suspension of the rules can only be debated on the House floor for 40 minutes, and no amendments are allowed. Because the debate is accelerated for bills under suspension of the rules they have a higher support threshold to clear for passage — two-thirds of members have to vote in favor rather than the usual simple majority.
Suspension bills are typically brought up on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays when the House is in session. Only the Speaker of the House has the power to bring a bill up for a vote under suspension of the rules, although committee leaders recommend bills with bipartisan support.
While many suspension bills pass through voice votes or overwhelmingly lopsided recorded votes, occasionally they fail to meet the two-thirds majority required for passage. The last notable incident of suspension bills failing occurred in July 2017 when House Democrats ― then in the minority ― withheld the votes needed to advance that year’s Intelligence Authorization Act and a funding extension for the Veterans Choice program because they felt the bills should be debated on the floor (although they later passed with more than a two-thirds margin).
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: iStock.com / BayRunner)
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Is like to suspend all of these greedy SOBs. Nothing has been accomplished is years that is meaningful to AMERICANS! We’ve become so intrenched in this political madness at the expense of our nation and our people. We’ve been in a downward spiral since Obama was in office.
There should be a consensus when changing the rules of congress. The leader of either the House of Representatives or the leader of the Senate should not have that much power.
The congress has to figure out a way to get things done and, in this time of the GQP, the republicans want to make this administration look bad by not allowing them to get their bills passed. McConnell used the same philosophy when he was senate majority leader. He just wouldn’t call for a vote if he didn’t want it to pass or for the republicans, who would vote against it, to look bad. An example of this are the gun control bills, but there are other examples. And we all remember the story of the last Supreme Court judge appointed. Now that the Democrats are in charge they need to get their agenda passed however they can. Their agenda is for the American people and it’s what the majority wants.