A Manual of Parliamentary Practice SEC. XLIII: Reconsiderations
by Thomas Jefferson
When a question has been once
made and carried in the affirmative, or negative, it shall be in order for any
member of the majority, to move for the reconsideration thereof. Rule
22.
1798, January. A bill on its second reading, being amended, and on the
question whether it shall be read a third time negatived, was restored by a
decision to reconsider that question. Here the votes of negative and
reconsideration, like positive and negative quantities in equation, destroy one
another, and are as if they were expunged from the journals. Consequently the
bill is open for amendment, just so far as it was the moment preceding the
question for the third reading. That is to say, all parts of the bill are open
for amendment, except those on which votes have been already taken in its
present stage. So also it may be recommitted.
The rule permitting a reconsideration of a question affixing to it
no limitation of time or circumstance, it may be asked whether there is no
limitation? If, after the vote, the paper on which it is passed has been parted
with, there can be no reconsideration: as if a vote has been for the passage of
a bill, and the bill has been sent to the other House. But where the paper
remains, as on a bill rejected; when, or under what circumstances does it cease
to be susceptible of reconsideration? This remains to be settled; unless a sense
that the right of reconsideration is a right to waste the time of the House in
repeated agitations of the same question, so that it shall never know when a
question is done with, should induce them to reform this anomalous
proceeding.
In Parliament, a question once carried, cannot be questioned again at the
same session; but must stand as the judgment of the House. Town. col. 67.
Mem. in Hakew. 33. And a bill once rejected, another of the same
substance cannot be brought in again the same session. Hakew. 158.6
Grey 392. But this does not extend to prevent putting the same question
in different stages of a bill; because every stage of a bill submits the whole
and every part of it to the opinion of the House, as open for amendment, either
by insertion or omission, though the same amendment has been accepted or
rejected in a former stage. So in reports of committees, e.g. report of an
address, the same question is before the House, and open for free discussion.
Town. col. 26. 2 Hats. 98, 100, 101. So orders of the House, or
instructions to committees may be discharged. So a bill, begun in one House,
sent to the other, and there rejected, may be renewed again in that other,
passed and sent back. Ib. 92. 3 Hats. 161. Or if, instead of being
rejected, they read it once and lay it aside, or amend it, and put it off a
month, they may order in another to the same effect, with the same or a
different title. Hakew. 97, 98.
Divers expedients are used to correct the effects of this rule; as by passing
an explanatory act, if any thing has been omitted or ill expressed, 3
Hats. 278. or an act to enforce, and make more effectual an act, &c.
or to rectify mistakes in an act, &c. or a committee on one bill may be
instructed to receive a clause to rectify the mistakes of another. Thus, June
24, 1685, a clause was inserted in a bill for rectifying a mistake committed by
a clerk in engrossing a bill of supply. 2 Hats. 194, 6. Or the session
may be closed for one, two, three or more days, and a new one commenced. But
then all matters depending must be finished, or they fall, and are to begin de
novo. 2 Hats. 94, to 98. Or a part of the subject may be taken up by
another bill, or taken up in a different way. 6 Grey 304, 316.
And in cases of the last magnitude, this rule has not been so strictly and
verbally observed as to stop indispensable proceedings altogether. 2
Hats. 92, 98. Thus when the address on the preliminaries of peace in 1782
had been lost by a majority of one, on account of the importance of the
question, and smallness of the majority, the same question in substance, though
with some words not in the first, and which might change the opinion of some
members, was brought on again and carried; as the motives for it were thought to
outweigh the objection of form. 2 Hats. 99, 100.
A second bill may be passed to continue an act of the same session; or to
enlarge the time limited for its execution. 2 Hats. 95, 98. This is not
in contradiction to the first act.
