A Manual of Parliamentary Practice SEC. XLV: Amendments between the Houses
by Thomas Jefferson
When either House, e.g. the House
of Commons, sends a bill to the other, the other may pass it with amendments.
The regular progression in this case is, that the Commons disagree to the
amendment; the Lords insist on it; the Commons insist on their disagreement; the
Lords adhere to their amendment; the Commons adhere to their disagreement. The
term of insisting, may be repeated as often as they choose, to keep the question
open. But the first adherence by either, renders it necessary for the other to
recede or adhere also; when the matter is usually suffered to fall. 10
Grey 148. Latterly however, there are instances of their having gone to a
second adherence. There must be an absolute conclusion of the subject somewhere,
or otherwise transactions between the Houses would become endless. 3
Hats. 268, 270. The term of insisting, we are told by Sir John Trevor,
was then (1679) newly introduced into Parliamentary usage, by the Lords. 7
Grey 94. It was certainly a happy innovation, as it multiplies the
opportunities of trying modifications which may bring the Houses to a
concurrence. Either House however is free to pass over the term of insisting,
and to adhere in the first instance.
10 Grey 146. But it is not respectful to the other. In the ordinary
Parliamentary course, there are two free conferences at least before an
adherence. 10 Grey 147.
Either House may recede from its amendment and agree to the bill; or recede
from their disagreement to the amendment, and agree to the same absolutely, or
with an amendment. For here the disagreement and receding destroy one another,
and the subject stands as before the disagreement. Elsynge 23, 27. 9
Grey 476.
But the House cannot recede from, or insist on its own amendment, with an
amendment: for the same reason that it cannot send to the other House an
amendment to its own act after it has passed the act. They may modify an
amendment from the other House by ingrafting an amendment on it, because they
have never assented to it; but they cannot amend their own amendment, because
they have, on the question, passed it in that form. 9 Grey 353.10
Grey 240. In Senate, March 29, 1798. Nor where one House has adhered to
their amendment, and the other agrees with an amendment, can the first House
depart from the form which they have fixed by an adherence.
In the case of a money bill, the Lords proposed amendments, become by delay,
confessedly necessary. The Commons however, refused them, as infringing on their
privilege as to money bills; but they offered themselves to add to the bill a
proviso to the same effect, which had no coherence with the Lords' amendments;
and urged that it was an expedient warranted by precedent, and not
unparliamentary, in a case become impracticable and irremediable in any other
way. 3 Hats. 256, 266, 270, 271. But the Lords refused, and the bill was
lost. 1 Chand. 288. A like case, 1 Chand. 311. So the Commons
resolve that it is unparliamentary to strike out at a conference any thing in a
bill which hath been agreed and passed by both Houses. 6 Grey 274. 1
Chand. 312.
A motion to amend an amendment from the other House, takes precedence of a
motion to agree or disagree.
A bill originating in one House, is passed by the other with an amendment.
The originating House agrees to their amendment with an amendment. The other may
agree to their amendment with an amendment; that being only in the second and
not the third degree. For as to the amending House, the first amendment with
which they passed the bill, is a part of its text; it is the only text they have
agreed to. The amendment to that text by the originating House, therefore, is
only in the first degree, and the amendment to that again by the amending House
is only in the second, to wit, an amendment to an amendment, and so admissible.
Just so when, on a bill from the originating House, the other, at its second
reading, makes an amendment; on the third reading, this amendment is become the
text of the bill, and if an amendment to it be moved, an amendment to that
amendment may also be moved, as being only in the second degree.
