Manual of Parliamentary Practice / Rules of Proceeding and Debate in Deliberative Assemblies

by Luther Stearns Cushing

Commitment.

[181]. A motion to commit, or recommit (which is the term used when the proposition has already been once committed), may be [p99] ]amended, by the substitution of one kind of committee for another, or be enlarging or diminishing the number of the members of the committee, as originally proposed, or by instructions to the committee.

[182]. This motion stands in the same degree with the previous question and postponement—and, if first made, is not superseded by them—but it takes precedence of a motion to amend.

[183]. If decided affirmatively, the proposition is removed from before the assembly; and, consequently, there is no ground for the previous question, or for postponement, or amendment; if negatively, to wit, that the principal question shall not be committed, that question may then be suppressed by the previous question, or postponed, or amended.

Amendment.

[184]. A motion to amend, as has been seen, may be itself amended. It stands in the same degree only with the previous question and indefinite postponement, and neither, if first moved, is superseded by the other.

[185]. But this motion is liable to be superseded by a motion to postpone to a day [p100] ]certain; so that amendment and postponement competing, the latter is to be first put. The reason is, that a question for amendment is not suppressed by postponing or adjourning the principal question, but remains before the assembly, whenever the main question is resumed; for otherwise, it might happen, that the occasion for other urgent business might go by and be lost by length of debate on the amendment, if the assembly had no power to postpone the whole subject.

[186]. A motion to amend may also be superseded by a motion to commit; so that the latter, though subsequently moved, is to be first put; because, “in truth, it facilitates and befriends the motion to amend.”

[187]. The effect of both a negative and an affirmative decision of amendments has already been considered ([94] to [127]).

[Footnote 18:] It is commonly said, that a motion to adjourn is always in order, but this is not precisely true. The question of adjournment may be moved repeatedly on the same day; yet, in strictness, not without some intermediate question being proposed, after one motion to adjourn is disposed of, and before the next motion is made for adjourning; as, for example, an amendment to a pending question, or for the reading of some paper. The reason of this is, that, until some other proceeding has intervened, the question already decided is the same as that newly moved.] [Return to text]