[290]. The report of a committee being made and received, the committee is dissolved, and can act no more without a new power; but their authority may be revived by a vote, and the same matter recommitted to them. If a report, when offered to the assembly, is not received, the committee is not thereby discharged, but may be ordered to sit again, and a time and place appointed accordingly.
[291]. When a subject or paper has been once committed, and a report made upon it, it may be recommitted either to the same or a different committee; and if a report is recommitted, before it has been agreed to by the assembly, what has heretofore passed in the committee is of no validity; the whole question being again before the committee, as if nothing had passed there in relation to it.
[292]. The report of a committee may be made in three different forms, namely: first, it may contain merely a statement of facts, [p153] ]reasoning, or opinion, in relation to the subject of it, without any specific conclusion; or, second, a statement of facts, reasoning, or opinion, concluding with a resolution, or series of resolutions, or some other specific proposition; or, third, it may consist merely of such resolutions, or propositions, without any introductory part.
[293]. The first question, on a report, is, in strictness, on receiving it; though in practice, this question is seldom or never made; the consent of the assembly, especially in respect to the report of a committee of the whole, being generally presumed, unless objection is made. When a report is received, whether by general consent, or upon a question and vote, the committee is discharged, and the report becomes the basis of the future proceedings of the assembly, on the subject to which it relates.
[294]. At the time assigned for the consideration of a report, it may be treated and disposed of precisely like any other proposition ([59] to 77); and may be amended, in the same manner ([78] to 133), both in the preliminary statement, reasoning, or opinion, if it contain any, and in the resolutions, or other [p154] ]propositions with which it concludes; so if it consist merely of a statement, etc.,
without resolutions, or of resolutions, etc., without any introductory part.
[295]. The final question on a report, whatever form it may have, is usually stated on its acceptance; and, when accepted, the whole report is adopted by the assembly, and becomes the statement, reasoning, opinion, resolution, or other act, as the case may be, of the assembly; the doings of a committee, when agreed to, adopted, or accepted, becoming the acts of the assembly, in the same manner as if done originally by the assembly itself, without the intervention of a committee.
[296]. It would be better, however, and in stricter accordance with parliamentary rules, to state the final question on a report, according to the form of it. If the report contain merely a statement of facts, reasoning, or opinion, the question should be on acceptance; if it also conclude with resolutions, or other specific propositions, of any kind,—the introductory part being consequently merged in the conclusion,—the question should be on agreeing to the resolutions, or on adopting [p155] ]the order, or other proposition, or on passing or coming to the vote, recommended by the committee; and the same should be the form of the question when the report consists merely of resolutions, etc., without any introductory part.
Sect. V. Committee of the Whole.
[297]. When a subject has been ordered to be referred to a committee of the whole, the form of going from the assembly into committee, is, for the presiding officer, at the time appointed for the committee to sit, on motion made and seconded for the purpose, to put the question that the assembly do now resolve itself into a committee of the whole, to take under consideration such a matter, naming it. If this question is determined in the affirmative, the result is declared by the presiding officer, who, naming some member to act as chairman of the committee, then leaves the chair, and takes a seat elsewhere, like any other member; and the person appointed chairman seats himself (not in the chair of the assembly but) at the clerk’s table.[Footnote 38] ]