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[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 8 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

112th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 8

Amending the Standing Rules of the Senate to provide for cloture to be 
invoked with less than a three-fifths majority after additional debate.

_______________________________________________________________________

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            January 5, 2011

 Mr. Harkin (for himself, Mr. Durbin, Ms. Mikulski, and Mrs. Shaheen) 
  submitted the following resolution; which was ordered to lie over, 
                             under the rule

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION

 
Amending the Standing Rules of the Senate to provide for cloture to be 
invoked with less than a three-fifths majority after additional debate.

    Resolved,

SECTION 1. SENATE CLOTURE MODIFICATION.

    Paragraph 2 of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate is 
amended to read as follows:
    ``2. (a) Notwithstanding the provisions of rule II or rule IV or 
any other rule of the Senate, at any time a motion signed by sixteen 
Senators, to bring to a close the debate upon any measure, motion, 
other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, is 
presented to the Senate, the Presiding Officer, or clerk at the 
direction of the Presiding Officer, shall at once state the motion to 
the Senate, and one hour after the Senate meets on the following 
calendar day but one, he shall lay the motion before the Senate and 
direct that the clerk call the roll, and upon the ascertainment that a 
quorum is present, the Presiding Officer shall, without debate, submit 
to the Senate by a yea-and-nay vote the question: `Is it the sense of 
the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?' And if that 
question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the 
Senators duly chosen and sworn--except on a measure or motion to amend 
the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be 
two-thirds of the Senators present and voting--then said measure, 
motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished 
business, shall be the unfinished business.
    ``Thereafter no Senator shall be entitled to speak in all more than 
one hour on the measure, motion, or other matter pending before the 
Senate, or the unfinished business, the amendments thereto, and motions 
affecting the same, and it shall be the duty of the Presiding Officer 
to keep the time of each Senator who speaks. Except by unanimous 
consent, no amendment shall be proposed after the vote to bring the 
debate to a close, unless it had been submitted in writing to the 
Journal Clerk by 1 o'clock p.m. on the day following the filing of the 
cloture motion if an amendment in the first degree, and unless it had 
been so submitted at least one hour prior to the beginning of the 
cloture vote if an amendment in the second degree. No dilatory motion, 
or dilatory amendment, or amendment not germane shall be in order. 
Points of order, including questions of relevancy, and appeals from the 
decision of the Presiding Officer, shall be decided without debate.
    ``After no more than thirty hours of consideration of the measure, 
motion, or other matter on which cloture has been invoked, the Senate 
shall proceed, without any further debate on any question, to vote on 
the final disposition thereof to the exclusion of all amendments not 
then actually pending before the Senate at that time and to the 
exclusion of all motions, except a motion to table, or to reconsider 
and one quorum call on demand to establish the presence of a quorum 
(and motions required to establish a quorum) immediately before the 
final vote begins. The thirty hours may be increased by the adoption of 
a motion, decided without debate, by a three-fifths affirmative vote of 
the Senators duly chosen and sworn, and any such time thus agreed upon 
shall be equally divided between and controlled by the majority and 
minority leaders or their designees. However, only one motion to extend 
time, specified above, may be made in any one calendar day.
    ``If, for any reason, a measure or matter is reprinted after 
cloture has been invoked, amendments which were in order prior to the 
reprinting of the measure or matter will continue to be in order and 
may be conformed and reprinted at the request of the amendment's 
sponsor. The conforming changes must be limited to lineation and 
pagination.
    ``No Senator shall call up more than two amendments until every 
other Senator shall have had the opportunity to do likewise.
    ``Notwithstanding other provisions of this rule, a Senator may 
yield all or part of his one hour to the majority or minority floor 
managers of the measure, motion, or matter or to the majority or 
minority leader, but each Senator specified shall not have more than 
two hours so yielded to him and may in turn yield such time to other 
Senators.
    ``Notwithstanding any other provision of this rule, any Senator who 
has not used or yielded at least ten minutes, is, if he seeks 
recognition, guaranteed up to ten minutes, inclusive, to speak only.
    ``After cloture is invoked, the reading of any amendment, including 
House amendments, shall be dispensed with when the proposed amendment 
has been identified and has been available in printed form at the desk 
of the Members for not less than twenty-four hours.
    ``(b)(1) If, upon a vote taken on a motion presented pursuant to 
subparagraph (a), the Senate fails to invoke cloture with respect to a 
measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the 
unfinished business, subsequent motions to bring debate to a close may 
be made with respect to the same measure, motion, matter, or unfinished 
business. It shall not be in order to file subsequent cloture motions 
on any measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, 
except by unanimous consent, until the previous motion has been 
disposed of.
    ``(2) Such subsequent motions shall be made in the manner provided 
by, and subject to the provisions of, subparagraph (a), except that the 
affirmative vote required to bring to a close debate upon that measure, 
motion, or other matter, or unfinished business (other than a measure 
or motion to amend Senate rules) shall be reduced by three votes on the 
second such motion, and by three additional votes on each succeeding 
motion, until the affirmative vote is reduced to a number equal to or 
less than an affirmative vote of a majority of the Senators duly chosen 
and sworn. The required vote shall then be an affirmative vote of a 
majority of the Senators duly chosen and sworn. The requirement of an 
affirmative vote of a majority of the Senators duly chosen and sworn 
shall not be further reduced upon any vote taken on any later motion 
made pursuant to this subparagraph with respect to that measure, 
motion, matter, or unfinished business.''.

SEC. 2. SPECIAL CONSIDERATION OF AMENDMENTS POSTCLOTURE.

    Paragraph 2 of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate is 
amended by inserting at the end the following:
    ``After debate has concluded under this paragraph but prior to 
final disposition of the pending matter, the Majority Leader and the 
Minority Leader may each offer not to exceed 3 amendments identified as 
leadership amendments if they have been timely filed under this 
paragraph and are germane to the matter being amended. Debate on a 
leadership amendment shall be limited to 1 hour equally divided. A 
leadership amendment may not be divided.''.
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