Words Taken Down: Calling Members to Order for Disorderly Language in the House
Released: 2019-08-13T00:00:00

Introduction

The rules of the House of Representatives have included provisions related to preserving order and decorum in the chamber since the 1 st Congress (1789-1790). Under current House rules, Members may violate decorum if they engage in certain behaviors, such as using disorderly language. Members may be called to order by colleagues for the use of allegedly disorderly, or unparliamentary, language, which may include a formal demand that their words be taken down. This demand initiates a series of procedures to determine whether the words are, in fact, unparliamentary and to decide whether a Member who uses such language should be allowed to proceed in debate.

This report covers these procedures, which are provided for in the standing rules of the House as a mechanism to maintain decorum in debate. The sections below present details about how and when a Member might invoke the demand that words be taken down, the procedural steps that may follow the demand, and an overview of the rule's history in the House. The report concludes with information about the practice of invoking this rule in the House in recent decades.

The "Words Taken Down" Rule

The standing rules of the House establish a parliamentary mechanismâreferred to as "words taken down"âwhereby a Member may call another Member to order for the use of disorderly language. Members may invoke this mechanism during debate on the House floor or in the Committee of the Whole. It may also be invoked in the standing and select committees of the House.

A Member initiates the call to order by demanding that a colleague's "words be taken down." The phrase taken down , as described in the rule, refers to the writing down of the words objected to so they may be read back to the House by the Clerk. In current practice, all deba te in the House and in standing and select committees is transcribed by the official reporters of debate. Therefore, when a Member demands that the words of a colleague be taken down, the Clerk will consult with the transcriber to identify the words objected to, which the Clerk will then read out loud.

Following the reading of the allegedly unparliamentary remarks, the Speaker of the House (or, if the words are spoken in a committee, the chair of the committee) will determine whether the words are in order.

The standing rules of the House do not state explicitly what language is considered to be disorderly, although clause 1(b) of Rule XVII prohibits Members from engaging in "personalities" in debate. House precedents catalog words and phrases previously deemed to be in order and those that were ruled out of order, or unparliamentary. When ruling on the words objected to, the presiding officer considers the words themselves, as well as the context in which they were used, and bases the ruling on these precedents. On the floor, the Parliamentarian advises the Speaker based on recorded precedents. The Office of the Parliamentarian is not responsible for providing procedural assistance during committee meetings, although the chair could attempt to consult with the Parliamentarian in advance of or during such meetings.

Rule XVII, clause 4, details the procedure for demanding that words be taken down:

(a) If a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, in speaking or otherwise, transgresses the Rules of the House, the Speaker shall, or a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner may, call to order the offending Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, who shall immediately sit down unless permitted on motion of another Member, Delegate, or the Resident Commissioner to explain. If a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner is called to order, the Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner making the call to order shall indicate the words excepted to, which shall be taken down in writing at the Clerk's desk and read aloud to the House.

(b) The Speaker shall decide the validity of a call to order. The House, if appealed to, shall decide the question without debate. If the decision is in favor of the Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner called to order, the Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner shall be at liberty to proceed, but not otherwise. If the case requires it, an offending Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner shall be liable to censure or such other punishment as the House may consider proper. A Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner may not be held to answer a call to order, and may not be subject to the censure of the House therefor, if further debate or other business has intervened.

Demanding That a Member's Words Be Taken Down

According to clause 4(b) of Rule XVII, the demand for words to be taken down must be timely: It must generally occur before intervening business or debate. Therefore, immediately after the allegedly offensive words are spoken, the Member would state:

Mr./Madam Speaker (or Chair), I demand that the gentleman's/gentlewoman's words be taken down.

Debate is not in order at this point, but the Member demanding that the words be taken down may briefly state the reason for objecting to the language (e.g., the words include an improper personal reference to the President).

A Member will be allowed to explain the remarks only if prompted by the presiding officer or if another Member makes a motion to allow an explanation and the motion is agreed to by the House. Usually, the presiding officer orders the Member who spoke the allegedly disorderly words to suspend and asks the Clerk to report the words. (On the House floor, the Member whose words were objected to may be asked by the Speaker to sit down.)

The gentleman/gentlewoman from [state] will suspend. The Clerk will report the words.

It may take several minutes for the Clerk to review the transcript and read the words out loud. During this pause in proceedings, the Member who spoke the allegedly offensive words may ask unanimous consent to withdraw the words:

Mr./Madam Speaker (or Chair), I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my words.

Alternatively, the Member who demanded that the words be taken down may withdraw the request, which does not require unanimous consent:

Mr./Madam Speaker (or Chair), I withdraw my demand that the gentleman's/gentlewoman's words be taken down.

If neither occurs, then the Clerk will read the words to the House, and the presiding officer will make a ruling on the remarks:

In the opinion of the Chair, the words in question [were/were not] in order.

The presiding officer's ruling is subject to appeal, and that appeal is subject to a motion to table. If the presiding officer rules that the words are not unparliamentary (and if this ruling is sustained following any appeal), then the House continues with the business pending prior to the demand that words be taken down.

If the presiding officer rules that the words are out of order (and if this ruling is sustained following any appeal), the words are usually stricken from the Congressional Record by unanimous consent. The presiding officer might initiate this by stating:

Without objection, the words are stricken from the Record .

Alternatively, a Member (although not the Member whose words were taken down) may make a motion to remove the disorderly language from the Record , on which the House will vote:

I move that the words of the gentleman/gentlewoman from [state] be stricken from the Record .

In the event that a Member's words are ruled out of order, that Member may not be recognized to speak for the rest of the day (even on yielded time) or insert undelivered remarks into the Record unless the Member is allowed to proceed in order by the House. The Member may be permitted to proceed in order by unanimous consent, which is often initiated by the presiding officer:

Without objection, the gentleman/gentlewoman from [state] will proceed in order.

A Member may also make a motion to allow the Member whose words were ruled out of order to proceed in order, and the House will vote on the motion.

I move that the gentleman/gentlewoman from [state] be allowed to proceed in order.

If a Member is not allowed to proceed in order, the Member may vote and demand the yeas and the nays.

History of the "Words Taken Down" Rule

The concept of taking disorderly words down in writing is provided for in the principles of general parliamentary law. Although the rules of the House have, since its inception, included provisions related to preserving order and decorum in the chamber, the formal call for a Member's words to be taken down was not adopted as part of the standing rules of the House in the 1 st Congress (1789-1790). The rules of the House initially provided for the Speaker to call a Member to order for disorderly remarks or for a Member to make a point of order against a Member's language, on which the Speaker would rule. (These parliamentary mechanisms are still available today under clause 4 of Rule XVII.)

The practice of taking down words began in 1808 when a Member called a colleague to order for disorderly language and the Speaker asked that Member to put the words objected to down in writing. This practice was formally adopted as part of the standing rules of the House in 1837. The original rule, which introduced the need for the demand to be timely, stated:

If a member be called to order for words spoken in debate, the person calling him to order shall repeat the words excepted to, and they shall be taken down in writing at the Clerk's table; and no member shall be held to answer, or be subject to the censure of the House, for words spoken in debate, if any other member has spoken, or other business has intervened, after the words spoken, and before exception to them shall have been taken.

An amendment to the rule in 1880 modified the procedure by which a Member demanded that words be taken down. The amended rule removed the provision that the Member calling another to order should repeat the objectionable words. This version, which is similar to the corresponding sentences of the rule in effect today, provided for the words to be taken down in writing and repeated by the Clerk. The 1880 version of the rule states:

If a member is called to order for words spoken in debate, the member calling him to order shall indicate the words excepted to, and they shall be taken down in writing at the Clerk's desk and read aloud to the House; but he shall not be held to answer, nor be subject to the censure of the House therefor, if further debate or other business has intervened.

The rule took its current form when the House comprehensively recodified its rules in the 106 th Congress, although the changes were largely technical. During the recodification, the previously separate clauses in the House rules for addressing unparliamentary languageâone providing for a Member to make a point of order against a colleague's remarks and the other providing for a demand that a Member's words be taken downâwere combined. The text of the rule was also amended to clarify that the rule applies to a "Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner" (both for calling someone to order and for being called to order).

Recent Practice

CRS conducted full-text searches of the Congressional Record to identify instances in which a Member demanded that another Member's words be taken down on the House floor (or in the Committee of the Whole) since January 1, 1971.

Throughout this nearly 50-year period, the formal demand that words be taken down was invoked 170 times. These calls to order took place in the Committee of the Whole, as well as in the House proper, including during periods of time arranged for Members to speak on topics of their choice rather than on legislation, such as one-minute speeches and special order speeches.

In contemporary practice, it is uncommon that the full procedure presented aboveâin which the Speaker rules whether or not the words are in orderâoccurs in the House. Of the 170 demands that words be taken down, 107, or more than half, were settled before the Speaker made a ruling, usually before the Clerk reported the words. In 75 of these instances, the Member whose words were taken down asked to withdraw or revise the words, and in another 32 cases, the Member who demanded that the words be taken down withdrew the request. There were an additional 13 occasions on which the Speaker ruled that a Member's call for words to be taken down was untimely.

Throughout this time period the Speaker ruled on the words taken down 50 times. Twenty-seven, or more than half, of these rulings took place in the 1990s, with only nine rulings by the Speaker since 2000.

In 25 of the 50 rulings following a demand that words be taken down, the Speaker ruled that the words were not disorderly. These occurrences are identified in Table 1 in reverse chronological order. When the Speaker provided a reason for the ruling, it was often that the Member's remarks did not constitute an improper personal reference toward another Member. For example, after words were taken down during debate on February 5, 1992, the Speaker, when ruling on the words, stated: "The Chair will rule that since the gentleman from Louisiana is generically speaking and not specifically alleging improper conduct by any individual Member, the words are in order."

The Speaker ruled that the words were out of order 25 times during this time period. These 25 occurrences are presented in Table 2 in reverse chronological order. As the fourth column of the table indicates, in nearly every instance in which a rationale was given for the ruling, the Speaker stated that the Member was engaging in personalities toward an identifiable individual, often another Member.

Following the determination that the remarks were out of order, the words were usually stricken from the Record by unanimous consent at the initiative of the Speaker. This happened in all but five instances presented in Table 2 . The words were ultimately stricken, either by unanimous consent or motion, in 17 of the 25 cases. It is also common for the Member whose words were ruled out of order to be allowed to proceed in order, usually by unanimous consent initiated by the Speaker. Indeed, the Speaker initiated such a request in 14 of the cases presented in Table 2 . Members whose words were ruled out of order were given permission to proceed in 17 of the 25 instances, either by unanimous consent or motion.