The primary legislative function of standing committees in the House of Representatives is to evaluate the thousands of bills and resolutions that Members introduce during each Congress. This evaluation process typically begins with an initial screening by which the majority party leaders and staff of each committee identify the relatively small percentage of measures referred to it that may merit more consideration. The committee or one of its subcommittees may conduct one or more days of public hearings to receive testimony about the issue and the merits of the legislation proposed to address it. If the committee decides that it may want to recommend that the House take legislative action, the hearings are followed by markup meetings at which committee members propose and vote on amendments to a bill (or the draft of a bill). These meetings are called markups because committee members mark up the legislation before them as they decide what amendments to propose to the House. Finally, the committee votes to order the bill reported back to the House for consideration on the floor. This report focuses on the markup stage of the legislative process in committee. It discusses the selection of the text to be marked up, the procedures for proposing and debating amendments to that text, the voting and quorum procedures that govern markups, and the final stages of ordering the marked-up text reported to the House for its consideration. In general, the markup process in House committees reflects many of the rules and practices that govern the amending process on the House floor. Clause 1(a)(1)(A) of House Rule XI states in part that "the Rules of the House are the rules of its committees and subcommittees so far as applicable." As this report will discuss, this clause is somewhat ambiguous in application because there is more than one House rule governing some aspects of the floor amendment process, such as the devices available to terminate debate or to preclude additional amendments from being offered. Clause 2(a)(1) of Rule XI also empowers each standing committee to supplement and implement clause 1(a)(1)(A) by adopting its own written rules, which each committee does at one of its first meetings at the beginning of each Congress. According to clause 2(a)(1), these committee rules "may not be inconsistent with the Rules of the House or with those provisions of law having the force and effect of Rules of the House.... " This statement also is ambiguous in that a committee rule governing debate on amendments, for example, may be consistent with one House rule but inconsistent with another. As this report also will discuss, the House Parliamentarian has given committees some helpful guidance about how these provisions should be understood and applied during the conduct of markups and other committee meetings. The combined effect of these two clauses, therefore, is to give the House's standing committees some clear direction about how to proceed during markups, but also to give them some discretion in setting their own committee rules, procedures, and customary practices. Committee markups tend to be less formal than the corresponding amending process on the House floor. Committees are much smaller bodies, so they do not always need elaborate rules that are strictly enforced in order for them to conduct their business. In fact, a more informal process sometimes contributes to efficient and collegial decision making in committee. Furthermore, most committee markups are somewhat less constrained by rules than House floor sessions because the House Parliamentarian and his assistants do not attend committee markups to advise chairs and other committee members on procedural questions. Although many committees designate a majority party staff member to provide procedural advice, committee chairs tend to rely much more on their own knowledge and judgment in conducting committee meetings than do the Speaker and other Representatives who preside over House floor sessions. The rules of the House give its committees some discretion in how each of them conducts its markup meetings, and committees exercise this discretion in somewhat different ways—both in the formal rules they adopt to govern their meetings, and even more in the informal (and unrecorded) practices that different committees typically follow. This report concentrates on the markup procedures that House committees are expected to employ, although not all committees follow these procedures in all respects and at all times. The report also discusses some informal practices and certain tactical alternatives that committee chairs and members sometimes employ. However, the discussion here could not possibly encompass every variation in markup procedure that may be observed in committee practices. Readers of this report should not be surprised if it does not accord in every respect with what they may have observed at certain markup meetings of the committees with which they are most familiar. References to committees in what follows should be understood to refer to subcommittees as well, unless the text specifically distinguishes between them. A key initial decision that can shape the course and outcome of a markup is the selection of the text that the committee considers. Essentially, there are two choices. First, the committee may mark up the text of one of the bills that Members had introduced and that the House Parliamentarian, acting for the Speaker, had referred to the committee. Second, the committee may mark up the draft of a bill that has not yet been formally introduced and referred to the committee. The chair can direct the committee's staff to prepare the draft of a bill, usually written with the assistance of attorneys in the House's Office of Legislative Counsel, that reflects the chair's policy preferences. The committee then may mark up this draft bill, which, in its printed form, may be called a staff draft , discussion draft , or chair's mark . This last phrase originated in committee consideration of budget resolutions, but it now is commonly used to denote any draft that constitutes the legislative starting point from which a committee chair thinks a markup should begin. In either case, the text that a committee marks up already may have been marked up by one or more of the committee's subcommittees. If there has been a subcommittee markup, the subcommittee then makes its legislative recommendations to its parent committee. In turn, the committee most often uses the product of the subcommittee's markup as the starting point for its own markup. The selection of the text—or the base text or vehicle , as Members sometimes call it—that the committee will mark up is important because it sets the framework within which the markup, and the policy debates it inspires, will take place. Each provision of the selected text will survive the markup and be recommended to the House for passage unless a committee member takes the initiative to propose an amendment to it that the committee adopts. The burden is on those who would change the provisions of the base text; it is up to them to devise alternatives to that text and convince a majority of their committee colleagues to vote for those alternatives. Clearly, then, it is advantageous to be able to select the vehicle from among the bills that were referred to the committee, or to devise the vehicle by drafting a new text that very well may draw on selected provisions of the introduced bills on which the committee held hearings. Under House Rule XI, clause 2(g)(4), the text of the legislation to be marked up by a committee generally must be made publicly available in electronic form at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. Almost invariably, it is the committee chair who selects the text to be marked up. Yet there is nothing in the rules of the House that explicitly gives chairs this authority. Instead, this power would seem to derive from the authority of committee chairs to schedule committee meetings and set the agenda for them. Clause 2(b) of House Rule XI directs each committee to establish regular monthly meeting days to conduct business, which can include marking up legislation. Committees interpret this rule as giving the chair the authority to decide what, if anything, the committee should consider at each of its regular meetings. Many committees also exercise the authority derived from clause 2(b) to allow their chairs to cancel regular meetings when the chair considers it appropriate to do so. Clause 2(c)(1) of the same rule authorizes each standing committee chair to call "additional and special" committee meetings "for the consideration of a bill or resolution pending before the committee or for the conduct of other committee business, subject to such rules as the committee may adopt." Again, this clause is understood to allow the chair to decide what measure or what other committee business will be on the agenda of each such meeting. House rules do require the chair to give prior notice before scheduling a meeting. Specifically, clause 2(g)(3) of House Rule XI states that a meeting "may not commence earlier than the third day on which members have had notice thereof." The chair in concurrence with the ranking member can waive this requirement for "good cause." In addition, a majority of the committee, a quorum being present, can vote to waive the requirement. The authority to schedule committee meetings, including markups, and to select matters for consideration at those meetings still rests effectively with the committee chair. Committee members have two different mechanisms they can use when they disagree with their chair's decisions about what legislation the committee will meet to mark up, and when. However, members very rarely resort to either of these devices. If a committee member objects to the committee marking up a matter that the chair has placed on the agenda for a regular or additional committee meeting, the member may ask the committee to vote on whether it wants to consider that matter. To secure this vote, a member raises what is known as the question of consideration . Under clause 3 of House Rule XVI (which Rule XI, clause 1(a)(1)(A), makes applicable to committees), When a motion or proposition is entertained, the question, "Will the House now consider it?" may not be put unless demanded by a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner. Put differently, whenever a bill or resolution, or the draft text of a measure, is called up for markup at a committee meeting (but before debate on it actually begins), any member may compel a vote on the question of consideration. If a majority of the committee votes "no" on this question of consideration, the committee does not proceed to act on the matter in question.