Act of Congress Motion to Amend Amendment Act

[antonfr]

CONGRESS OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
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A BILL TO

ALLOW MOTIONS TO AMEND BEFORE VOTING COMMENCES




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The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:


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PART I — PRELIMINARIES

1. Short Title and Enactment

(1) This Act may be cited as the ‘Motion to Amend Amendment Act’

(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.

(3) This Act has been authored by Representative Antonfr.

(4) This Act has been co-sponsored by Speaker Pokemonish, Deputy Speaker DrFunks and Representatives EmeraldGuuy, Cr_2007 and FloofyLunafox.

(5) This Act amends the following acts:

(a) Legislative Standards Act

2. Reasons and Intent

(1) Representatives and Senators currently cannot amend a bill before voting unless they are the bill's sponsor.

(2) A Motion to Amend may only be made once voting has opened.

(3) As a result, legislators who wish to amend a bill must wait until voting begins before proposing their amendments.

(4) This can significantly delay the legislative process, as a Motion to Amend may require the voting period to be restarted, potentially doubling or even tripling the time needed for the bill to pass.

PART II — AMENDMENTS

3. Amendments to the Legislative Standards Act

(1) §11(11) of the Legislative Standards Act shall be amended as follows:

(11) Motion to Amend

(a) A Motion to Amend seeks to amend a bill that is currently undergoing voting in a Congressional Chamber.

(b) Members of either chamber can propose a Motion to Amend a bill that is currently up for vote in the chamber they are a part of.

 

[ameslap]

Nay. A bill can be changed as many times as needed without a motion prior to voting. If you have an amendment prior to voting, talk to the main sponsor of the bill.

 

[greymc]

- Senate should be allowed to amend bills during the senate debate period, which was not allowed before. Also, this bill allows us to amend other people's bills who have left the house, as you can see is very needed with the house backlog.

 

[xXTheoryXx]

Presidential Assent

PRESIDENTIAL ASSENT​

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This Act strikes the words "undergoing voting" from §11(11)(a) of the Legislative Standards Act and "up for vote" from §11(11)(b), so that a Motion to Amend may be brought against a bill before its voting period opens rather than only once it has.

I grant assent for three reasons.

First, the problem is real and the arithmetic bears out. Under the present rule a legislator who wants a change must wait for the poll to open, propose a motion that runs 48 hours, and then, under §11(11)(d), watch the bill restart voting for a further 48 hours. Moving the same motion into the draft stage removes the restart entirely. A member with a good amendment should not have to make the whole chamber pay two days for it.

Second, the amendment lands on machinery already built to receive it. Section 11(11)(d) restarts voting only "if that bill was up to vote in that chamber at any point between the motion's proposal and the motion's passage." A motion brought and resolved at the draft stage falls outside that condition and triggers no restart. Whoever drafted that conditional anticipated this case, and the Act reaches its object by striking two phrases rather than rewriting a subsection. I would rather sign a small amendment that fits than a large one that does not.

Third, this is ordinary statute governing the internal process of the chambers that wrote it, it is reversible by the same majority that passed it, and Congress is the proper judge of how it orders its own business. Where the Executive has no stake and the change is procedural, the presumption should run in favour of the chamber.

I record the following for Congress and for the Office of Congressional Affairs.

The amended §11(11)(a) reads that a Motion to Amend seeks to amend a bill "that is currently in a Congressional Chamber," and the Act does not say when a bill ceases to be in one. I record my interpretation so that it is on the face of the assent rather than discovered later. A bill that has passed both chambers and been moved under §9(5)(a) with the 'awaiting assent' prefix is no longer before a chamber and is not amendable under this subsection. Section 24(3) of the Constitution gives the President fourteen days to assent to or veto a bill, and that period assumes a fixed text. I do not read this Act as permitting the text on my desk to change while I am considering it, and I ask Congress to place that limit in the statute rather than leave it to construction.

Two gaps will show themselves in practice. Nothing in this Act or in §9(2) prevents a Presiding Officer from opening the poll while a draft-stage Motion to Amend is still running, and if that happens the bill was up to vote during the motion's life and §11(11)(d) requires the restart this Act exists to avoid. The default voting period for a motion is 48 hours while the minimum draft period is 24, so the two will overlap routinely unless the Presiding Officers hold the poll. Separately, a bill at draft may still be edited by its sponsor, and the Act does not freeze the text while a Motion to Amend is pending against it. Both are better fixed in the standing orders of each chamber than left to be discovered on a contested bill.

My thanks to Vice President Antonfr for authoring this Act, and to Former Speaker Pokemonish, Former Deputy Speaker DrFunks, and Former Representatives EmeraldGuuy, Cr_2007 and FloofyLunafox for co-sponsoring it. A bill carrying both Presiding Officers of the House among its co-sponsors is a good sign that the chamber wants this, and the breadth of support is noted.

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This bill has been granted assent and is hereby signed into law.

Theory Fontaine
30th President of the Commonwealth of Redmont​