Definitions of legislative, procedural, and institutional terms used throughout Congress Index. Each entry says what the term means in a legislative history, a vote, a hearing, or a spending figure.
222 terms
A
Absolute majority
Votes · majority of the whole House, constitutional majority
Some questions require support from a majority of the whole body, so an absence counts as a no. In the House, with 435 voting members and no vacancies, that number is 218. People sometimes call it a constitutional majority, though the Constitution itself uses several different formulas. A simple majority is the more common test: more yeas than nays among those voting, once a quorum is present. Do not assume a vote failed because the yeas were fewer than half the chamber. Check which threshold that question used.
After a chamber passes a bill, that chamber often calls the text an act. A short title such as “the Act” in a statute usually means a particular public law. Neither use means the proposal has finished the process. A bill becomes a public law only when it is enacted.
Members who want to explain a vote, add a point, or distinguish themselves from the committee’s majority may file additional views. Unlike minority views, additional views are not limited to the minority party. They are part of the printed report. They do not change the text of the measure and they are not the committee’s official recommendation.
A daily adjournment ends that day’s sitting. The chamber returns on the next day it has set. A recess is a break within a sitting, or a longer break that is not a final adjournment. Adjournment sine die ends the session. Neither daily adjournment nor a short recess kills pending bills. A final adjournment of the Congress does: unenacted bills expire. A Senate adjournment or a recess longer than 30 days also returns pending nominations unless the Senate holds them. Whether an adjournment allows a pocket veto depends on whether it prevents the President from returning the bill.
An advance appropriation is written into this year’s act but first becomes available in a later fiscal year. Agencies cannot obligate it until that later year begins. It is real budget authority, scored in the later year. It is not a supplemental for the current year, and it is not merely an authorization to ask for money later. On a spending breakdown, advance amounts are kept apart from current-year appropriations so the years are not added into a single pot.
Article II gives the President the power to make treaties and to appoint officers “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” For a treaty, consent takes two-thirds of the Senators present. For a nomination, confirmation takes a simple majority of Senators voting, a quorum being present. Getting to that confirmation vote can still require cloture. Advice and consent is the Senate’s approval. It is not a bill, and it is not an appropriations decision.
Resolutions, amendments, and many motions are “agreed to” rather than “passed.” The phrase means that chamber approved that particular question. Agreeing to an amendment changes the pending text. Agreeing to a simple or concurrent resolution does not create a public law. Agreeing to a conference report means that chamber accepted the compromise; the other chamber, and often the President, may still have to act.
An amendment inserts, strikes, or replaces language. It can be offered in committee or on the floor, by either chamber to the other chamber’s text, or as the entire substitute text of a bill. The chamber votes on the amendment separately from final passage. A tally on an amendment is not a tally on the bill unless the question really was passage. House amendments must generally be germane. Senate amendments usually need not be, until cloture or a time agreement says otherwise.
Legislation · amendments between the houses, ping-pong
When the House and Senate pass different text, one way to close the gap is for a chamber to amend the other chamber’s amendment and send it back. That exchange can continue until both chambers have agreed to the same text. It is an alternative to a conference committee, and the two methods are sometimes used on the same measure. An amendment between the houses is not itself a new bill.
An amendment in the nature of a substitute strikes everything after the opening clause and inserts a complete new text. Committees often report this way: the introduced bill stays as the vehicle, but the text the committee wants is a full substitute. On the floor, the same device lets the chamber consider one complete alternative. It is still an amendment. The measure number does not change. If the substitute is adopted, later amendments are to that new text, and passage is still a separate vote.
Amendments · H.Amdt., S.Amdt., House amendment number, Senate amendment number
When an amendment is offered on the floor and printed, it receives an amendment number in that chamber’s sequence. The number is how the Record, the vote, and the bill history point at the same proposal. It is not a bill number. A “Senate amendment” to a House bill may also be the Senate’s changes to the bill as a whole, which is a stage of resolving differences, not necessarily one numbered floor amendment.
Only a limited stack of amendments can be pending. A first-degree amendment changes the measure. A second-degree amendment changes that amendment. A substitute proposes different text, and it can have its own second-degree amendment. The “tree” is the chart of those slots. In the Senate, when every slot is filled, no further amendment can be offered until the Senate disposes of one that is pending. That is what “filling the tree” refers to. The House tree is real but is usually constrained by the special rule and by germaneness.
After the chair rules on a point of order, a member may appeal. The chamber then votes on whether to sustain the chair’s ruling. Overturning the ruling both decides that case and can create a precedent for later ones. The nomination cloture precedents of 2013 and 2017 were established this way. An appeal is a vote about the rule, not about final passage.
Appropriations and spending · appropriated, appropriations act
An appropriation is the statutory provision of budget authority. The typical words are “there is appropriated.” Article I says no money shall be drawn from the Treasury except in consequence of appropriations made by law. An appropriation lets an agency obligate funds and, in time, lets the Treasury pay. It is not the same as an outlay, which is the payment itself, and it is not an authorization, which can permit a program without putting money in an account. Congress provides most discretionary budget authority in annual appropriations acts. Other laws can also provide budget authority directly.
Appropriations and spending · authorizing legislation, reauthorization
An authorization can create an agency, set the rules of a program, or say that Congress may later appropriate funds for it. House and Senate rules generally expect appropriations to follow an authorization, but that is a rule of congressional procedure, not a constitutional bar. Congress sometimes appropriates for programs whose authorization has expired. Those are called unauthorized appropriations; the money is still available if the appropriations act passed. Reauthorization extends or rewrites an existing authorization. It is not a fresh appropriation unless the same bill also contains appropriating language.
Appropriations and spending · authorized to be appropriated
The phrase “there are authorized to be appropriated” sets a ceiling, or a guideline, for a future appropriations bill. Until that later act passes, the agency does not have new budget authority from those words. If the same law both authorizes and appropriates, the authorization is not a second pot of money. On this site’s spending breakdown, an authorization of appropriations is classified separately and is not added to appropriations.
The Constitution gives the President ten days, not counting Sundays, to sign a bill or return it with objections. If the President does neither, and Congress has not adjourned in a way that prevents the return, the bill becomes law without a signature. That is enactment. It is different from a pocket veto, which can occur when an adjournment prevents the President from returning the bill.
A bill is the form Congress uses when it wants to change statutes. A House bill is numbered H.R., which stands for House bill, not House resolution. A Senate bill is numbered S. Either chamber may originate a bill, except that bills for raising revenue must begin in the House. Passage by one chamber does not make a bill law. It becomes law only if both chambers agree to the same text and it is signed, allowed to become law without a signature, or passed over a veto.
H.Res., S.Res., H.Con.Res., S.Con.Res., H.J.Res., and S.J.Res. are resolutions, not bills. They follow different rules and, except for most joint resolutions, do not become public laws.
Documents and sources · BILLSTATUS, bill-status file
GovInfo publishes a BILLSTATUS file for each measure. It lists actions, dates, sponsors, cosponsors, committees, and related measures. This site normalizes that file into the legislative history and keeps the source sentence with each action. The file records what Congress.gov’s data says happened. It is not the bill text, not a committee report, and not the United States Code. A gap in the file is a gap in the structured record, not proof that nothing happened.
Bill text is the legislative language: sections, amendments, and the enacting or resolving clause. It changes as the measure moves. The introduced text, the text reported by committee, the engrossed text one chamber passed, and the enrolled text are different versions. A CRS summary describes the text in prose. A committee report explains it. Neither is a substitute for the text. The enrolled text, once enacted, is what becomes the public law.
Documents and sources · biographical directory identifier
The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress assigns each member an identifier, a letter and digits such as A000360. This site uses that identifier in the path of a member page so the same person can be followed across Congresses. The identifier is not a vote position, not a bill number, and not a statement of party. It is a stable name for the person in the official directory.
Budget authority is the permission to commit the government to pay. An appropriation is the most common form. Contract authority, borrowing authority, and some entitlement laws are others. Having budget authority is not the same as having spent the money. First the agency obligates it, by a contract, grant, or order. Later the Treasury records an outlay when it pays. A number labeled budget authority answers “what may be committed,” not “what left the Treasury this year.”
Appropriations and spending · congressional budget resolution
The budget resolution, an H.Con.Res. or S.Con.Res., sets totals for spending, revenue, deficits, and debt, and it may instruct committees to write a reconciliation bill. Both chambers agree to it. The President does not sign it, and it does not become law. Agencies cannot spend against it. The spending happens only if later laws — appropriations acts, or laws that provide mandatory budget authority — are enacted. A budget resolution and a continuing resolution are different documents that share only the word “resolution.”
Committees use “business meeting” for a session at which they may do something official: mark up a bill, vote to report it, adopt rules, or issue a subpoena. It is different from a hearing, whose main purpose is to take testimony. A notice that says “business meeting” does not by itself say a vote will happen. The agenda does. Some committees also call a markup an executive session even when the meeting is open.
Section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act, called the Byrd rule, makes a point of order in order against matter in a reconciliation bill that does not change spending or revenue, or whose budget effect is merely incidental to a policy change, among other tests. If the presiding officer sustains the point of order, that provision is removed unless 60 Senators vote to waive the rule. A provision dropped under the Byrd rule is out of order in that bill. It is not unlawful, and it can be offered in an ordinary bill that is not protected by reconciliation.
Legislation · House Calendar, Union Calendar, Private Calendar
After a House committee reports a public bill, the bill is placed on the Union Calendar if it affects revenue or spending, and on the House Calendar otherwise. Private bills go on the Private Calendar. Being on a calendar means the measure is available for the floor. The Speaker and the Rules Committee, not the calendar order, usually decide what the House actually takes up. The Senate uses a Legislative Calendar for bills and resolutions and an Executive Calendar for nominations and treaties.
A CBO cost estimate projects outlays and revenue relative to a baseline, the path CBO expects under current law. It is not an appropriation, and it is not a sum of the dollar figures printed in the bill. A bill can “score” as costing less than the sum of its authorizations because some of that money would have been spent anyway, or because budget authority is spent over many years. On this site, a spending breakdown reads the verbs in the enacted text. A CBO figure, when shown beside it, is a separate estimate, not a correction of the statutory words.
The chair is the committee’s presiding officer, chosen through the majority party’s process and, in the House, formally elected by the House. The chair calls meetings, decides the order of business within the rules, and usually manages the committee’s bills on the floor. The ranking member leads the minority on that committee and is not a co-chair. A vice chair is a majority-party position on many committees, not the minority leader of the committee.
Congress is two chambers. A measure must pass each one, in identical form, before it can be presented to the President as a bill or joint resolution. “The chamber” in a legislative history means whichever body took that action. Procedures differ: the House uses special rules and the previous question; the Senate uses unanimous consent and cloture. A committee is not a chamber. Committee approval does not pass the measure.
Legislative histories include corrections that repair a typo, a wrong cross-reference, or a misprint. A star print is a corrected reprint of a bill, resolution, or report. These steps keep the official text accurate. They are not evidence that either chamber adopted a new policy, unless a separate action says the measure was amended.
The Clerk is an elected officer of the House, not a voting member. The Clerk reads bills by title, records votes, certifies the engrossed copy of what the House passed, and, for House-originated measures, manages enrollment and presentation to the President. The Clerk is distinct from the Chief Administrative Officer, who handles House operations, and from the Parliamentarian, who advises on the rules.
When the House adopts a closed rule, members may debate the measure but may not offer their own amendments on the floor. Any changes the Rules Committee wants are already written into the rule. A closed rule is one kind of special rule. It is not a Senate procedure. Adopting the rule and passing the bill are separate votes.
Senate procedure · invoke cloture, cloture motion, cloture vote, cloture on the motion to proceed
Cloture is the procedure in Senate Rule XXII for putting a time limit on a pending matter. Sixteen Senators sign a cloture motion. The vote cannot occur until two days of session later, unless the Senate agrees otherwise. If cloture is invoked, debate does not stop that minute. The Senate may continue for a limited period — generally up to 30 more hours on legislation — and then must vote.
The number required depends on the question. On most legislation, cloture takes three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn, which is 60 when all 100 seats are filled. Absences count against the motion. On a change to the Standing Rules, cloture takes two-thirds of the Senators present and voting. On nominations, Senate precedents since 2013, extended to the Supreme Court in 2017, allow a simple majority to invoke cloture even though the text of Rule XXII still says three-fifths. Most nominations then get at most two more hours of debate; Supreme Court justices, circuit judges, and Cabinet-level officers still get up to 30 hours.
A failed cloture vote means supporters could not limit debate. It is not a vote on the merits of the bill or the nominee. Invoking cloture on a motion to proceed only brings the matter up. A later cloture vote may still be required on the measure itself.
Codification places general and permanent provisions of acts into the titles and sections of the United States Code. An appropriations act, a private law, or a one-time instruction may never be codified. A note under a Code section is not the same thing as the section itself. When Congress enacts a title as positive law, that title of the Code becomes the law. For other titles, the Statutes at Large remain the legal evidence if the Code and the Statutes differ.
Committee amendments are the edits made at markup, often packaged as a substitute the committee reports. On the floor they are considered before amendments from individual members, unless a special rule or a unanimous consent agreement arranges otherwise. A committee amendment is the committee’s proposal to change the introduced text. The chamber can still reject it or amend it further.
House and Senate rules divide subjects among committees. A tax bill goes to the tax committee, an appropriations bill to the appropriations committee, and so on. When a bill touches more than one subject, it may be referred to more than one committee, or the parliamentarian advises on the primary referral. Jurisdiction is about who has the assignment. It is not a promise that the committee will act. Oversight jurisdiction is the related power to review how agencies carry out laws already enacted.
House procedure · Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, Committee of the Whole House
For most major bills, the House resolves into the Committee of the Whole. A different member presides, a quorum is 100 rather than a majority of the House, and amendments are debated under the five-minute rule. Delegates and the Resident Commissioner may be allowed to vote there only if the House rules for that Congress say so. When the committee finishes, it rises and reports back. The House — not the Committee of the Whole — then votes on final passage. A vote “in the Committee of the Whole” is not the vote that passed the bill.
Committee prints are committee publications without a House or Senate report number. Committees use them for draft bill text, side-by-side comparisons, hearing materials, and staff studies. A print is not the committee’s formal recommendation to the chamber, and it is not the enrolled bill. When a page distinguishes a print from a report, the report is the document that accompanies a measure the committee voted to report.
When a committee reports a measure it usually files a report, numbered H. Rept. or S. Rept. The report describes the measure, the changes the committee made, and the committee’s reasons, and it may include cost estimates and dissenting views. Courts and agencies sometimes read reports to understand what Congress meant. The report is not enacted text. If the report and the statutory text differ, the statute controls. A committee report is also different from a Congressional Research Service summary, which is not written by the committee.
Sponsors often introduce matching, or nearly matching, bills in the House and Senate so each chamber has its own vehicle. A companion is a political and drafting relationship. It does not bind either chamber. Congress can pass the House bill, the Senate bill, or a later compromise that draws on both. On this site, a companion mentioned in an editorial note is that kind of pair, not a procedural merger.
Legislation · H.Con.Res., S.Con.Res., H. Con. Res., S. Con. Res.
A concurrent resolution, numbered H.Con.Res. or S.Con.Res., is used when the House and Senate act together but are not making law. The congressional budget resolution, some adjournment resolutions, and corrections to an already enrolled bill are typical uses. Both chambers must agree to the same text. The President does not sign it. It is not a bill and not a joint resolution.
Each chamber appoints conferees, sometimes called managers, to negotiate a conference report. They are usually drawn from the committees that handled the measure, and each chamber’s delegation votes as a group: a majority of the House conferees and a majority of the Senate conferees must support the report. Appointment as a conferee is not agreement to the compromise. The chambers still have to vote on the conference report.
Legislation · conference committee, go to conference
If the House and Senate cannot resolve their differences by exchanging amendments, they may appoint conferees and send the measure to conference. The conference writes a conference report proposing one text. Each chamber must then agree to that report. A request for a conference, or an agreement to go to conference, is not agreement to the final text. Conferees are often limited to the matters in disagreement.
A conference report recommends the text the conferees want both chambers to accept, usually with a joint explanatory statement. The chamber that agreed to the conference second usually votes first. Members vote on the report as a whole; they do not pick it apart with ordinary floor amendments. If both chambers agree, the enrolled measure can be prepared. If either chamber rejects the report, the chambers must try another way to agree, or the measure stops.
The Senate confirms a nominee by a simple majority of senators voting, a quorum being present. On this site, “Confirmed” means that vote succeeded. The President still signs a commission, and the person takes the oath, before holding the office. A vote to invoke cloture on a nomination only limits debate. The confirmation vote comes after that, unless the Senate has ordered otherwise. A failed cloture vote is not a rejection.
A Congress is the two-year period for which members of the House are elected, numbered in sequence. The 119th Congress began in January 2025. Both chambers belong to it. A bill is introduced in one Congress and dies at the end of that Congress if it has not been enacted. It is not pending in the next one. “Congress passed the bill” means both chambers agreed. “The House passed the bill” does not.
Congress.gov is the public legislative-information system. This site draws measure histories, committee meetings, nominations, and related records from Congress.gov and from GovInfo, and it links the sentence a fact came from. Congress.gov is a publication of the record. It is not itself a chamber, and a summary it displays is not the statutory text.
CBO prepares baseline projections and cost estimates that committees and the chambers use when they consider bills. An estimate is CBO’s analysis of likely changes in outlays, revenue, and deficits. It is not a committee report, not a CRS summary, and not the text of the bill. CBO does not decide whether a bill passes and does not provide budget authority.
Congressional Record · the Record, Cong. Rec., CREC
The Congressional Record is published for each day the House or Senate is in session. It contains the floor proceedings, the debate as edited for publication, and material inserted by unanimous consent. Members may revise remarks before they are printed, and they may insert speeches that were not delivered. The daily edition appears the next morning. A permanent edition is published later and can include corrections. A quotation from the Record is what was published, which is usually, but not always, what was said on the floor.
CRS serves Congress with confidential memoranda and with public products, including the bill summaries posted on Congress.gov. A CRS product explains procedure or policy. It is not a committee report, not a CBO cost estimate, and not a statement of one party’s position. On this site, text labeled as a CRS summary is that public summary, tied to a stage of the bill.
The term of a Congress is the two-year life of that numbered Congress, divided into sessions. A Representative’s term is also two years and coincides with the Congress. A Senator’s term is six years, so a senator serves in three Congresses in one term. On a member page, “term” usually means that person’s service. On a Congress page, it means the two-year institution. Bills belong to a Congress, not to a senator’s six-year term.
Appropriations and spending · CR, continuing appropriations
A continuing resolution provides budget authority for a limited period, often at a rate based on the previous year, until regular appropriations are enacted or the resolution expires. It is usually a joint resolution, and it becomes law only if enacted like any other bill. It can include exceptions, called anomalies, and extensions of programs that would otherwise lapse. It is not a budget resolution, which does not provide funds, and it is not a full-year appropriations act unless it says it funds the year. In citations, “CR” can also mean the Congressional Record. The surrounding sentence shows which one is meant.
Contract authority is budget authority that lets an agency commit money in advance of an appropriation, often against a trust fund such as the Highway Trust Fund. The statute may say the amounts “shall be available” from that fund. That is not the verb “appropriated.” A later appropriations act often includes an obligation limitation, a cap on how much of the authority may be used that year, and may provide a liquidating appropriation to pay obligations already incurred. The liquidating appropriation is cash for an old commitment. It is not a second grant of budget authority.
A cosponsor signs on to a bill or resolution the sponsor introduced. Original cosponsors are listed when the measure is introduced or submitted. Later cosponsors add their names afterward and may withdraw them. A long cosponsor list shows political support. It does not hold a hearing, report the measure, or count as a vote.
CRS writes summaries at stages of a bill, such as introduction and reporting. When a bill changes, a later summary describes the later text. On a measure page, the summary shown in full is the latest one returned, and earlier stages are listed when CRS wrote more than one. The summary can lag the text, and it omits detail. For what the measure says, read the bill text of the relevant version. For what a committee said it was doing, read the committee report.
The Daily Digest, at the back of the daily Record, summarizes floor action, bills introduced and passed, votes, and committee meetings for that day. It is an index and a digest. The speeches and the procedural back-and-forth are in the proceedings, not in the Digest. A Digest line is a useful pointer. The action it summarizes is documented in the proceedings and, for votes and measures, in the roll call or the bill history.
The debt limit restricts borrowing. It does not appropriate new money and it does not authorize a new program. Raising it lets the Treasury borrow enough to pay obligations that existing laws have already created, including interest and amounts Congress has appropriated. A fight over the debt limit is not a vote on those underlying bills. The limit is set by statute, separate from the annual appropriations acts.
The House includes delegates from the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Delegates may vote in the committees on which they serve. Whether they may vote in the Committee of the Whole depends on the House rules adopted for that Congress. They do not vote on final passage of measures in the House, and they do not count toward a quorum of the House. The Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico is a related office with the same kind of limited vote. Delegates are not senators.
If a House committee does not report a measure, a member may file a discharge petition. The petition sits at the desk, and members sign it publicly. If a majority of the House — 218 when there are no vacancies in the 435 voting seats — signs, a further process can bring the matter to the floor. Filing a petition is only the start. The measure is not discharged until the signature threshold is met and the later steps are completed. The Senate does not use this petition. A Senate discharge is a motion, and it rarely succeeds.
A committee is discharged when it loses jurisdiction over a measure that was referred to it. That can happen by unanimous consent, by a motion, or, in the House, after a successful discharge petition. Discharge lets the floor take up the measure. It is not a vote to pass it, and it is not the same as the committee reporting the measure with a recommendation.
Discretionary spending is the budget authority Congress provides each year in appropriations acts: agency operating funds, many grants, and defense programs funded that way. The appropriations committees decide the amounts, within the broader budget framework. Discretionary does not mean optional in the everyday sense, and it does not mean the agency may spend without an appropriation. It means the amount is set in the annual spending bills rather than by a standing entitlement formula.
Long bills, especially omnibus appropriations acts, are split into divisions. Each division can carry what would otherwise have been a separate bill. A reference to “Division J” is a location in the text. A division vote is something else: a way of counting members who stand to vote.
If a voice vote is unclear, a member may ask for a division. Members favoring the question rise, then members opposed rise, and the chair counts them. The Record shows the totals, not the names. A division is not a roll-call vote, and it is not a “division” of a bill, which is a part of the text. In the House, a member who wants names on the record asks for the yeas and nays or a recorded vote instead.
A chamber, usually by unanimous consent or under a special rule, may consider a group of amendments en bloc. One vote disposes of the whole group. Agreement en bloc adopts every amendment in the package. It is a time-saving arrangement, not a special kind of policy change.
A bill or joint resolution is enacted when it has become law: the President signed it, the President did not act within the constitutional ten days while Congress was in session, or both chambers overrode a veto. “Passed the House,” “passed the Senate,” and “presented to the President” are not enactment. A simple or concurrent resolution is never enacted, because it is not presented to the President as law.
Engrossment is the preparation of the official copy of a measure as one chamber passed it, including floor amendments. In the House the Clerk certifies it; in the Senate the Secretary does. That copy is what the chamber sends across the Capitol. An engrossed bill has not been approved by both chambers and has not gone to the President. The enrolled bill is the later copy both chambers have agreed to.
Documents and sources · EH, ES, engrossed in the House, engrossed in the Senate
GovInfo uses EH for a bill engrossed in the House and ES for a bill engrossed in the Senate. An engrossed amendment, EAH or EAS, is the official text of the amendments one chamber adopted and sent across. These versions show what that chamber passed. They are not the enrolled bill, unless the other chamber later agreed to that exact text and an enrolled version was prepared.
Enrollment happens in the chamber where the measure began. The Clerk of the House or the Secretary of the Senate prepares the final text. The Speaker and the President pro tempore, or their designees, sign it to confirm that it is the text each chamber passed. That enrolled copy is presented to the President. It is the text that can become law. It is not the same as the engrossed copy one chamber sent to the other, and it is not yet a public law.
A joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment is enrolled and then sent to the states, not to the President.
GovInfo labels this version ENR, the enrolled bill. It is the final legislative text before presidential action. It is the right text to read if you want to know what Congress sent to the President. It is not yet the public law, and it is not the United States Code section that may later contain pieces of it.
After a committee reports a nomination or treaty, or is discharged, the item can be placed on the Executive Calendar. The calendar is only a list of business eligible to be called up in executive session. Placement does not schedule a vote and does not confirm anyone. The majority leader decides what to call up, usually by unanimous consent or by a motion to proceed. Bills and resolutions are on the separate Legislative Calendar.
On the Senate floor, executive session is the mode in which the Senate considers nominations and treaties, as distinct from legislative session, when it considers bills and resolutions. The Senate can move between the two on the same day. In a committee, executive session usually means a meeting closed to the public. Some committees also use the phrase for a markup whether or not the doors are closed, because markups were historically closed. When this site lists a committee meeting, the meeting record — not the phrase alone — is the evidence of what the committee did and whether the public was excluded.
A bill or resolution does not carry into the next Congress. When a Congress adjourns sine die, unfinished measures from that two-year term expire. Sponsors who still want the proposal must introduce it again and start over. Expiration is not a vote to reject the measure. It is what happens when the clock runs out. A pocket veto is a separate ending that occurs only when the President withholds a signature during a qualifying adjournment.
The House section called Extensions of Remarks carries speeches, tributes, and articles members submit for printing. Much of it was never delivered in the chamber. Senate practice is different: undelivered material is more often inserted in the body of the Senate proceedings under a unanimous-consent request. When you cite the Record, the section matters. Words in the Extensions of Remarks are part of the published Record. They are not evidence that the member said them on the floor during debate on a bill.
Legislation · failed passage, rejected, not agreed to
“Failed” attaches to a specific question: passage, an amendment, a motion, cloture, or suspension of the rules. If the House or Senate votes down passage, that attempt to pass the measure has failed. If a motion to suspend the rules fails, the measure has not won the two-thirds vote that procedure requires, but the chamber may consider it again under different terms. A failed cloture vote in the Senate means supporters could not limit debate. It is not, by itself, a vote on whether the bill should pass.
The Senate’s rules do not give a simple majority a routine way to end debate on legislation. A filibuster is the use of that feature: prolonged debate, repeated procedural motions, refusing to agree to a time limit, or any other obstructive step. A senator does not have to hold the floor continuously. The threat of extended debate is often enough, because overcoming it means filing cloture and getting the votes Rule XXII requires. The House does not have a filibuster of this kind; a House majority can order the previous question.
Not every delay is a filibuster, and a failed cloture vote is the formal sign that debate could not be limited, not a description of a particular speech. Ending a filibuster on legislation normally takes 60 votes when the Senate is at full strength. Nominations are different because of later precedents: a simple majority can invoke cloture on them.
In the Senate, the amendment tree has a fixed number of branches. If the majority leader offers amendments that fill each branch, no other senator can offer an amendment until the Senate tables, adopts, or otherwise clears a slot. Filling the tree is a leadership tactic to control what can be offered. It does not pass the bill, and it does not end debate. Senators may still debate, and cloture may still be required.
A first-degree amendment proposes a change to the pending measure or, in some cases, to a complete substitute that is being treated as the text. A second-degree amendment is a change to that first-degree amendment. The second-degree amendment is voted on first. If it is adopted, the first-degree amendment is then voted on as amended. Senate and House rules both stop at the second degree: an amendment to an amendment to an amendment is not in order.
Appropriations and spending · FY, FY2024, fiscal years
Fiscal year 2026 begins on October 1, 2025, and ends on September 30, 2026. Appropriations acts are written for a fiscal year. An amount that is available “for fiscal year 2026” cannot be obligated before October 1, 2025, unless the law also provides an earlier period. Budget figures that cover ten years are a CBO estimating window, not ten fiscal years of cash on hand.
In the Committee of the Whole, a member offering an amendment is recognized for five minutes, and a member opposed is recognized for five minutes. Other members may speak by offering pro forma amendments (“I move to strike the last word”), which yield another five minutes without changing the text. The five-minute rule is not the rule for final passage, and it is not how the Senate debates.
Floor amendments are offered during House or Senate consideration. In the House, a special rule often lists which floor amendments are in order, or bars them. In the Senate, senators may generally offer floor amendments unless cloture, a unanimous consent agreement, or the filled amendment tree limits them. A floor amendment changes the text only if the chamber agrees to it.
In the House, an amendment must be germane to the measure or to the amendment it would change. A point of order can knock out an amendment that introduces a different subject. In the Senate, amendments generally need not be germane. Germaneness does apply to Senate amendments after cloture is invoked, to many amendments to appropriations and budget measures, and when a unanimous consent agreement requires it. “Not germane” is a procedural ruling about the amendment’s relationship to the text. It is not a judgment that the idea is unimportant.
Documents and sources · GPO, Government Publishing Office
GovInfo is where the official digital copies of bills, committee reports, the Congressional Record, and many other congressional documents are published. This site uses those publications as sources and does not invent document addresses. GovInfo is the publisher’s system. It is not Congress.gov, which organizes the legislative record for research, and it is not the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, which publishes the United States Code.
At a hearing, witnesses testify and members ask questions. A legislative hearing is about a particular measure. An oversight hearing reviews how a law or agency is working and may not involve any bill. Holding a hearing does not change the bill’s text and does not send it to the floor. The published hearing, the transcript volume, can appear weeks or months after the meeting. The meeting and the bound hearing are different documents.
When a bill arrives from the other chamber, the receiving chamber sometimes holds it at the desk instead of sending it to committee. That is common when a companion is already moving and leaders expect to act on the incoming text directly. Holding a measure at the desk is not passage and not a committee review. It is a choice about where the measure sits.
A hold is not a vote and not a rule that automatically blocks a bill. It is a notice to the senator’s leader of an intent to object to a unanimous consent request to take up a measure or nomination. Leaders have traditionally honored holds, so a hold can keep something off the floor for as long as the leader is unwilling to spend the time a roll-call fight would take. A standing order adopted in 2011 says that for a leader to recognize a hold, the senator must put it in writing and have it published in the Congressional Record within two session days. A hold does not stop the majority from filing cloture and trying to proceed by recorded vote. It is not the same thing as a filibuster, though it can lead to one.
In a legislative history, “House amendment” can mean an ordinary House floor amendment. During resolving differences it more often means the text the House sent back in response to the Senate: the House amendment to the Senate bill, or the House amendment to the Senate amendment. That second use is a stage of negotiation between the chambers. Agreeing to a House amendment means the Senate accepted the House’s changes. It is not a new House bill.
The House has 435 voting members, plus delegates and a Resident Commissioner who do not vote on final passage. It chooses a Speaker, originates revenue bills, and considers measures under its own rules, which let a majority schedule business through the Rules Committee and the previous question. An action “in the House” is not an action of the Senate and is not enactment. H.R. denotes a House bill. H.Res. denotes a House simple resolution.
A Representative or Senator introduces a bill or joint resolution, and the chamber numbers it. Simple and concurrent resolutions are often described as submitted rather than introduced. The sponsor is the member who filed it. Introduction is the start of the record. The measure is then usually referred to committee. Most measures never leave that stage.
Documents and sources · IH, IS, introduced in the House, introduced in the Senate
GovInfo uses IH for the introduced House bill and IS for the introduced Senate bill. This is the sponsor’s text at introduction. Later versions — reported, engrossed, enrolled — may replace most of that language, especially when a committee adopts an amendment in the nature of a substitute. The introduced version remains the record of what was filed. It is not evidence of what Congress passed, unless no later version exists and the measure died as introduced.
A joint committee is created by statute or by a concurrent resolution and includes members of both chambers. Some, such as the Joint Committee on Taxation, are permanent study and advisory bodies. They do not generally report bills the way a standing committee does. A conference committee is a temporary joint body with a narrower job: negotiating one text for a measure the chambers have already passed in different forms. “Joint” does not mean the committee can send a bill to the President.
A joint resolution is numbered H.J.Res. or S.J.Res. Congress uses it for many of the same jobs as a bill, including continuing appropriations and disapproving certain executive actions. Like a bill, it generally must pass both chambers and be presented to the President. The important exception is a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment: Congress sends that to the states for ratification, and the President does not sign it.
Legislation · tabled, motion to table, lay on the table
In the Senate, a motion to table is not debatable and needs only a simple majority. If it passes, the amendment, motion, or other question that was tabled is defeated. Senators often use it to dispose of an amendment quickly. In the House, laying a matter on the table is also ordinarily a final, adverse disposition, not a pause. A motion to postpone is the procedure that delays consideration. The routine line “motion to reconsider laid on the table” is a different and narrower step: it locks in a vote the chamber just took.
Appropriations and spending · funding gap, shutdown
If neither regular appropriations nor a continuing resolution is law when the fiscal year, or a continuing resolution, ends, agencies that depend on annual appropriations generally must stop activities that those appropriations fund. Some functions continue under other legal authorities. A lapse is the absence of budget authority for those accounts. It is not a repeal of the underlying programs, and it ends when an appropriations act or another continuing resolution is enacted.
The Legislative Calendar is where Senate bills and resolutions go once they have been reported or have otherwise reached the floor stage. An item can sit on the calendar for the rest of the Congress without ever being called up. The majority leader generally decides what is taken up, by unanimous consent or by moving to proceed. Nominations and treaties are listed on the Executive Calendar instead.
The Senate conducts legislative business in legislative session and nominations and treaties in executive session. The distinction is procedural, not a difference between two meetings on different days. The Senate may go from one to the other, and back, while it is in the same sitting. A vote taken in legislative session is on a measure or a motion about one. It is not a confirmation vote.
Each chamber has its own majority leader. In the House, the majority leader is the Speaker’s principal lieutenant and helps set the floor schedule; the Speaker is the chamber’s presiding officer. In the Senate, the majority leader is the floor leader who calls up business, and the presiding officer is the Vice President or a senator serving in the chair. The majority leader is not the President of the Senate and is not the Speaker.
The majority party organizes the chamber: it elects the Speaker in the House, chooses committee chairs, and controls the floor schedule. “Majority” here means seats, not a majority of the public vote, and not the party that holds the presidency. The House majority and the Senate majority are counted separately. A member of the majority party on a committee is not necessarily the ranking member; that title belongs to the minority.
The floor manager — usually the committee chair or the sponsor guiding debate — may offer a manager’s amendment gathering corrections and compromises worked out before the vote. The phrase is a description of who offers it and how it is handled. It is not a separate class in House or Senate rules. If it is agreed to, those changes become part of the text. If it is not, they do not.
Mandatory spending, also called direct spending, is controlled by the statutes that create the program: Social Security, Medicare, and other laws that require payments to eligible recipients. Congress can change those laws, but the annual appropriations acts do not set the year’s total beneficiary by beneficiary. Some mandatory programs still appear in appropriations bills for administrative reasons; the label on the bill is not a safe guide. The question is which statute creates the obligation to pay.
Markup is when a committee works through the text: adopting amendments, sometimes substituting an entire new draft, and then voting on whether to order the measure reported. It is different from a hearing, which takes testimony rather than editing the bill. A markup can end with no vote. “Ordered reported” is the vote, if there is one, to send the measure back to the chamber. The written committee report is filed after that vote, not during the hearing that may have preceded it.
Congress and this site use “measure” for bills, joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and simple resolutions. It is a convenient group name. It hides differences that matter: only bills and joint resolutions ordinarily become law, and revenue bills must start in the House. When a page says “measure,” check the number. H.R. and S. are bills. H.Res. and S.Res. are simple resolutions. The “Con.” and “J.” forms are concurrent and joint resolutions.
“Member of Congress” covers Representatives and Senators. On this site, member pages also include Delegates and the Resident Commissioner, who serve in the House without a vote on final passage. A senator is a member of Congress. So is a representative. The narrower phrase “member of the House” excludes senators. When a page says “members,” it means the people in the directory for that Congress, not a single chamber unless the heading says so.
Legislation · message from the House, message from the Senate
Chambers notify each other by message when they pass a measure, agree to an amendment, ask for a conference, or return papers. A veto message is the President’s statement of objections sent back with the bill. A message records that the communication arrived. It is not, by itself, the receiving chamber’s agreement.
Congress sometimes combines a few of the twelve regular appropriations bills into one act. People call that a minibus, as distinct from an omnibus that covers all or nearly all of them. Neither word appears in the statute as a term of art. The act’s text, and its divisions, show which bills were included. A minibus that is enacted is a full appropriation for the agencies it covers, not a temporary continuing resolution, unless the text says otherwise.
The minority leader speaks for the minority on scheduling and on the floor, and in the House traditionally has the right to offer, or to designate who offers, the motion to recommit. The minority leader is not the ranking member of every committee. Each committee has its own ranking member. The House and Senate each have a minority leader, chosen by that chamber’s minority party.
The minority party does not organize the chamber. Its senior committee members are ranking members, not chairs. In the Senate, minority status does not erase the right to extended debate; cloture is what limits that debate. In the House, the majority can generally control which amendments are offered, and the minority’s clearest floor opportunity on a bill is often the motion to recommit. The minority in one chamber may be the majority in the other.
House and Senate rules let minority members file their own views when a committee reports a measure. Minority views explain why those members oppose the committee’s recommendation or how they would change it. They are part of the report document. They are not a second committee report, and they do not stop the majority’s recommendation from going to the floor.
During morning business, senators may speak on subjects of their choice and the Senate handles routine introductions. The time is often limited by unanimous consent. A speech in morning business is not an amendment and not debate under cloture on the bill that is the pending business. The House’s rough equivalents are one-minute speeches and special-order speeches, which are scheduled differently.
Senate procedure · motion to proceed to consideration
Unlike the House, the Senate does not have a Rules Committee resolution that turns to each bill. To take up most measures, the majority leader asks unanimous consent or moves to proceed to the item. On legislation, that motion is debatable, so opponents can force a cloture vote just to start debate on the bill. If cloture fails on the motion to proceed, the Senate has not rejected the bill’s substance. It has refused, for the moment, to bring it up. Some matters are privileged and can be brought up more directly. Agreeing to proceed only opens consideration. Passage, if it comes, is a later vote.
House Rule XIX lets a member, almost always from the minority, move to recommit a bill or joint resolution after the previous question is ordered and before the vote on passage. Since the 117th Congress, that motion cannot include instructions to amend the text, and it is not debated. If it passes, the measure goes back to committee, which stops it unless the committee returns it. Before 2021, the motion could include instructions and, if adopted, immediately amended the bill; older histories may still show that form. The motion is not available on a measure being considered under suspension of the rules.
A member who voted on the winning side may move to reconsider that vote. If the motion succeeded, the chamber would vote on the question again. In ordinary practice, especially in the House, a supporter immediately moves to lay the motion to reconsider on the table. Agreeing to that second motion prevents reconsideration and makes the result stick. Seeing a motion to reconsider in a legislative history is usually this closing ritual, not a sign that the chamber reopened the issue.
After a successful vote, the chamber often orders the motion to reconsider laid on the table. That sentence means the result will not be revisited through a motion to reconsider. It does not send the bill back to committee, and it does not kill a measure the chamber just passed. Read it as the lock on the vote that immediately preceded it.
Tabling in the Senate is a way to defeat an amendment or another pending question without further debate. The motion needs a simple majority. If it succeeds, the tabled question is dead. Senators use it constantly on amendments. It is not a motion to delay the amendment until next week. A separate House usage, laying a measure on the table, is also ordinarily final. Neither should be read as ordinary postponement.
The NDAA is a recurring authorization bill for the Department of Defense and related national-security programs. It can set policy, authorize programs, and authorize later appropriations. The money the department may obligate from annual discretionary accounts comes from the separate defense appropriations bill, unless a particular provision itself provides budget authority. Calling the NDAA a spending bill confuses authorization with appropriation.
Nay (or, on a voice vote, no) means the member opposed the question the chair put. If the question was “on passage,” a nay is a vote against passing the measure. If the question was an amendment, cloture, or a motion, a nay opposes that amendment or motion and says nothing by itself about final passage. This site records the position the official roll call reported.
A nomination is the President’s proposal that a named person fill an office. The Senate gives it a nomination number, shown as PN. The nomination is referred to committee, may receive a hearing, and if reported is placed on the Executive Calendar. It is considered in executive session, not as a bill. A nomination is not an appointment. The person is appointed only if the Senate confirms and the President completes the appointment, or if a lawful recess appointment is made.
A nongermane amendment addresses a subject the pending text does not open. In the House, a point of order will ordinarily stop it unless a special rule waives germaneness. In the Senate, a nongermane amendment is often allowed; that is how unrelated provisions get attached to a bill that is moving. After the Senate invokes cloture, nongermane amendments are out of order. “Nongermane” describes a procedural relationship. It does not mean the amendment failed on the merits.
Not voting means there is no recorded position: the member was absent, or was present and did not vote. It is not a nay, and it is not a present vote. Whether an absence matters depends on the threshold. For cloture on legislation, a senator who does not vote makes it harder to reach three-fifths of the sworn Senate. For an ordinary passage vote, only the yeas and nays are compared, as long as a quorum was present.
The Standing Rules say that changing the rules takes a two-thirds cloture vote. The phrase “nuclear option” refers to a different path actually used in 2013 and 2017: a senator appeals a ruling of the chair, and a simple majority overturns the ruling, creating a precedent that a simple majority may invoke cloture on nominations. The 2013 precedent covered executive and lower-court nominations. The 2017 precedent extended it to the Supreme Court. The text of Rule XXII was not rewritten. The precedent changes how the chair applies it to nominations. It does not let a simple majority invoke cloture on ordinary legislation, and it does not itself confirm a nominee.
An agency obligates budget authority when it places an order, signs a contract, or awards a grant. That commitment uses up budget authority. It is not yet an outlay. The outlay happens when the Treasury pays. A law can provide budget authority in one year, the agency can obligate it in that year, and the payment can occur years later. “Obligated” is not “appropriated,” and it is not “spent.”
Appropriations and spending · limitation on obligations, ob lim
Appropriations acts often limit how much contract authority a program may use during the fiscal year. The limitation controls the pace of commitments. It does not appropriate new budget authority, and it does not rescind the authority above the cap. On a spending breakdown, a limitation is kept out of the totals for new appropriations. Adding it, or subtracting it from contract authority as if it were a cancellation, misstates what the statute did.
Appropriations and spending · omnibus appropriations
An omnibus appropriations act packages the regular spending bills into a single vehicle, often with a division for each bill. It is still an appropriations law: once enacted, it provides budget authority for the accounts it covers. “Omnibus” describes the packaging, not a different kind of money. A minibus packages only some of the bills. A continuing resolution is temporary funding, not a completed set of regular bills.
The House often begins with one-minute speeches. A member is recognized for about a minute on any subject. The speech goes in the Record. It does not amend a measure, and it is not the debate time controlled by the managers of a bill. Special-order speeches are longer speeches reserved for later in the day.
Under an open rule, members may offer amendments that satisfy the House’s germaneness and other rules, usually in the Committee of the Whole under the five-minute rule. A modified-open rule adds a requirement that amendments be printed in the Congressional Record in advance. An open rule is uncommon for major bills. Most are considered under structured rules that list the amendments in order. Adopting an open rule does not adopt any amendment.
Legislation · ordered to be reported, ordered to be reported favorably
When a committee “orders a measure reported,” it has voted to report it, often favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation. That vote is real committee action, but the measure is not yet formally reported until the committee report is filed. On this site, “Ordered to be reported” can appear while the lifecycle status is still “referred,” because the report number does not exist yet. Ordered reported is not passage by the chamber.
Original cosponsors join at the start, before later members add their names. On this site, “original” follows the bill-status file’s own flag, not a guess from the date. Later cosponsors are everyone who signed on afterward. Withdrawn cosponsors are kept in the history but are not counted as current supporters.
Article I, section 7 requires bills for raising revenue to originate in the House. The Senate may propose amendments. In practice the chambers sometimes disagree about whether a particular Senate bill is a revenue bill, and the House may use a “blue slip” to return one it considers improper. The clause does not require spending bills, or every tax-related amendment, to begin in the House. It is a limit on revenue bills, not a description of the whole legislative process.
An outlay is a payment from the Treasury: a check, an electronic transfer, interest paid. People mean outlays when they say money was spent. Appropriating funds does not produce an outlay on the day of enactment. CBO cost estimates are mostly about outlays and revenue over a ten-year window, measured against a baseline. They are not a sum of the appropriation figures printed in the bill. On this site, a spending breakdown describes the authority the statutory words provide, not the outlays CBO expects.
Committees oversee the agencies and programs in their jurisdiction: hearings, document requests, investigations, and reports on performance. An oversight hearing may never be attached to a bill number. When it is, the hearing still does not advance the bill unless the committee later marks it up and reports it. Oversight is part of Congress’s work of checking the executive branch. It is not a stage on the path from introduction to enactment.
A pair is a voluntary arrangement. An absent member pairs with a member who is present and on the other side. The present member withholds a vote, or is recorded as paired, so that one absence on each side cancels out. A live pair is announced during the vote. Pairing is less common than it once was, but it still appears in the Record and in historical roll calls. A pair is not a yea or a nay. It explains why a member was not simply “not voting.”
Each chamber has a parliamentarian. The advice is given to the chair, who rules on points of order. The parliamentarian does not vote and does not decide passage. A ruling based on that advice can be appealed to the chamber. Referrals of bills follow the parliamentarian’s application of the jurisdiction rules. The advice is procedural, not a recommendation on the policy.
Legislation · passage, passed the House, passed the Senate
Passage means that chamber agreed to the measure. “Passed the House” does not mean the Senate has agreed, and passage by both chambers does not mean the text is law if the two texts differ or the President has not acted. Resolutions are more often “agreed to” than “passed.” An amendment is adopted or agreed to, not passed as a law. Enacted, or “became law,” is the later status.
A perfecting amendment inserts language, strikes language, or replaces less than the entire pending text. It is the ordinary “change this part” amendment. A substitute replaces the whole of the pending text. The difference matters because of the order of voting: perfecting amendments to a text are dealt with in relation to a pending substitute, and only a limited number of each can be pending at once. “Perfecting” does not mean the amendment is minor or technical.
The daily Record is published overnight. The permanent edition is compiled afterward and may revise pagination and correct errors. Citations to the daily edition and the permanent edition do not always match page for page. For a recent day, the daily edition is the text that exists. A correction printed later is a revision of the published record, not a second floor debate.
In the House, a reported bill is assigned to the Union Calendar or the House Calendar. In the Senate, a bill is placed on the Legislative Calendar, often after it is reported or after a second reading. Calendar placement makes the measure eligible for floor action. Leaders still decide whether, and when, to call it up. A nomination goes on the Executive Calendar, which is a different list.
If Congress prevents the President from returning a bill by adjourning, the unsigned bill does not become law. That is a pocket veto. Unlike a regular veto, there is no veto message for the chambers to vote on, so the ordinary override vote does not occur. Whether a particular adjournment “prevents” a return has been disputed, especially when Congress has appointed officials to receive messages during a recess. A history that says “pocket vetoed” is reporting that ending. It is not the same as a bill that became law because the President failed to act while Congress was in session.
A point of order asks the chair to enforce a rule: germaneness in the House, the Senate’s rules on appropriations, the Byrd rule, a budget rule, or a requirement that an amendment be in writing. If the chair sustains the point of order, the offending matter is out of order unless a waiver has already been adopted or the chamber overturns the ruling on appeal. “Point of order sustained” means the challenge succeeded and the matter was stopped. It is not a vote on the policy. In the House, special rules often waive points of order in advance so that a provision cannot be knocked out on the floor.
Most of the United States Code is a compilation: prima facie evidence of the law, with the Statutes at Large controlling if they conflict. Some titles have been enacted as positive law. For those titles, the Code title is legal evidence of the law. The Office of the Law Revision Counsel identifies which titles those are. A positive-law enactment is a statute. It does not mean every section in the title was recently debated; it means Congress enacted that arrangement as the law.
Present means the member was there and chose not to take a side on that question. It counts toward a quorum. It does not count as a yea or a nay. On a vote that requires a share of those voting, a present vote is generally not part of the yea-nay total. On a vote that requires a share of the whole membership, or of those present, it can affect the result. Present is not the same as not voting.
After both chambers have agreed and the enrolled copy is signed by their presiding officers, the originating chamber presents it to the President. Presentation starts the constitutional clock: ten days, not counting Sundays. Until the President signs, the clock runs out, or a veto is overridden, the measure is not yet law. “Presented” is not “enacted.”
The Constitution makes the Vice President the President of the Senate. The Vice President is not a senator, is not chosen by the Senate, and has no vote except when the Senate is equally divided. Day-to-day presiding is usually done by senators designated for that purpose, not by the Vice President. The President pro tempore presides in the Vice President’s absence. Neither office is the majority leader, who actually schedules the Senate’s business.
The Senate chooses a President pro tempore to preside in the Vice President’s absence. The office is traditionally given to the longest-serving senator of the majority party. The President pro tempore signs enrolled bills, along with the Speaker. Junior senators do most of the actual presiding under a designation. The President pro tempore is not the majority leader and does not set the floor schedule.
Ordering the previous question cuts off further debate and amendment on the pending matter and brings the House to a vote. On a special rule, that vote is on adopting the rule. On a bill, the previous question can be ordered and a single motion to recommit is still in order before final passage. The Senate does not use the previous question to end debate. Ending a Senate debate takes cloture or unanimous consent.
A private bill deals with a specific person, group, or claim, such as an immigration waiver or a private claim against the government. It is still a bill: both chambers must pass the same text, and the President must act. Private bills are uncommon. They are numbered in the same H.R. and S. sequences as public bills; the private character appears in the title and in how the bill is calendared, not in a separate numbering system.
When a private bill becomes law, it is published as a private law rather than a public law. Private laws are numbered in their own sequence for that Congress. They are law for the parties they name. They are not the general and permanent statutes that are ordinarily arranged into the United States Code.
A pro forma session is a formal sitting, sometimes lasting only minutes, at which the chamber gavels in and out. The Senate has used pro forma sessions during breaks so that the break is not a recess long enough for a recess appointment, and so that a pocket-veto question is harder to raise. A pro forma day can also count as a day of session for deadlines that are measured in session days. It is not an adjournment sine die, and it is not evidence that the chamber debated a bill.
Proceedings are the official sequence of business — measures called up, amendments offered, votes taken, adjournment. On this site, committee proceedings and floor actions are drawn from those records. Remarks are what members said. The two are published together in the Congressional Record, but a speech is not an action of the chamber. A vote, a referral, and an agreement to a motion are.
Nearly every H.R. or S. a reader meets is a public bill: it proposes a rule of general application. “Public” describes the audience of the law, not whether the bill has passed or been enacted. A public bill that is enacted becomes a public law.
After enactment, a public bill or joint resolution is assigned a public-law number: the Congress and a sequence number, such as Public Law 117–58. That number identifies the act in the Statutes at Large. It does not say which title or section of the United States Code, if any, now contains the text. Some public laws are never codified. The public-law number is the act; the Code is a later arrangement of general and permanent provisions.
The Constitution requires a majority of each house to constitute a quorum to do business. In the House, that is a majority of the 435 voting members, adjusted if seats are vacant. Delegates and the Resident Commissioner do not count toward that quorum. In the Senate, it is a majority of the sworn senators, normally 51. In the Committee of the Whole, the quorum is 100. A chamber often assumes a quorum is present until a member questions it. Business conducted without a quorum can be challenged. A quorum is an attendance requirement, not the number of votes needed to pass a bill.
A member may suggest the absence of a quorum, and the chair orders a call. Members answer “present,” or their presence is recorded. If a quorum appears, business resumes. If it does not, the chamber cannot transact business. Leaders also start quorum calls to create a short delay while they negotiate. A quorum call is not a vote on a bill. The responses are attendance, not yeas and nays.
The ranking member is the minority party’s lead member on a committee or subcommittee. The party designates that person; it is usually, but not always, the minority member with the longest continuous service on the committee. The ranking member is not the chair and does not set the committee’s agenda. “Ranking” refers to party rank on that committee, not to a rank in the whole chamber.
Legislation · first reading, second reading, third reading
House and Senate rules describe three readings. In current practice the full text is not read aloud; the title is read unless someone objects and the chamber orders otherwise. First and second reading often happen when a measure is introduced and referred. Third reading comes just before the vote on passage. Ordering the third reading and engrossment is a procedural step at the end of floor consideration, not a statement that members have read the bill line by line.
When the chambers are resolving differences, one may recede — give up its own position — and concur in the other chamber’s amendment. That accepts the other chamber’s text. “Recede and concur with a further amendment” accepts part of the disagreement and sends a new amendment back. A motion to recede is only a proposal until the chamber agrees to it. Agreement is a step toward identical text, not presentation to the President.
Article II lets the President fill a vacancy that happens during a Senate recess, with a commission that lasts until the end of the next session unless the Senate confirms the person sooner. The Supreme Court has held that a break of only a few days is not a “recess” for this purpose, and that the vacancy need not begin during the recess. The Senate has used pro forma sessions to avoid a long enough recess. A recess appointment is not a confirmation, and it is not recorded on this site as “Confirmed.”
If a budget resolution instructs committees to change spending, revenue, or the debt limit, the resulting reconciliation bill is considered in the Senate under rules that limit debate and amendments. A filibuster does not apply, so a simple majority can pass it. The Byrd rule lets senators strip provisions that are extraneous to the budget instructions. Reconciliation is not available for every bill, and it is not a standing shortcut around cloture. There is no reconciliation bill unless a budget resolution has given those instructions. The House considers the same bill under its ordinary rules, which already let a majority control the floor.
A recorded vote puts each member’s position in the record. In the House, recorded votes are taken by electronic device. The Constitution’s “yeas and nays” are a closely related demand that the Journal record each member’s vote; in practice both produce a roll of names. In the Senate, recorded votes are roll-call votes, with names called. A voice vote and a division vote do not record names. This site’s vote pages are recorded roll calls, not voice votes.
Legislation · referred, referred to committee, committee referral
After introduction, the presiding officer refers a measure to committee, following the chamber’s jurisdiction rules and, in close cases, advice from the parliamentarian. Referral assigns the measure. It does not require the committee to hold a hearing or take a vote. Most referred measures receive no further action. A measure can be referred to more than one committee, at the same time or in sequence.
Rejection means the confirmation vote itself failed. The Senate has refused its consent. A failed cloture vote, a return of the nomination when the Senate adjourns, or a presidential withdrawal are different endings. None of those is a vote against the person on the question of confirmation. On this site, “Rejected” is used only for that negative confirmation outcome.
Congress.gov and the bill-status files record relationships among measures: companions, bills whose text was incorporated into another vehicle, and bills on the same subject. A related-bill link tells you where else to look. It does not mean the related bill passed, and it does not merge the two measures. Read the action history of each one.
Remarks are a member’s speech. Floor debate on a bill is remarks offered while that bill is pending, under the time the rule or agreement allows. Remarks in morning business, one-minute speeches, and extensions are not that debate. Because members may revise remarks before publication, the Record’s text of a speech may differ from the words spoken. Remarks do not change a bill. An amendment does, if it is agreed to.
Legislation · reported favorably, reported by committee, committee report filed
A committee reports a measure when it formally returns it to the House or Senate. The report may recommend passage (favorably), recommend against it (adversely, which is uncommon), or make no recommendation. Reporting usually includes filing a numbered committee report that explains the committee’s changes. A measure can be “ordered reported” before that report is filed. Reported does not mean the chamber passed the measure. In the Senate, many reported bills still need a motion to proceed and may face extended debate.
Documents and sources · RH, RS, reported in the House, reported in the Senate
GovInfo uses RH or RS for the reported version. It reflects the committee’s changes and is usually accompanied by a committee report. If several committees reported the bill, there can be more than one reported version. The reported text is not the text the chamber passed unless the floor adopted it without further change. Compare it with the engrossed version to see what the floor did.
A Representative is a member of the House, not of the Senate. The term of office is two years, the same length as a Congress. “Congressman” and “congresswoman” are informal and are often used only for House members; they are easy to misread as including senators. This site says Representative for a voting House member, and Delegate or Resident Commissioner for the members who do not vote on final passage.
Reprogramming moves money inside an appropriation account, among the activities that account funds. Agencies typically notify the appropriations committees and follow guidelines in committee reports. A reprogramming is not a transfer, which moves budget authority from one account to another and needs statutory authority. It is not a new appropriation. It spends authority Congress has already provided, for a purpose inside the same account.
A rescission takes back budget authority that an earlier law provided and that the agency has not yet obligated. Only a statute cancels the authority. A presidential request to rescind funds does not cancel them by itself. A rescission is not an outlay running in reverse, and it is not an obligation limitation, which leaves the underlying authority in place but caps its use. On a spending breakdown, rescissions are amounts removed, not amounts appropriated.
The Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico sits in the House, may serve and vote on committees, and is subject to the same limits as delegates on floor votes. The term is four years, unlike a Representative’s two. The Resident Commissioner is not a senator and is not one of the 435 voting members who make up a quorum of the House.
“Resolution” covers three different forms. A simple resolution binds only one chamber and is used for that chamber’s rules and expressions of its views. A concurrent resolution requires both chambers and still does not go to the President. A joint resolution generally does go to the President and can become law, much like a bill. The citation tells you which one you are reading: H.Res. or S.Res.; H.Con.Res. or S.Con.Res.; H.J.Res. or S.J.Res.
If the second chamber amends a measure, the first chamber must agree to those amendments, propose its own, or send the measure to conference. Until both chambers have approved identical text, nothing is enrolled and nothing is presented to the President. “Resolving differences” names that unfinished agreement. It is not a single vote.
Under Senate Rule XXXI, nominations still pending when the Senate adjourns or recesses for more than 30 days are returned to the President, unless the Senate agrees to hold them. A return is not a vote to reject the nominee. The President may nominate the same person again, and that new nomination starts a new Senate record. On this site, “Returned to President” means this disposition, not a failed confirmation vote.
Congressional Record · revise and extend remarks, leave to revise and extend
A member who has spoken often receives unanimous consent to revise and extend those remarks. Revision can correct grammar or add citations. Extension can add paragraphs that were not spoken. The printed speech is still the member’s statement in the Record. It is not a transcript, and the unspoken portion was not floor debate. This is an ordinary request. It is not an amendment to a bill.
“Rider” is not a term in the standing rules. People use it for an amendment or provision that rides along on another measure, especially an appropriations bill or another must-pass vehicle. In the House, germaneness and appropriations rules restrict that practice unless a special rule waives them. In the Senate, where germaneness is not generally required, riders are easier to offer until cloture or a consent agreement limits amendments. A rider that is adopted becomes part of the text. The nickname does not change its legal effect.
A roll-call vote produces a tally and a list of how members voted: yea, nay, present, or not voting. The roll-call number identifies that vote in that chamber and session. The important line is the question. It may be passage, an amendment, the previous question, cloture, a motion to table, or confirmation. A roll call decides only the question that was put. This site’s vote pages are these recorded votes. They do not include voice votes, which leave no member-by-member record.
A second-degree amendment proposes to change a first-degree amendment while that amendment is pending. It is voted on before the amendment it would change. If it passes, the first-degree amendment is pending in its amended form. An amendment to the second-degree amendment is not in order. Members who want a further change have to offer it as a different amendment after the pending ones are disposed of, or amend a larger portion of the text.
The Secretary of the Senate is the chamber’s chief legislative officer, elected by the Senate, not a voting member. The Secretary certifies engrossed measures the Senate has passed and, for measures that originated in the Senate, oversees enrollment and presentation to the President. The role corresponds to the Clerk of the House. The Secretary is not the secretary of a party conference and not a cabinet secretary.
The House and Senate create select committees by resolution for a stated purpose, sometimes for one Congress and sometimes for longer. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is a long-lived example. “Select” and “special” do not mark two stable legal categories; they are the names the chamber chose. A select committee has only the powers its creating resolution gives it. It may or may not be allowed to report legislation to the floor.
A self-executing rule says that, upon its adoption, a specified amendment is considered agreed to, or a specified text is considered the base text. Members who vote for the rule are also accepting that text. There is no separate amendment vote. The bill itself is still passed, if it is passed, on a later vote. This is a House Rules Committee device. It is not a Senate practice.
The Senate has 100 seats when all are filled. Its rules allow extended debate, so a majority does not by itself end debate on legislation; cloture does. The Senate gives advice and consent on nominations and treaties. It does not originate revenue bills. An action “in the Senate” is not a House action and is not enactment. S. denotes a Senate bill. S.Res. denotes a Senate simple resolution.
Amendments · Senate amendment to the House amendment
“Senate amendment” in a House history often means the changes the Senate made to a House bill before sending it back. The House then concurs in the Senate amendment, concurs with a further amendment, or disagrees and goes to conference. That is the Senate’s position in the negotiation, which may itself be a complete substitute. It is distinct from a numbered S.Amdt. offered during Senate floor debate, though a numbered amendment may be how the Senate created that position.
A senator represents a state, not a House district, and serves a six-year term. One-third of the Senate’s seats are filled at each two-year election, so the Senate is a continuing body in a way the House is not. A senator is a member of Congress. A senator is not a representative, and does not sit on House committees. When this site shows a member’s chamber as Senate, the procedural entries that apply are the Senate ones.
The House often refers a bill to more than one committee. In a sequential referral, a second committee receives the bill after the first reports it, sometimes with a deadline. An additional initial referral sends it to more than one committee at the outset, with one committee designated primary. The Senate usually refers a bill to a single committee, but it can use joint or sequential referral. A referral, of either kind, still does not require any committee to act.
The House and the Senate each elect a Sergeant at Arms. The office enforces the presiding officer’s directions to maintain order, handles security of that chamber, and participates in ceremonies such as escorting the President. The Sergeant at Arms is not a member and does not decide procedure. There are two such officers, one for each chamber, not one for Congress as a whole.
Each Congress runs for two years and is divided into sessions, usually a first session in the odd year and a second session in the even year. Bills remain alive from the first session into the second. They do not remain alive into the next Congress. Roll-call numbers on this site are numbered within a chamber and a session, so the same roll-call number can appear in both sessions of a Congress. A daily sitting is not a session in this sense. Adjournment sine die closes the session.
On an ordinary question — passage of a bill in the House, adoption of an amendment, confirmation of a nominee — a simple majority of those voting is enough. A 218–217 vote passes; so does a 50–49 vote. A tie fails, except in the Senate, where the Vice President may break a tie. This is not the rule for every decision. Suspension of the rules and veto overrides need two-thirds of those voting. Cloture on legislation needs three-fifths of all sworn senators. A treaty needs two-thirds of senators present. Read the question before you read the margin.
Legislation · H.Res., S.Res., House resolution, Senate resolution
H.Res. is a House simple resolution. S.Res. is a Senate simple resolution. Each chamber uses them for its own business: adopting its rules, creating some committees, expressing its views, or, in the House, setting the terms for considering a bill. The other chamber does not vote on it, and the President does not sign it. A House special rule is a simple resolution. It can govern how a bill is debated, but the rule is not the bill.
When Congress adjourns sine die, that session is over. At the end of the second session, the Congress is over, and bills that have not been enacted expire. They must be reintroduced in the next Congress. Sine die adjournment is also the setting in which a pocket veto is most clearly available, because the chambers are not sitting to receive a returned bill. A recess, including a pro forma schedule, is not sine die.
After enactment, the Government Publishing Office issues the law as a slip law, identified by its public-law or private-law number. The slip law is the official text until it is bound into the Statutes at Large for that period. The two should match. The slip law is not the United States Code. Codification, if it happens, comes later and may split the act across many sections.
The Speaker is the House’s presiding officer and the leader of the majority party’s floor operation. The Speaker recognizes members, refers measures on the advice of the parliamentarian, and decides which suspension motions to entertain. The Speaker signs enrolled bills. The Speaker is not the President of the Senate and is not a member of the Senate. Election of a Speaker is an internal House vote at the start of a Congress, not passage of a law.
Chambers use “special committee” for a body they create outside the list of standing committees, often to investigate one problem. Its authority, membership, and end date come from the resolution or law that created it. Do not infer from the adjective that it is weaker or shorter-lived than a select committee. Read the instrument that established it.
Members reserve special-order time to speak for a set period, often up to an hour, on a topic of their own. The speech is not debate on the bill the House just considered, and it cannot amend that bill. It is printed in the Record as a speech. It is different from a one-minute speech, which is brief and usually comes at the opening of the day, and from Senate morning business.
House procedure · rule, the rule, order of business resolution
A special rule is a simple resolution, H.Res., that governs consideration of a bill or resolution. It can limit debate, specify which amendments are in order, waive points of order, or deem text adopted. The House votes on the rule before it debates the measure under the rule’s terms. A vote for the rule is not a vote for the bill. If the rule fails, the measure is not considered under those terms. The Senate does not use a Rules Committee special rule; it uses unanimous consent agreements and cloture.
The sponsor is the member who files the measure. There is one sponsor in the bill-status record; other supporters are cosponsors. If the sponsor leaves office or gives up the bill, another member may be recorded as assuming sponsorship. Sponsorship does not give the member control of the floor schedule, and it is not a vote.
Legislative histories sometimes note that a member assumed first sponsorship. That is a change in who is responsible for the measure, often because the original sponsor left Congress or the committee. It is an administrative action. It is not introduction of a new bill, and it is not passage.
Standing committees are the regular legislative committees: Agriculture, Appropriations, Armed Services, and the rest listed in each chamber’s rules. They receive bill referrals, hold hearings, mark up measures, and report them to the parent chamber. They also oversee agencies in their jurisdiction. A subcommittee works under a standing committee. A select, special, or joint committee is created separately and is not a standing committee, even if it lasts for many years.
A star print corrects errors in an earlier print. The star is the printer’s signal that this copy supersedes the last one. It is a correction of the document, not a floor amendment and not a new vote.
A statute is an enacted law. In the federal system the official chronological text is the Statutes at Large, first issued as a slip law. A bill, a committee report, and a CRS summary are not statutes. “Statutory text” on this site means the enacted words, not the introduced bill. When people say “the statute” and then cite the United States Code, they may be citing a codification of the statute rather than the act itself.
The Statutes at Large print each public and private law in full, as enacted, along with concurrent resolutions and presidential proclamations. A citation such as 135 Stat. 429 points to a volume and page. That text is legal evidence of the law. The United States Code rearranges general and permanent provisions by subject; for titles that are not positive law, the Statutes control if the Code and the Statutes disagree. This site’s Statutes reader is that chronological text.
A structured rule is the usual modern special rule. The Rules Committee chooses which amendments the House may consider, how long each may be debated, and whether they can be amended further. Amendments not listed are not in order. A structured rule is more open than a closed rule and more restrictive than an open rule. The House still votes separately on each amendment the rule makes in order, unless the rule itself deems an amendment adopted.
Standing committees divide their work among subcommittees. A subcommittee may take testimony and may forward a measure to the full committee, with or without amendments. “Forwarded by subcommittee” means the full committee now has it. It does not mean the House or Senate has it. The full committee can ignore, change, or report the subcommittee’s recommendation.
A substitute proposes a complete alternative to the text then pending — the whole bill, or the whole first-degree amendment. An amendment in the nature of a substitute is the form that replaces everything after the enacting clause. A perfecting amendment, by contrast, leaves some of that text in place. When both a substitute and perfecting amendments are pending, the chamber has a set order for voting through the tree. Adopting a substitute swaps in the new text. It still leaves final passage for a later vote.
A supplemental appropriation adds budget authority for the current fiscal year on top of what the regular bills provided. Emergencies, wars, and disasters are typical reasons. It is enacted in a separate act, or in a division of a larger one, and it is available under the terms that act states. It is not an advance appropriation, which becomes available only in a future fiscal year, and it is not a continuing resolution, which bridges a gap in the regular bills.
Supplemental views are further statements by committee members printed in connection with a committee report, often after the main report or the first round of views. Like additional views and minority views, they explain a member’s position. They do not amend the measure and they are not a later vote of the committee.
A motion to suspend the rules and pass a bill, or agree to a resolution, limits debate to forty minutes and prohibits floor amendments and a motion to recommit. The motion needs two-thirds of the members present and voting, not two-thirds of the whole House. The Speaker decides whether to recognize the motion. Under the rules of the 119th Congress, suspension motions are generally in order on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and on other days only by unanimous consent or under a special rule. If the two-thirds vote fails, the measure is not rejected for good. The House may consider it again under a rule or under suspension in a different form.
Testimony is the witness’s evidence: an oral statement, answers to questions, and often a written statement for the record. It is part of the hearing, not part of the bill. Written testimony submitted for the record may never have been spoken aloud. Testimony does not change statutory text unless the committee later adopts language in a markup.
Congress.gov and GovInfo publish separate files for each stage of a measure. The version name says who produced that text and at what step. Dates and labels come from the source; this site does not invent a version that the source did not list. Two versions can share a date and still differ. Read the version that matches the question you are asking: introduced for the sponsor’s draft, engrossed for what one chamber passed, enrolled for what both chambers agreed to send on.
Rule XXII requires three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn to invoke cloture on most debatable questions. If 100 senators hold office, that is 60, and a senator who does not vote makes 60 harder to reach. It is not three-fifths of the senators who happen to vote. This threshold is why people say a bill needs 60 votes. That saying is about ending debate, not about the final passage vote, which is still a simple majority once debate is limited. Cloture on nominations is different: precedents allow a simple majority. Cloture to change the rules takes two-thirds of those present and voting.
A transfer moves existing budget authority between accounts. The government does not gain new authority; one account loses what the other gains. Congress must have authorized the transfer. That is different from reprogramming, which moves funds within a single account under committee guidelines. On a spending breakdown, a transfer is not added as new appropriations.
The Senate considers a treaty in executive session, not as a bill. The question is whether to agree to a resolution of ratification, which may include conditions, reservations, or understandings. Two-thirds of the Senators present must agree. The House does not vote on ratification. A treaty is not a public law, though Congress may later pass ordinary bills to carry it out. If the Senate does not act before the end of a Congress, the treaty can remain pending into the next Congress, unlike a bill.
“Two-thirds” is not one number. A veto override requires two-thirds of the members voting in that chamber, a quorum being present — not two-thirds of the entire membership. The same formula is used for a House motion to suspend the rules and, by long practice, for proposing a constitutional amendment. Senate consent to a treaty is two-thirds of the senators present. Expulsion of a member is two-thirds. Cloture on a proposal to amend the Senate’s standing rules is two-thirds of the senators present and voting. A two-thirds vote on one of these questions is not the ordinary threshold for passing a bill.
Both chambers transact routine business by unanimous consent: dispensing with a reading, correcting a text, or taking up a noncontroversial matter. The presiding officer states the request. If any member objects, it fails. Unanimous consent is real action, but it leaves no yea-and-nay tally. In the Senate, a fuller unanimous consent agreement sets the terms of debate on a measure. That is a different and more important instrument than a one-time request to skip a formality.
Senate procedure · UCA, time agreement, consent agreement
A unanimous consent agreement limits debate, lists the amendments that will be in order, sets the time for votes, or otherwise structures floor consideration. It is the Senate’s usual substitute for a House special rule. Because any senator can object, leaders negotiate the agreement in advance. A hold is a warning that a senator intends to object. If the agreement is adopted, it binds the Senate for that measure. It does not pass the measure. The votes it schedules still have to be taken.
Documents and sources · U.S. Code, U.S.C., the Code
The United States Code gathers general and permanent federal statutes into titles and sections. A Code citation, such as 26 U.S.C. § 61, points to that arrangement. It may combine pieces of many public laws, and an amending act may change only a few words of a section. The Code is prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. For titles enacted as positive law, the title is legal evidence of the law. For other titles, the Code is prima facie evidence, and the Statutes at Large control in a conflict. Appropriations, private laws, and expired provisions often never appear as Code sections.
A regular veto happens when the President refuses to sign a bill and returns it, with a veto message, to the chamber where it originated. The bill is not law. That chamber may vote on whether to pass it “notwithstanding the objections of the President.” An override requires two-thirds of the members voting in each chamber, a quorum being present. If either chamber falls short, the veto stands. A pocket veto is the different case in which adjournment prevents a return.
After a regular veto, the originating chamber votes first on overriding. If two-thirds of the members present and voting agree, the bill and the veto message go to the other chamber. The bill becomes law only if that chamber also produces a two-thirds vote. One chamber’s override vote is not enactment. A failed override means the veto stands. There is no override vote after a pocket veto, because the President has not returned the bill.
The chair puts the question, members answer aye or no, and the chair announces the result. A voice vote decides the question if no one demands a division or a recorded vote. The Record does not list who was on which side. On this site, a legislative history may say a measure passed by voice vote. There will be no roll-call page for that decision, because no roll was called.
Every recorded vote decides a question: on passage, on an amendment, on the previous question, on a motion to recommit, on cloture, on a motion to table, on agreeing to a conference report, or on confirmation. The yea total is support for that question only. A member can vote yea on an amendment and nay on passage, or yea on cloture and nay on the bill. This site prints the question on the vote page. Start there.
Each party in each chamber elects a whip. The whip’s job is political and organizational: finding out how members intend to vote and urging attendance. The whip is not the parliamentarian and does not rule on procedure. A “whip count” is an internal tally, not a roll-call vote of the chamber.
The President may withdraw a nomination that the Senate has not yet decided. Withdrawal ends that nomination. It is not a rejection, and it is not a return under the adjournment rule. The President may submit a new nomination later. On this site, “Withdrawn” means the President took that step.
A great deal of routine business is done “without objection”: skipping a reading, agreeing to a small fix, or taking up an uncontroversial matter. The presiding officer asks whether there is objection. If no member says “I object,” the request is agreed to. One objection stops it. Action without objection is real congressional action, but it is not a recorded vote, and it does not show how many members favored the result.
A witness appears before a committee to give testimony. Witnesses include executive-branch officials, outside experts, and members of the public. Being a witness is not a congressional office, and a witness’s statement is not a congressional action. The committee decides whom to invite, within its rules.
Yea means the member supported the question the chair put. On a voice vote the corresponding word is aye. A yea on passage supports passing the measure. A yea on an amendment supports the amendment. A yea on cloture supports limiting debate, not necessarily the bill. This site uses the official roll call’s label, which is yea and nay rather than yes and no.
The Constitution lets one-fifth of the members present require that the yeas and nays be entered in the Journal. When a history says “yeas and nays ordered,” the chamber has agreed to take a recorded vote. The result comes on the later vote. In the House, a recorded vote by electronic device is the everyday equivalent. In the Senate, the yeas and nays are how a roll-call vote is ordered. Ordering them does not predict the outcome.