TheGrandRascal

My understanding is that, no, the rule may not be suspended. That being said, there is a vast difference between suspending a rule, and superceding it. Adopting a special rule of order is the way to go here: any adopted special rule of order overrides the adopted Parliamentary authority. However, I don't see that you've stopped to consider why unfinished business falls to the ground when an assembly with members with defined terms of membership has some or all of its member's terms expire. My opinion? It's because otherwise it would force the new, incoming members -- who haven't yet debated, researched, or otherwise considered, the pending unfinished business (and who perhaps, for that matter, haven't yet even heard of them!) -- to go up against the other members, who presumably have had plenty of time to debate, research, and consider them. In other words, without this rule, the incoming members would be on an unequal footing with the incumbents. By forcing the unfinished business to fall to the ground, the rule forces those unfinished issues to be taken up de novo -- that is, "as if new," or right from the beginning, all over again. That way, everyone gets an equal crack at them.

Tomm, If the House passes the stimulus package by voice vote... well, the stimulus package passes (assuming a quorum was preasent). There is no requirement, either in the Constitution or in the law, that all votes of the House must be by "yeas and nays" (which appears to be what you are assuming to be true). By Constitutional provision, one-third of the members have the power to order a recorded vote...but they don't have to. And in this case, they apparently didn't.

This is what I understand the motion to "Lay On The Table" to have been in it's original form: The assembly's agenda basically consisted of a huge stack of (proposed) motions and resolutions lying on the Clerk's table; as each previous item of business was completed, the Clerk would take the topmost item from that stack and read it to the assembly. If it was voted to "Lay The Question On The Table," the Clerk would lift up that massive stack of papers, and place the (formerly) pending matter -- the paper he was just reading -- immediately below th at stack -- literally, "on the table" -- then deposit the stack of resolutions -- ker-PLOP! on top of it. Thus that piece of business went from pending to the bottom of the stack (i.e., the very end of the agenda)... wherefrom, in due time, it would eventually recur. Am I correct in thinking that a motion that a pending matter "be now moved to the foot of the agenda" woud be a midern-day equivalent of the original motion to "Lay On The Table" in modern dress?* ----- * It is cannot be an exact equivalent, alas, because the "modern" form must be adopted by a two-thirds vote, both because it deals with the priority of business, and also because it is a variation of the motion to "Suspend The Rules." --TheGrandRascal Wed., 01-Apr-2020 at 06:10am EDT (-0400 GMT).