While this is obviously somewhat intended as a counter to recent events, and therefore I'm going to need a bit of time to evaluate this rules change in full, I think OBD has the right of it here broadly speaking.
Question: If a motion for a final vote is made before an amendment is proposed after enough time has elapsed for a final vote to be motioned for, can a vote on cloture be opened, assuming that the Senator(s) supporting the amendment oppose a final vote?
Or will all amendments be voted on before a final vote motion is recognized for objection and/or cloture is voted on?
Question: If a motion for a final vote is made before an amendment is proposed after enough time has elapsed for a final vote to be motioned for, can a vote on cloture be opened, assuming that the Senator(s) supporting the amendment oppose a final vote?
Or will all amendments be voted on before a final vote motion is recognized for objection and/or cloture is voted on?
If anyone can answer this question it would be greatly appreciated. The answer to these two questions will inform my stance on the amendment and the proposal as a whole.
I believe that all amendments will and should be voted on before moving to a final vote.
Re: Westy's question. As far as the PPT is concerned these amendments, motions for final votes, and so on are simply a queue of motions to be processed. Pushing these motions into consideration according to their placement in the queue
should be the bulk of the PPT's actions outside of discretion in dumping frivolous amendments and the like. Under existing rules, if cloture is invoked based on a motion made
before an amendment was offered, then that amendment won't be considered since it came second in the queue.
The correct way to deal with this is simple; if a motion for a final vote is presented and other amdendments are presented afterward, once the motion for vote has been on the floor for a certain period of time (say, a week) the person making a final vote can call for a vote on whether or not to move the final vote ahead of the proposed amendments; if the side in favor succeeds then final vote is immediate. This way any amendments proposed before the final vote motion is made still can get guaranteed consideration but you also just can’t block bills forever.
In fact, you can even allow amendments proposed, say, in the 48 hours after the final vote motion to get guaranteed consideration as well, so long as you can’t keep proposing things forever.
Aside from the part about a week elapsing, isn't this basically what we already have? Functionally an objection to a motion for a final vote has the same effect, just with the two sides swapped, and doesn't require the PPT to sit on their hands for a week or however long the period is.
