In
parliamentary procedureParliamentary procedure is the body of rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings and other operations of clubs, organizations, legislative bodies, and other deliberative assemblies...
,
cloture , also called
closure and sometimes a
guillotine, is a
motionA motion, in parliamentary procedure, is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. The numerous types of motions include those that bring new business before the assembly as well as numerous other motions to take procedural steps or carry out...
or process aimed at bringing
debateDebate or debating is a formal method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examine the consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examine what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is technique of...
to a quick end.
The procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name (from
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
clôture, meaning "ending" or "conclusion") is taken. It was introduced into the United Kingdom Parliament by William Gladstone to overcome the obstruction of the Irish nationalist party and was made permanent in 1887.
In
parliamentary procedureParliamentary procedure is the body of rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings and other operations of clubs, organizations, legislative bodies, and other deliberative assemblies...
,
cloture , also called
closure and sometimes a
guillotine, is a
motionA motion, in parliamentary procedure, is a formal proposal by a member of a deliberative assembly that the assembly take certain action. The numerous types of motions include those that bring new business before the assembly as well as numerous other motions to take procedural steps or carry out...
or process aimed at bringing
debateDebate or debating is a formal method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examine the consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examine what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is technique of...
to a quick end.
The procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name (from
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
clôture, meaning "ending" or "conclusion") is taken. It was introduced into the United Kingdom Parliament by William Gladstone to overcome the obstruction of the Irish nationalist party and was made permanent in 1887. It was subsequently adopted by the
United States SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators,...
and other legislatures.
United Kingdom
A motion for closure may be adopted in both the
House of CommonsThe House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 646 members, who are known as "Members...
and in the
House of LordsThe House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is also commonly referred to as "the Lords". Parliament comprises the Sovereign, the House of Commons , and the Lords...
by a
simple majoritySimple majority may refer to:In American and Canadian usage:* Majority, a voting requirement of more than half of all ballots castUsage elsewhere:* Plurality, a voting requirement of more ballots cast for a proposition than for any other option...
of those voting. In the House of Commons, at least one hundred Members must vote in favour of the motion for closure to be adopted; the
Speaker of the House of CommonsIn the United Kingdom, the Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, and is seen historically as the First Commoner of the Land. The present Speaker is John Bercow, who was elected on 22 June 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin.The Speaker...
may choose to deny the closure motion if he feels that insufficient debate has occurred, or that the procedure is being used to violate the rights of the minority. The government often imposes a timetable on legislation in advance by way of a
programme motion, under which debate automatically ceases when the allotted time expires. In the House of Lords, the
Lord SpeakerThe Lord Speaker is the speaker of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The office is analogous to the Speaker of the House of Commons: the Lord Speaker is "appointed" by the members of the House of Lords and is expected to be politically impartial...
does not possess an equivalent power. Programme motions are often referred to as "guillotines" but never as clotures.
It's like a umpire ending an argument with a manager by tossing him out of the game.
United States
A similar procedure was adopted in the United States of America in response to the actions of isolationist senators who attempted to talk out, or
filibusterA filibuster, or "talking out a bill", is a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body whereby one attempts to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a proposal by extending a debate on that proposal....
, a bill to arm U.S. merchant ships. President
Woodrow WilsonThomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
urged the Senate to change its rules to thwart what he called a "little group of willful men", to which the Senate responded by introducing cloture in the form of Rule 22 on March 8, 1917. Cloture was invoked for the first time on November 15, 1919, during the
66th CongressThe Sixty-sixth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, comprising the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from March 4, 1919 to March 4, 1921, during the last two years of...
, to end filibuster on the
Treaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
.
The cloture rule originally required a
supermajorityA supermajority or a qualified majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level or type of support which exceeds majority. In some jurisdictions, for example, parliamentary procedure requires that any action that may alter the rights of the minority has a supermajority requirement...
of two-thirds of all senators "present and voting" to be considered
filibuster-proof. For example, if all 100 Senators voted on a cloture motion, 67 of those votes would have to be for cloture for it to pass; however if some Senators were absent and only 80 Senators voted on a cloture motion, only 54 would have to vote in favor. However, it proved very difficult to achieve this; the Senate tried eleven times between 1927 and 1962 to invoke cloture but failed each time. Filibuster was particularly heavily used by Democratic Senators from Southern states to block
civil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights and freedoms that protect individuals from unwarranted government action and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression....
legislation.
In 1975, the
Democratic Senate majorityThe Ninety-fourth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1975 to January 3, 1977, during the administration...
, having achieved a net gain of four seats in the 1974 Senate elections to a strength of 61 (with an additional Independent caucusing with them for a total of 62), reduced the necessary supermajority to three-fifths (60 out of 100). However, as a compromise to those who were against the revision, the new rule also changed the requirement for determining the number of votes needed for a cloture motion's passage from those Senators "present and voting" to those Senators "duly chosen and sworn". Thus, 60 votes for cloture would be necessary regardless of whether every Senator voted. The only time a lesser number would become acceptable is when a Senate seat is vacant. (For example, if there were two vacancies in the Senate, thereby making 98 Senators "duly chosen and sworn", it would only take 59 votes for a cloture motion to pass.)
The new version of the cloture rule, which has remained in place since 1975, makes it considerably easier for the Senate majority to invoke cloture. This has considerably strengthened the power of the majority, and allowed it to pass many bills that would otherwise have been filibustered. (The Democratic Party had held a two-thirds majority in the
89th CongressThe Eighty-ninth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1965 to January 3, 1967, during the third and fourth...
of 1965, but regional divisions among Democrats meant that many filibusters were invoked by Southern Democrats against civil rights bills supported by the Northern wing of the party.) Some senators wanted to reduce it to a simple majority (51 out of 100) but this was rejected, as it would greatly diminish the ability of the minority to check the majority.
The three-fifths version of the cloture rule does not apply to motions to end filibusters relating to Senate Rule changes. In order to invoke cloture to end debate over changing the Senate Rules, the original version of the rule (two-thirds of those Senators "present and voting") still applies.
The procedure for "invoking cloture," or ending a filibuster, is as follows:
- A minimum of sixteen senators must sign a petition for cloture.
- The petition may be presented by interrupting another Senator's speech.
- The clerk reads the petition.
- The cloture petition is ignored for one full day during which the Senate is sitting (If the petition is filed on a Friday, it is ignored until Monday, assuming that the Senate did not sit on Saturday or Sunday.)
- On the second calendar day during which the Senate sits after the presentation of the petition, after the Senate has been sitting for one hour, a "quorum call
A quorum call or call to quorum is a parliamentary procedure used to summon absent members of a deliberative body if a quorum is not present. Since attendance at debates is not mandatory in most legislatures, it is often the case that a quorum of members is not present while debate is ongoing...
" is undertaken to ensure that a majority of the Senators are present.
- The President of the Senate
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term...
or President pro temporeThe President pro tempore is the second-highest-ranking official of the United States Senate and the highest-ranking senator. The U.S...
presents the petition.
- The Senate votes on the petition; three-fifths of the whole number of Senators (sixty with no vacancies) is the required majority; however, when cloture is invoked on a question of changing the rules of the Senate, two-thirds of the Senators voting (not necessarily two-thirds of all Senators) is the requisite majority.
After cloture has been invoked, the following restrictions apply:
- No more than thirty hours of debate may occur.
- No Senator may speak for more than one hour.
- No amendment
A bill is a proposed new law introduced for debate within a legislature. Even after a bill has been passed by the legislature, it is still formally called a "bill"...
s may be moved unless they were filed on the day in between the presentation of the petition and the actual cloture vote.
- All amendments must be relevant to the debate.
- Certain debates on procedure are not permissible.
- The presiding officer
The Presiding Officer is the person who presides over the United States Senate and is charged with maintaining order and decorum, recognizing members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices and precedents....
gains additional power in controlling debate.
- No other matters may be considered until the question upon which cloture was invoked is disposed of.
The ability to invoke cloture was last attained by a US political party in the
111th CongressThe One Hundred Eleventh United States Congress is the current meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It began during the last two weeks of the George W. Bush administration, with the remainder spanning the...
, by the Democrats, with the help of two independents..
