Discharge petition

In United States parliamentary procedure, a discharge petition is a means of bringing a bill out of committee and to the floor for consideration without a report from the committee by "discharging" the committee from further consideration of a bill or resolution.

Discharge petitions are most often associated with the U.S. House of Representatives, though many state legislatures in the United States have similar procedures. There, discharge petitions are used when the chair of a committee refuses to place a bill or resolution on the Committee's agenda: by never reporting a bill, the matter will never leave the committee, and the full House will not be able to consider it. The discharge petition, and the threat of one, gives more power to individual members of the House and usurps a small amount of power from the leadership and committee chairs. In the U.S. House, successful discharge petitions are rare, as the signatures of an absolute majority of House members are required.

An early form of the discharge petition was introduced into U.S. House rules in 1910 as part of a series of measures intended to check the power of the disliked Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon (R–Illinois). The modern version, however, was adopted in 1931 by the 71st House. In 1935, the rules were changed so the number of signatures required to force a vote went from one-third of the chamber (145 votes) to an absolute majority (218 votes).

Originally, signatories to a discharge petition were secret. Only once the petition acquired a majority would the clerk announce who signed. In 1993, the procedure was changed to make every step of the process public, with signers published in the Congressional Record. This change was spearheaded by then–Rep. Jim Inhofe (R–Oklahoma).

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