AMENDMENTS BETWEEN THE HOUSES.
When either house, _e. g._, the House of Commons, sends a bill to the
other, the other may pass it with amendments. The regular progression in
this case is, that the Commons disagree to the amendment; the Lords
insist on it; the Commons insist on their disagreement; the Lords adhere
to their amendment; the Commons adhere to their disagreement. The term
of insisting may be repeated as often as they choose to keep the
question open. But the first adherence by either renders it necessary
for the other to recede or adhere also; when the matter is usually
suffered to fall. _10 Grey_, 148. Latterly, however, there are instances
of their having gone to a second adherence. There must be an absolute
conclusion of the subject somewhere, or otherwise transactions between
the houses would become endless. 3 _Hats._, 268, 270. The term of
insisting, we are told by Sir John Trevor, was then (1679) newly
introduced into parliamentary usage by the Lords. 7 _Grey_, 94. It was
certainly a happy innovation, as it multiplies the opportunities of
trying modifications which may bring the houses to concurrence. Either
house, however, is free to pass over the term of insisting, and to
adhere in the first instance (_10 Grey_, 146); but it is not respectful
to the other. In the ordinary parliamentary course, there are two free
conferences, at least before an adherence. _10 Grey_, 147.
Either house may recede from its amendment and agree to the bill; or
recede from their disagreement to the amendment, and agree to the same
absolutely, or with an amendment; for here the disagreement and receding
destroy one another, and the subject stands as before the disagreement.
_Elsynge_, 23, 27; 9 _Grey_, 476.
But the House cannot recede from, or insist on its own amendment, with
an amendment; for the same reason that it cannot send to the other house
an amendment to its own act after it has passed the act. They may
modify an amendment from the other house by ingrafting an amendment on
it, because they have never assented to it; but they cannot amend their
own amendment, because they have, on the question passed it in that
form. 9 _Grey_, 363; _10 Grey_, 240. In the Senate, March 29, 1798. Nor
where one house has adhered to their amendment, and the other agrees
with an amendment, can the first house depart from the form which they
have fixed by an adherence.
In the case of a money bill, the Lords’ proposed amendments become, by
delay, confessedly necessary. The Commons, however, refused them, as
infringing on their privileges as to money bills; but they offered
themselves to add to the bill a proviso to the same effect, which had no
coherence with the Lords’ amendments; and urged that it was an expedient
warranted by precedent, and not unparliamentary in a case become
impracticable, and irremediable in any other way. 3 _Hats._, 256, 266,
270, 271. But the Lords refused, and the bill was lost. 1 _Chand._, 288.
A like case, 1 _Chand._, 311. So the Commons resolved that it was
unparliamentary to strike out, at a conference, anything in a bill which
had been agreed and passed by both Houses. 6 _Grey_, 274; 1 _Chand._,
312.
A motion to amend an amendment from the other House takes precedence of
a motion to agree or disagree.
A bill originating in one House is passed by the other with an
amendment.
The originating House agrees to their amendment with an amendment. The
other may agree to their amendment with an amendment, that being only in
the 2d and not the 3d degree; for, as to the amending House, the first
amendment with which they passed the bill is a part of its text; it is
the only text they have agreed to. The amendment to that text by the
originating House, therefore, is only in the 1st degree, and the
amendment to that again by the amending House is only in the 2d, to wit:
an amendment to an amendment, and so admissible. Just so, when, on a
bill from the originating House, the other, at its second reading makes
an amendment; on the third reading this amendment is become the text of
the bill, and if an amendment to it be moved, an amendment to that
amendment may also be moved, as being only in the 2d degree.