APPENDIX D: AMENDMENTS Floor Amendments Floor amendments are covered as separate records in three of the current systems on the Hill (House, Senate, and Library) and in the various commercial systems that include legislative information (Congressional Quarterly Washington Alert, Legi-Slate, and NEXIS/LEXIS). Floor amendment coverage in the new legislative information system should continue some of the unique features of the current Hill systems and expand on the current material by: (1) providing enhanced amendment information; (2) establishing links to related documents; (3) continuing to provide amendment records as separate entities and as part of the larger bill status information; and (4) continuing the capacity to generate numerical totals. (1) Enhanced Amendment Information Amendment information should include amendment number (with a permanent sequential numbering system for both the House and the Senate), text, an augmented description, popular title(s), status information, and sponsor/cosponsor information. The list of recommendations below provides more information on each of these elements. Establish a permanent sequential numbering system for House amendments. This would be similar to the Senate system, so that every amendment has a unique, permanent number. Identifying House amendments and locating information on them is complicated because amendments are assigned a temporary number in relationship to a bill. This temporary number bears no relation to the computer-generated amendment number subsequently used in SCORPIO, HIR, etc. Provide the text of the amendment (including amendments in the nature of a substitute). If the amendment is revised, provide the text of the original and the revised amendment(s). Provide links between the original amendment and any revised versions. Also provide links to Congressional Record page cites for these texts. Add the Daily Digest description of the amendment or another value-added description (for comprehension/augmented retrieval). D-2 Example of Value Added Descriptions to an Amendment Text (H. Amdt. 274 to H.R. 2492 in the 102nd Congress) Text of amendment (from the Daily Digest description of amendment: Other value-added description of amendment (based on information given in Rep. Burton's floor statement about the amendment): Amendment offered by Mr. Burton The Burton of Indiana amendment Burton (Indiana) amendment offered in Committee of the Whole. To delete $1 for a bicycle path in Macomb County, Michigan (part of the Urban Highway Corridor and Bicycle Transportation Demonstration Project). Note: H. Amdt. 274 is the computer-generated amendment number for this Burton amendment but the number 274 is not specified in the Congressional Record in relation to the amendment. As noted above, this complicates searching for information on amendments. Add popular amendment titles (titles frequently used to refer to the legislation, especially in the press) to aid in identifying specific amendments. Example: The popular title of Senate amendment 2280 to H.R. 4 in the 104th Congress is noted in SCORPIO as the Welfare Reform bill. This helps to clarify the official amendment purpose "Of a perfecting nature." This type of information is currently compiled by the Senate Library and CRS and added to SCORPIO by CRS. Include status information on amendments with Congressional Record page cites. The CRS Bill Status Committee, an in-house working group, recommended the following amendment status steps; amendments are PROPOSED", OFFERED12, CONSIDERED, AGREED TO, REJECTED, TABLED, WITHDRAWN, FELL ON POINT OF ORDER. Provide links to Congressional Record pages containing the transcript of these actions, including direct links to vote results. "PROPOSED would be used when the amendment is first submitted by a Member. Links would be to the "Amendments Submitted" (Senate) and "Amendments" (House) sections of the Congressional Record. 12OFFERED would be used when the amendment is offered on the floor. D-3 Examples of Amendment Status Information 7-24-91 BURTON (R-Indiana) amendment #274 to H.R. 2942 offered in Committee of the Whole. To delete $1 million for a bicycle path in Macomb County, Michigan (part of the Urban Highway Corridor and Bicycle Transportation Demonstration Project). Text of amendment. (CR H5790) 7-24-91 BURTON (R-Indiana) amendment #274 considered in 7-24-91 3-11-93 3-11-93 3-11-93 BURTON (R-Indiana) amendment #274 rejected in NICKLES (R-Oklahoma) amendment #80 to S. 460 offered in appropriations have been authorized to pay the state's costs NICKLES (R-Oklahoma) amendment #80 considered in NICKLES (R-Oklahoma) amendment #80 tabled in Senate. (2) Links to Related Documents There should be links between all related documents or sections of documents. Some examples would include: Links between amendments and the bills/sections of bills they would amend. Links between original amendments and any revised versions. Links between first degree and second degree amendments and other procedurally related amendments. Links between amendment records and Congressional Record pages containing the text, debates, votes, etc. on that amendment. Links between amendments and CRS reports/sections of reports about that amendment. D-4 (3) Amendment Records as Separate Entities and as Part of Bill Status SCORPIO currently provides amendment records as separate entities and as part of the bill status section of the bill record13. The commercial legislative databases do not treat amendments as separate entities but note amendment information only as part of the bill status information. This makes it harder to provide complete information about the discrete amendment (for example, where action on the amendment spans several days and is interrupted by other actions) or to generate the type of numerical totals described below. The recommended situation is to have full amendment status information (with appropriate links to the text of the amendment and to other documents) in both the amendment record and the bill status record. (4) The Capacity to Generate Numerical Totals SCORPIO currently provides the capacity to generate numerical totals by browsing an appropriate entry in the alphabetical index to the Bill Digest file. This makes it possible, for example, to view the total number of House amendments proposed in the current and previous Congresses (without generating a list of all the amendments and counting them). This same capacity is recommended for the new legislative information system and would be used to answer questions like: The number of amendments sponsored by a Member. The number of amendments that passed on the Senate floor during the first session of the 104th Congress and breakdowns by voice vote, unanimous consent, or recorded vote. The number of amendments in the nature of substitutes that passed the 13Not all SCORPIO amendment information is currently present in both amendment and bill records, primarily because the information comes from separate sources and has never been successfully amalgamated. For example, Congressional Record page cites for the text of an amendment are currently only part of the bill record and the amendment description indicating the effect of the amendment is currently only part of the amendment record. D-5 Committee Amendments Amendments at the committee and subcommittee level should be covered in the legislative information system. Current systems on the Hill note in their bill status information that mark-up sessions have been held but do not provide details of what happened or the amendments offered. Congressional Quarterly (CQ) and Legi-Slate both write summaries of markups that include detailed descriptions of amendments offered, the final status of the amendment, and vote information. In addition, Legi-Slate weaves Member statements (generally brief sound-bite quotations) about the bill throughout their markup summary. Example of Amendment Information in the CQ and Legi-Slate Summaries of a May 18, 1995 Markup of H.R. 1530, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 1996 CQ: The full (House National Security) Committee (Chairman Spence, RS.C.) approved legislation (HR1530) that would reauthorize programs at the Department of Defense and related agencies for fiscal year 1996. ... Committee Vote: Authorization/Abortion. Delauro, D-Conn, amendment to strike provisions prohibiting privately-funded abortions for members of the armed forces at overseas military hospitals. Rejected 20-32; R 3-25; D 17-7, May 24, 1995. [Individual Yeas, Nays, Not Voting records follow] 15 Legi-Slate: The House National Security Committee today reported the bill (HR 1530] authorizing funds for the Defense Department for fiscal 1996. ... Delauro offered an amendment that would have overturned a provision prohibiting abortions from being performed at military installations abroad. She said the debate over the amendment was "simply over the right to choose." "How can you say to someone you have the right to go fight for our country but when you're offshore you won't have the same rights" as in the U.S.," Pat Schroeder (D-CO) added. Although the amendment stipulated that taxpayer money would not be used to pay for overseas abortions, Dornan said using the country's military facilities to do the abortions still involved taxpayer funds. The amendment was defeated in a 20-32 roll call vote. "Federal News Service also completely transcribes selected newsworthy markups. States News Service compiles markup summaries which are available on NEXIS and elsewhere, but these are much less detailed than those written by CQ and Legi-Slate. States News Service also seems to be missing many markups, especially recently. 16These individual Member voting records are also available in Legi-Slate in a separate Votes file. |