A discharge petition is a means of bringing a bill out of committee and to the floor for consideration without a report from a Committee and usually without cooperation of the leadership. Discharge petitions are most often associated with the U.S. House of Representatives, though many state legislatures have similar procedures. They 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. A successful petition "discharges" the committee from further consideration of a bill or resolution and brings it directly to the floor. 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. The modern discharge petition requires the signature of an absolute majority of House members (218 members).
Read more about Discharge Petition: History and Process, Usage, Versions Other Than The U.S. House
Famous quotes containing the words discharge and/or petition:
““Weren’t you relieved to find he wasn’t dead?”
“No! and yet I don’t know it’s hard to say.
I went about to kill him fair enough.”
“You took an awkward way. Did he discharge you?”
“Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Clay answered the petition by declaring that while he looked on the institution of slavery as an evil, it was ‘nothing in comparison with the far greater evil which would inevitably flow from a sudden and indiscriminate emancipation.’”
—State of Indiana, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)