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Essay On Unanimous Consent

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The idea of unanimous consent in the United States Senate is to speed up proceedings. The Senate’s job is incredibly hard and they deal with hefty amounts of legislation every day. Therefore, they need a process that expedites their work. Instead of having to vote on every matter, unanimous consent allows the Senate to move on from basic procedures. If a Senator motions for unanimous consent on the floor and everyone agrees, the action is permitted. However, if one Senator objects, the original Senator’s action is denied. There are two kinds of unanimous consent in the modern Senate: simple and complex. Simple unanimous consent is used for non-controversial matters, such as a quorum. On the other hand, complex unanimous consent is, usually, an agreement between the party elites on how a certain piece of legislation will be dealt with. The process starts with a motion from any senator and ends with either unanimous consent or an objection. Unanimous consent allows the Senate to bypass basic procedures immediately, limit debate, and form the amendment process. Senate Rules implore Senators to debate, debate, debate. However, unanimous consent bypasses a lot of debate for the sake of …show more content…

The process begins with a signed motion by 16 senators during the matter which they want to end. The cloture is presented to the Senate, but is usually not decided on until two session days after. During that time, the Senate moves on to other matters until the presiding officer calls for a vote after a quorum is established. A cloture always has a roll call vote and for it to pass, it needs three-fifths of the whole Senate (so >60 votes). However, if the cloture is used to end debate on amending Senate rules, it needs two-thirds of the entire Senate to pass. If the cloture passes, it cannot be reconsidered, but if fails to pass, it can be

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