Germane Amendment?

[charler2]

This may seem to be a dumb/already answered question, but did I remember something about "germane amendments" coming into play during S.1805?

Something about if the amendment is not directly related to the bill at hand, it requires 60 Senate votes rather than a simple majority. I recall this to be part of the reason that the retirement benefit amendment (going off fuzzy recolection) did not pass with a majority.

Does this stand to reason that if the AWB is attached to a non-firearms bill it will require 60 votes rather than 51?

 

[charler2]

I felt this was a reasonable question. Am I to assume nobody knows if the AWB is attached to a non-germane bill wheter it will require 51 or 60 votes?

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Does not apply to the Senate.

Amendments and the Germaneness Rule

The rules of the House prohibit amendments of a subject matter different from the text under consideration. This rule, commonly known as the germaneness rule, is considered the single most important rule of the House of Representatives because of the obvious need to keep the focus of a body the size of the House on a predictable subject matter. The germaneness rule applies to the proceedings in the House, the Committee of the Whole, and the standing committees. There are hundreds of prior rulings or "precedents'' on germaneness available to guide the Chair.

HOW OUR LAWS ARE MADE by Charles W. Johnson, Parliamentarian, U.S. House of Representatives