Even more important is the absence in the standing rules of any general requirement that the amendments which Senators offer on the floor must be germane or relevant to the bill being considered. The rules impose a germaneness requirement only on amendments to general appropriations and budget measures and to matters being considered under cloture. (Various statutes impose such a requirement on a limited number of other bills.) In all other cases, Senators are free to propose whatever amendments they choose on whatever subjects to whatever bill the Senate happens to be considering.
The right to offer non-germane amendments is extraordinarily important because it permits Senators to present issues to the Senate for debate and decision, without regard to the judgments of the Senate's committees or the scheduling decisions and preferences of its Majority Leader. Again consider the position of a Senator whose bill is not being acted on by the committee to which it was referred. Instead of introducing an identical bill and having it placed directly on the Calendar, he or she has a second and usually more attractive option: to offer the text of the bill as a floor amendment to another bill that has reached the floor and that can serve as a useful legislative "vehicle."
The existence of this opportunity can make it extremely difficult to anticipate what will happen to a bill when it reaches the floor and how much of the Senate's time it will consume. The party leaders and the floor managers of the bill may know what amendments on the subject of the bill will be offered, but they cannot be certain that there will be no other, far more controversial, non-germane amendments. In fact, it is not unusual for one or more non-germane amendments to occupy the Senate's attention far more than the subject the bill itself addresses.
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