Reader Comment 10-27-09 Second Session

Yesterday our good friend Anonymous apparently caught me out in a parliamentary error in a comment posted to my blog from last week about the HR 2868 markup. Anonymous wrote: “Wait. Why? Cant the process continue through the second session of the 111th Congress?” When I wrote that the process would have to start over again next year I had made an examination of pages 307-310 of the House Rules Manual and its discussion of the term “session”. This would seem to indicate that uncompleted business at the end of the session died. Looking back at some bills that were introduced in the first session of the 110th Congress, there were certainly some bills that had actions conducted in both sessions. So, it would seem that the wording of the resolution ending the first session can allow that bills filed in the first session can be carried over to the second session of a Congress. If anyone has any better source of explanation of what happens to bills in progress at the end of a session, please let me know.