Unanimous Consent Agreements in the Senate


 

Publication Date: February 2001

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Government

Type:

Abstract:

The Senate is fundamentally a “unanimous consent” institution. This means that the rules and precedents of the Senate are set aside regularly by the unanimous consent of the membership. Party leaders and other Senators propound unanimous consent requests every day the Senate is in session. Without its tradition of unanimous consent, the Senate would find it harder to process its complex workload.