Fast-Track or Expedited Procedures: Their Purposes, Elements, and Implications

Publication Date: July 2003

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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Research Area: Government

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Abstract:

“Fast-track” or expedited procedures are special legislative procedures that apply to one or both houses of Congress and that expedite, or put on a fast track, congressional consideration of a certain measure or a narrowly defined class of measures.

Congress typically has enacted sets of expedited procedures into law when (1) the same law imposes a deadline for congressional action on a measure in one or both houses, and (2) Congress wants to ensure, or at least increase the likelihood, that the House and Senate have an opportunity to vote on the measure before the deadline is reached. Most often, these procedures have applied to action on joint resolutions by which Congress can disapprove some action that the President or an executive branch official proposes to take. In other cases, Congress has enacted fast-track procedures to expedite House and Senate action on a bill that is a “package proposal” recommended by the President to address a complex and multi-faceted issue.

To achieve their purpose, fast-track procedures may (1) set a time limit for the committee of jurisdiction to report the measure; (2) prevent that committee from killing the measure by failing to act on it; (3) make the measure privileged for floor consideration, either immediately or after a brief layover period, whether the measure was reported from the committee of jurisdiction or that committee was discharged; (4) prohibit floor amendments, including committee amendments, and impose stringent time limits on debate during floor consideration of the measure and all questions relating to it; and (5) provide for prompt floor consideration, with little or no debate, of any identical companion bill or resolution received from the other house. Not all sets of expedited procedures have included all these provisions. However, failing to include any one of them, whether accidentally or deliberately, can create significant opportunities for delay or inaction in one or both houses.

To greater or lesser degrees, expedited procedures are inconsistent with at least five characteristics of the more conventional procedures of the House and Senate. Fast-track procedures (1) impinge on the ability of committees to control their agendas, schedules, and workloads; (2) create exceptions to the general practice that the House and Senate usually consider only measures that have been approved by their committees; (3) intrude on the power of a voting majority on the House or Senate to determine whether a measure will be considered on the floor; (4) reduce the authority of the majority party and its leaders to set the floor agenda and the daily floor schedule; and (5) deny the House and Senate the ability they usually have to set conditions for floor debate and amendment that are appropriate for each measure that is considered. However, the house to which a set of expedited procedures applies is free to enforce, amend, waive, suspend, ignore, or even repeal them as it sees fit, just as if they were standing rules.

Fast-track procedures can be useful or necessary if Congress is to reach certain legislative goals. Expedited procedures may be evaluated, therefore, by asking if or when their utility justifies setting aside the Congress’s usual procedures and the principles and relationships these procedures embody.