Pairing in Congressional Voting: The House

Publication Date: March 2001

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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Research Area: Government

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Abstract:

Under Rule XX, clause 3, the practice of “pairing” involves – under certain procedural circumstances – a Member who is absent during a vote on the House floor arranging with a Member on the opposite side of a specific question who is present during a vote to announce that the Member who is present is forming a “pair” with the absent Member, thus allowing the absent Member to have recorded how he would have voted had he been present. This particular type of pair, where one Member is absent and the other present for the vote, was in the past referred to as a “live pair,” although the term no longer appears in House Rules.