http://www.rules.house.gov/Archives/98-710.pdfStarting about twenty-five years ago, in response to developments such as increased partisanship and uncertainty with respect to how long or controversial the amendment process on the floor might be, the Rules Committee began to issue more procedurally imaginative and complex rules.
Definition of “Self-Executing” Rule.
One of the newer types is called a “selfexecuting” rule; it embodies a “two-for-one” procedure. This means that when the House
adopts a rule it also simultaneously agrees to dispose of a separate matter, which is specified in the rule itself. For instance, self-executing rules may stipulate that a discrete policy proposal is deemed to have passed the House and been incorporated in the bill to be taken up. The effect: neither in the House nor in the Committee of the Whole will lawmakers have an opportunity to amend or to vote separately on the “self-executed” provision. It was automatically agreed to when the House passed the rule. Rules of this sort contain customary, or “boilerplate,” language, such as: “The amendment printed in
shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole.”
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