Successful discharge petitions in the House of Representatives are rare. The Speaker of the House has immense power and control over the legislative body. The speaker gets to determine which legislation comes to the floor for a vote.
The speaker controls the agenda of the House.
The discharge petition process is a way for members to bring legislation to the floor for a vote without the consent of the Speaker of the House.
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The process, until recently, has been rarely successful because it usually requires bipartisan cooperation and the ability to withstand political pressure.
According to Congress.gov:
Discharge may be attempted only on a measure that has been referred to committee for at least 30 legislative days. Any Member can initiate a discharge effort by filing with the Clerk of the House a discharge motion (also called a discharge petition) that is maintained by the Clerk’s office and made available at the rostrum for Members to sign when the House is in session.
Only one motion may be presented for a bill or resolution. The names of signatories on a discharge petition are updated by the Clerk on a daily basis and are available online for public inspection. Additionally, the last edition of the Congressional Record for each week contains a section entitled “Discharge Petitions—Additions and Withdrawals” that identifies Members who have added or subtracted their names from a petition during that particular week.
Members may add or remove their names until a petition has obtained 218 signatures. If a discharge petition reaches this threshold—a majority of the House’s 435 Members—the list of names is frozen, printed in the Congressional Record, and the discharge motion is entered in the House Journal and in the “Calendar of Motions to Discharge Committees” section of the House Calendar.
The difficulty involved in this process makes it surprising that Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) has been able to get 5 Republican signatures for a legislation that would force Trump to end his campaign of union-busting against federal workers.
Rep. Golden is calling on Speaker Johnson to schedule a vote on his successful discharge petition.
Read more about Golden’s discharge petition and what its success says about Mike Johnson below.
