Discharge petition
[2] An early form of the discharge petition was introduced into U.S. House rules in 1910 as part of a series of measures intended to check the power of the disliked Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon (R–Illinois).
Once the requisite number of signatures is reached, the petition is placed on the Discharge Calendar, which is privileged business on the second and fourth Mondays of each month.
[6] At the end of each session of Congress, any discharge petitions remaining unresolved or lacking the required number of signatures are removed from consideration.
A successful discharge petition embarrasses the leadership; as such, members of the majority party are hesitant to support something that would make the Speaker and their own leaders look bad.
Furthermore, since the signers of a petition are not private, majority party members are pressured not to sign, and open themselves up to retribution from the leadership should they disobey.
Those who make the last few signatures open themselves to especially severe payback, as early signers could argue privately that they were only posturing, and didn't think the petition would ever pass.
The Senate passed the bill, but House Judiciary chair Peter W. Rodino, Jr. (D–New Jersey) declared it "dead on arrival".
[8] In response, the National Rifle Association launched a strong campaign to pass the bill in the House via discharge petition.
Rather than let the Senate version of the bill out of committee, Rodino instead proffered a compromise piece of legislation with William J. Hughes (D–New Jersey).
[12] In October 2015, a bipartisan group successfully used a discharge petition to force a vote on a bill to re-authorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
[13][14] In the 118th Congress, Republicans had a very slim majority and repeated attritions between its factions, some of which occasionally joined with the Democrats (then the minority party) to support certain discharge petition.
[20][21][22] The distinct procedure of a "discharge resolution" allows non-controversial measures to forgo a committee and be submitted to a voice vote, presuming unanimous consent.
For instance, Wisconsin has similar rules to the House; a simple majority is required to succeed, though a motion or a petition are both acceptable.
This was changed in 1925 to a majority, drastically curtailing the number of recalls; still, only 25 (about 10 percent) petition-signers are required to force a motion to be voted on by the floor.
Anybody who is chosen in the private members' ballot can bring a bill to a floor vote in a Westminster system, so a discharge petition process is viewed as unnecessary.
