Motion to Recommit

In the U.S. Congress, a motion to recommit is a procedural motion offered just before the final passage vote on a bill, asking the chamber to return the measure to a committee. It is most consequential in the House of Representatives, where it has historically been guaranteed to the minority party under House Rule XIX.

There are two main forms:

• Straight motion to recommit: sends the bill back to committee with no instructions, effectively killing it for the legislative day if adopted.
• Motion to recommit with instructions: directs the committee to report the bill back "forthwith" with specified amendments. If adopted, the amendments are immediately incorporated and the House proceeds to final passage.

The motion gives the minority a final opportunity to force a recorded vote on an alternative proposal or politically sensitive amendment. For much of the 20th and early 21st centuries, both parties used it aggressively when in the minority to put majority members on the record on wedge issues.

The rule has been modified several times. At the start of the 116th Congress (January 2019), House Democrats narrowed the motion's usefulness, and at the start of the 117th Congress (January 2021), the chamber eliminated the motion to recommit with instructions entirely, leaving only the straight motion. Republicans partially restored the instructions form when they took the majority in the 118th Congress (January 2023), though in a more limited fashion than the pre-2019 practice.

In the Senate, recommittal motions also exist but operate differently because Senate rules do not guarantee the minority a comparable procedural moment before final passage; recommittal there is typically used to refer bills to committee earlier in the process or in conjunction with cloture procedures.

In Model UN and other parliamentary settings inspired by Robert's Rules of Order, an analogous motion ("commit" or "refer") sends a matter to a smaller body or working group for refinement before the full assembly votes.