acts on a discharge motion, any further discharge petitions on the same subject are precluded for the remainder of the session of Congress (until the calendar year's close, normally). This is only relevant if the petition succeeds but the bill is rejected anyway, despite a majority of the House apparently wishing to bypass the committee. If the motion is budget-related, then the Committee of the Whole is convened to amend it. A discharge petition may only be brought after a measure has sat in committee for at least 30 legislative days without being reported; if the matter is considered as a special rule to the Rules Committee, then the period is seven days instead. 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. This layover is waived during the last six days of a session before sine die adjournment. At the end of each session of Congress, any discharge petitions remaining unresolved or lacking the required number of signatures are removed from consideration. 563 discharge petitions were filed between 1931 and 2003, of which only 47 obtained the required majority of signatures. The House voted for discharge 26 times and passed 19 of the measures, but only two have become law. However, the threat of a discharge petition has caused the leadership to relent several times; such petitions are dropped only because the leadership allowed the bill to move forward, rendering the petition superfluous. Overall, either the petition was completed or else the measure made it to the floor by other means in 16 percent of cases. Usage Discharge petitions are rare. 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. (Naturally, the minority party will often support discharge petitions precisely to embarrass the leadership.) 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. When signing of a petition was secret (or, more specifically, confirmation that it was signed was secret, as a Representative could claim whatever they liked), petitions were generally only used for serious discontent in the majority. The secrecy also meant that members could claim