Nowadays, however, the Senate normally cedes to the majority leader the prerogative of calling up measures, either by motion or by unanimous consent. Items of executive business, which include nominations and treaties, are also brought to the floor by unanimous consent or a motion to proceed to consider, but this report does not address motions to proceed to executive business, and the figures in Table 1 exclude them. Table 1 includes both debatable and non-debatable motions to proceed. Sometimes more than one motion to proceed was offered on a single measure. Frequency of Motions to Proceed

As Table 1 shows, from the 96 th through the 113 th Congress (1979-2014), a total of 628 motions to proceed to consider measures were offered, 86% of them by the majority leader personally and 96% of them either by the majority leader or under his direction. Five Congresses exceeded this average, including three of the four most recent ones. If, as suggested in the next section, the Senate has lately started to display less deference to the majority leader in offering motions to proceed, then it is possible that the majority leader has resorted more frequently to offering these motions as a means of precluding others from offering their own motions to proceed to other measures. This report provides no overall data on how the Senate disposes of motions to proceed. Few such motions, however, are defeated outright, because a motion to proceed that was unlikely to command majority support usually would not be offered in the first place. Instead, most motions to proceed that are not adopted simply do not reach a final vote. The final two were ruled out of order. Thirteen of these 28 motions were offered under the general rules of the Senate, under which they were debatable; the remaining 15 addressed matters that, under Senate practice, are considered privileged, meaning that motions to proceed to their consideration are not debatable. The 18 motions offered during the last 3 Congresses include 14 of the 20 motions that were offered by the minority leader, to whom (at least in principle) the prerogative of making motions to proceed may be accorded. These 18 motions also encompass 12 of the 16 motions that the Senate has considered under unanimous consent agreements, which implicitly indicates at least some degree of acquiescence by, or prearrangement with, the majority leadership. The recent increase in motions to proceed not offered by direction of the majority leader is partially accounted for by the rising number of motions to proceed that were non-debatable under expedited procedure statutes; 12 of the 18 such motions in the 111 th through 113 th Congresses fell into this group, compared with 2 of the 10 such motions in the earlier Congresses examined. The 18 motions of this kind in the 3 recent Congresses include all 15 of those that the Senate defeated outright. Subsequently, the Senate rejected the second cloture motion on the conference report and the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to consider it. No further action occurred in relation to the measure. This disapproval resolution was subject to expedited procedures established in the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2014 ( P.L.
In recent practice, the Senate generally cedes to its majority leader the prerogative of calling up items of business for floor consideration. Most measures are brought to the floor by unanimous consent, but when this consent cannot be obtained, a motion to proceed to consider can be used to accomplish the same purpose. Sometimes a Senator other than the majority leader offers this motion, but usually this occurs in coordination with the majority leader.
This report examines motions to proceed to consider items of legislative business ("measures"); it does not cover nominations or treaties ("executive business"). Motions to proceed to legislative business are normally debatable unless the underlying measure is "privileged," which includes conference reports and measures subject to statutory expedited procedures. The data in this report do not distinguish between debatable and non-debatable motions to proceed. In some cases, as well, more than one motion to proceed was offered on the same measure; the report considers each motion as a separate unit for purposes of analysis.
Of 628 motions to proceed to consider measures in the Senate from 1979 through 2014, all but 28 were offered either by the majority leader or apparently at his direction. In the four most recent Congresses (2007-2014), the number of motions to proceed offered per Congress has been significantly greater than before. Reasons for this increase may relate to changes in (1) the use of daily adjournments rather than recesses, (2) the way cloture is used in relation to these motions, or (3) the degree of deference paid to the majority leader in the exercise of his scheduling function.
The report presents no overall data on the disposition of motions to proceed, but few are defeated outright, because those unlikely to command majority support are seldom offered, and those that are not adopted usually reach no final vote (for example, because they are withdrawn). Of the 28 motions clearly not offered by direction of the majority leader, by contrast, the Senate adopted 2, defeated 15, and laid 5 on the table. Four were abandoned after the Senate rejected cloture and two were ruled out of order.
Of these 28 motions, 15 were non-debatable because they addressed privileged matters (14 of them subject to expedited procedures under budgetary statutes or for congressional disapproval of executive actions). Of the 28 motions, 18 occurred in the 3 most recent Congresses (2009-2014), including 12 of the 14 that were non-debatable under expedited procedure statutes. These 18 motions also include 14 of the 20 offered by the minority leader, all 15 of those that the Senate defeated outright, and 12 of the 16 that the Senate considered under unanimous consent agreements.
The report concludes by describing the essential procedural features of the proceedings on each of these 28 motions. It will be updated to reflect action in later Congresses.