The text then is considered for amendment, section by section. Committee members may offer amendments to each section after it is read but before the next section is read. Instead, it is voting on what amendments, if any, the committee will recommend that the House adopt when it considers the bill on the floor. In committee, members offer their amendments to each section of the bill in sequence unless the committee agrees otherwise by unanimous consent. As noted earlier, House rules do make in order a non-debatable motion in committee to dispense with the first reading of a bill at the very beginning of the markup. An amendment in the nature of a substitute—that is, an amendment that proposes to replace the entire text of the bill or resolution—is in order only at the beginning or the end of the amending process. These are (1) the motion to order the previous question, and (2) the motion to close debate. The previous question may be moved on a pending amendment (and amendments to it), or it may be moved on the entire bill if the last section of the bill has been read or if the reading of the bill has been waived by unanimous consent so that the bill is open to amendment at any point. A member may move to close the debate (1) on the pending amendment (and any pending amendments to it), or (2) on the section, title, or chapter (and any pending amendments to it) that is open for amendment, or (3) on the entire text of the bill (and any pending amendments to it), but only if the reading of the bill has been completed or dispensed with. On the other hand, members move to close the debate on a pending section of the bill because a motion to order the previous question on the section is not in order. To put it differently, the minority members of a committee can insist that a bill be marked up one section at a time and that each section be read. For all other votes and for other proceedings during a markup, most committees may set their own quorum requirement in their committee rules, so long as that quorum is not less than one-third of the committee's members (Rule XI, clause 2(h)(3)). Like the Speaker, however, the chair is responsible for maintaining order, insisting on proper decorum, and enforcing applicable procedures. A point of order may be made against an amendment (or any other debatable motion) after it has been read or the committee has waived the reading of the amendment, but before debate on it has begun. After voting on the last amendment to be offered, the chair recognizes a majority party member to move that the committee order the bill reported to the House with whatever amendments the committee has adopted during the markup, and with the recommendation that the House agree to those amendments and then pass the bill as amended. If the committee has marked up H.R. The committee may agree to a unanimous consent request that the committee report an amendment in the nature of a substitute instead of the several amendments. This means that, at the conclusion of the markup, the marked-up text must be prepared as a bill, it must be introduced while the House is in session, and the newly introduced, clean bill must be numbered and referred back to the committee before the committee may act on it.
At the beginning of a markup, committee members often make opening statements, usually not exceeding five minutes apiece. The first reading of the text of the bill to be marked up can be waived, either by unanimous consent or by adopting a non-debatable motion. The bill then is read for amendment, one section at a time, with committee members offering their amendments to each section after it is read but before the next section is read. By unanimous consent only, the committee may agree to dispense with the reading of each section, or to consider a bill for amendment by titles or chapters instead of by sections. Also by unanimous consent, the committee may consider the entire bill as having been read and open to amendment at any point.
Each amendment must be read in full unless the committee waives that reading by unanimous consent. Committees debate amendments under the five-minute rule. A committee can end the debate on an amendment by ordering the previous question on it, or by agreeing to a motion to close debate on it. A committee also can order the previous question or close debate on the entire bill, once it has been read or that reading has been waived by unanimous consent. However, the committee can only close debate, not order the previous question, on individual sections (titles, chapters) of the bill. The various kinds of amendments, as well as most of the other motions, that are in order on the House floor are in order in committee as well.
Committees do not actually change the texts of the bills they mark up. Instead, committees vote on amendments that their members want to recommend that the House adopt when it considers the bill on the floor. The committee concludes a markup not by voting on the bill as a whole, but by voting on a motion to order the bill reported to the House with whatever amendments the committee has approved. A majority of the committee must be present when this final vote occurs. For all other stages of markups, committees may set their own quorum requirements, so long as that quorum is at least one-third of the committee's membership.
Like the Speaker of the House, committee chairs are responsible for maintaining order and for enforcing proper procedure, either at their own initiative or by ruling on points of order that other committee members make. Chairs also frequently respond to questions about procedure in the form of parliamentary inquiries.
A committee may report a bill back to the House without amendment, with several amendments, or with an amendment in the nature of a substitute that proposes an entirely different text for the bill. Alternatively, a committee may report a new or "clean" bill on the same subject as the bill (or other text) that it has marked up.