Amendments

An amendment is a change offered to a bill: in committee, on the floor, or as a substitute for the whole text.

CapitolMath adds amendment records legislature by legislature, each once its records have been checked against the legislature's own.

CapitolMath records each one as a record of its own, linked to the actions that offered and decided it, its roll call when there was one, and the bill it amends. For the legislatures in the table below, you'll find them in the bill's panel, in Public activity's Amendments tab. The Amendments link at the top of the panel opens it.

What each amendment shows#

• Its label and number, as the legislature prints them: "Floor Amendment 283221/1", "House Amendment 1".
• Where it was offered: the chamber or committee, and the reading where a chamber numbers amendments again at a later reading.
• Its sponsors. A member CapitolMath has matched to a legislator opens their profile. A name not yet matched is shown as the legislature printed it, and a committee is named.
• Its outcome: Adopted, Not adopted, Withdrawn, Tabled, Ruled out of order, Superseded, Partly adopted (a divided question whose parts were decided differently, with its parts listed), Recommended by committee, Offered or Outcome unknown.
• Its roll call, as Yes, No and No Vote counts you can open to see the members, or Voice vote where the action says so. Amendments decided together by one roll call share it. Where the action says an amendment wasn't considered, it reads Passed over without a vote.
• Its effect, only where the legislature publishes a statement of what it does. CapitolMath never writes one.
• The amendments it amends, or that amend it, and the actions in the bill's history it was read from.

Outcomes are never guessed#

An outcome is what the legislature's own words say. Offered means the amendment was filed or offered and the record says nothing after that. It doesn't mean it's still pending, and it doesn't mean it failed. Where the record is silent, the outcome is Outcome unknown. Neither is ever filled in from a later version of the bill or a final vote.

Some legislatures list their amendments without saying what became of them. There CapitolMath reads each outcome from the bill's recorded actions, and the amendment says so: "Outcome read by CapitolMath from the bill's actions."

Recommended by committee#

When a committee's report names an amendment and the chamber hasn't decided it yet, the amendment is Recommended by committee. A recommendation isn't an adoption: the chamber still adopts it, rejects it or replaces it, and when it does, that becomes the outcome. The amendments count gives recommended ones apart from adopted ones: Amendments · 12, 5 adopted, 2 recommended by committee. The counts are on the Amendments link at the top of the bill's panel, and each amendment's card shows its outcome.

Where a committee's vote is the amendment's final adoption, it is Adopted: in some legislatures, Illinois and South Dakota among them, a committee's adopted amendments are part of the bill as the committee reports it, and the chamber doesn't vote on them again.

Where the legislature records a committee as taking the action that rejected an amendment, the outcome says so: Not adopted in committee. Any later action by the chamber is in the bill's history.

Long lists#

Some legislatures list hundreds of amendments to one bill without recording what became of them, most often on budget bills. When a bill has more than 50 of these, the Amendments tab lists the others first and sums these up in one line, such as "1,707 more listed amendments, outcome not recorded." Choose the button under it to see them, 50 at a time. They're counted in every number the panel shows. An amendment that amends, or is amended by, one not shown yet says so. Record history sums them up the same way, with a link to see them 50 at a time.

Where they're read from#

Some amendments come from a legislature's own list of amendments. For others, CapitolMath reads them out of the bill's recorded actions ("Floor Amendment 2 by Senator Kessler adopted"), by rules written for each legislature. The panel says which, and Record history on the bill lists each amendment with where it came from and when it was recorded. An action that's no longer in the bill's history as CapitolMath stores it is marked as such, never matched to a different line.

Some legislatures list an amendment under the bill it was drafted to, while the chamber acts on a companion bill instead. Both bills show it. The companion's panel says Listed under the bill it was drafted to. The drafting bill's panel says Acted on as the companion, and its count and notes say how many were. Their actions and votes are in the companion's history.

When CapitolMath had only part of a legislature's list of amendments for a session, the tab says some amendments may be missing. When what CapitolMath reads for a legislature leaves some amendments out, or may leave an outcome out of date, the tab says so beside the list: "What CapitolMath shows for Missouri has limits: …". Missouri's listing has only the House's amendments to House bills, Nevada doesn't print failed amendments, and South Dakota's actions record no failed ones.

In Colorado, a second-reading amendment's status can change with an amendment to the Committee of the Whole report, which the bill's page doesn't show. So a Colorado outcome, Adopted included, may be out of date.

When the section is empty#

• "None found by these rules." CapitolMath's rules for the legislature found no amendment to this bill. That doesn't mean the legislature had none: the note says what the rules cover, and links the legislature's page.
• "CapitolMath doesn't show amendments for [state] yet." Amendments aren't shown for that legislature yet.
• "CapitolMath doesn't record amendments for [state]'s [year] session yet." No amendments are recorded for that session yet. The legislature's page has them.
• States that print versions instead. Some legislatures, California among them, don't number amendments: an author's amendments, including those a committee asks for, are printed as a new version of the bill. There the tab lists the amended versions and says why, and Compare versions shows what each one changed.

In the API, MCP and bulk datasets#

• The API. /v1/bill-detail includes the bill's amendments, each with its sponsors, its outcome as the legislature's record states it, where it was decided, its roll call counts and any effect the legislature publishes. /v1/legislator-amendments/{id} lists the amendments a legislator sponsored, newest first, with how many there are of each outcome, and /v1/legislator-detail includes the latest ten. See the API documentation.
• The MCP server. get_record returns a bill's amendments and the amendments an official offered, exactly as the API does.
• Bulk datasets. The amendments dataset has a file per jurisdiction and session, with each amendment's sponsors as the legislature printed them and, where matched, their legislator ids, and what the session's list leaves out.
• Webhooks. A webhook can send An amendment is adopted or fails for the bills it watches. It's sent once, within a week of the action that decided it, where the amendment's record names that action, and never for amendments CapitolMath records from a bill's earlier history. See Amendments in webhooks for the legislatures that send it.

Only the legislatures in the table below are included. Bill detail's amendments.coverage says how each session was recorded and what its list or outcomes leave out, and each row of /v1/legislator-amendments carries its session's limits. recommended means a committee's report names the amendment and its chamber hasn't decided it. It's never counted as adopted.

Coverage#

A legislature not in the table doesn't show amendments yet. One listed with "None found by these rules" was checked, and its rules found no amendment with a number in the sessions shown.