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RULES OF ORDER.
[§ 28

form of a substitute, § 23) written on a separate sheet.

A committee is a miniature assembly that must meet together in order to transact business, and usually one of its members should be appointed its clerk. Whatever is not agreed to by the majority of the members present at a meeting (at which a quorum, consisting of a majority of the members of the committee, shall be present) cannot form a part of its report. The minority may be permitted to submit their views in writing also, either together, or each member separately, but their reports can only be acted upon by voting to substitute one of them for the report of the committee [see § 30]. The rules of the assembly, as far as possible, shall apply in committee; but a reconsideration [§ 27] of a vote shall be allowed, regardless of the time elapsed, only when every member who voted with the majority is present when the reconsideration is moved.[1] A committee (except a committee of the whole, § 32) may appoint a


  1. Both the English common parliamentary law and the rules of Congress prohibit the reconsideration of a vote by a committee; but the strict enforcement of this rule in ordinary committees would interfere with rather than assist the transaction of business. The rule given above seems more just, and more in