Amendment Tree

Last time we looked at the so-called slow-walking of measures through the US Senate. One possible result of such delay tactics is that the Senate Majority Leader may decide to fill the amendment tree.

Filling the tree is the controversial practice of taking all of the available slots for amendments on a particular piece of legislation in order to block competing amendments.

Senate rules limit the number of amendments that may be attached to a bill at any one time. This finite number of amendments is commonly referred to as the “amendment tree”. In this metaphor, the bill is symbolized by the “trunk” of a tree and the amendments are represented as “branches.”