Discharge Petition

The House majority leadership and committee chairs normally decide which bills reach the floor, so a bill with majority support can still be bottled up. The House adopted a discharge rule in 1910, during the revolt against the powerful Speaker Joseph Cannon, and in 1935 set the modern threshold of a majority of the full House, 218 members when there are no vacancies. Since 1993 the names of signers have been made public as they sign, which increased pressure on members to join.

A member may file a discharge petition 30 legislative days after a bill has been referred to committee, or seven days after the Rules Committee has failed to act on a special rule for it. Members sign the petition at the clerk's desk on the floor, and once it has 218 signatures, it is placed on the discharge calendar, and after seven legislative days any signer may call it up on certain days of the month. In practice, members often petition to discharge a special rule from the Rules Committee, which then sets the terms for debating the bill.

Discharge petitions rarely succeed, partly because majority party members are reluctant to defy their leaders, and leadership often negotiates or brings a bill up on its own terms once a petition nears 218. Successful examples include the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the campaign finance reform law of 2002, and the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank in 2015, and in November 2025 a petition reached 218 signatures and forced a vote on releasing Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which passed overwhelmingly. By May 2026 eight discharge petitions had reached 218 signatures in the 119th Congress, a modern record, on issues including collective bargaining for federal employees, though most of the resulting bills stalled in the Senate. Supporters say the tool protects majority rule against leadership gatekeeping, while critics say it undermines the majority party's ability to govern.