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Amendment Form

A Basic Guide for Citizens

This guide tells citizens, private sector lobbyists, and public employees the most important things about putting a proposed amendment in a form members and legislative staff can work with in committee. Only legislators can offer amendments, and legislative staff work on amendments only at the request of, or with the permission of, a legislator.

Drafting amendments
Rely on legislative staff
If you try your own version....

Drafting amendments

An amendment is a formal change in the language ("language" includes all words, punctuation, and numbers) of a bill made by vote in a subcommittee division, committee, or on the House or Senate floor. As a party interested in legislation, you may want to suggest amendments to legislators during the process. If a legislator agrees to propose changes, they must be in a form other legislators and staff can understand. This guide focuses on preparing amendments that have been requested by a legislator for a committee hearing.

The guide states the best tactic for getting an amendment in proper form. Then it reviews key technical points for getting the meaning across to a committee. For a complete discussion of amendment drafting see Minnesota Revisor's Manual, chapter 7. The manual also covers good writing style and how to communicate intent precisely, topics not covered by this piece.

By following the advice given here, you increase the chances of providing a legislator with an amendment that will focus debate on the intended substantive points rather than sidetracking the committee into discussing whether the amendment "fits the bill" or makes sense technically.

Rely on legislative staff

If a member asks you to work on an amendment, use the services of professional drafters. When a member wants to offer an amendment, it is better for you, other members, and staff if the amendment is drafted correctly from the beginning, rather than having many technical questions raised in the hearing and perhaps delaying matters while the amendment is redone.

With the permission of a legislator, take the concept or any specific language you have to the House Research Department, Senate Counsel, or the Revisor of Statutes. Individuals in these offices are trained to express legislative intent in statutory language and to use correct amendment form. They may ask you questions to clarify the member's intent, but they will not change the substance requested by the legislator. Contact staff as soon as possible to allow maximum preparation time.

If a legislator authorizes you to have an amendment proposed, legislative staff recommend bringing staff a copy of the bill or amendment the legislator wants to amend. Mark it up to show how it should read as amended: what is to be added, what should be taken out. The staff person will prepare the concept requested by the member in proper amendment form. The amendment will be typed on the revisor's system so it looks professional when offered. This speeds preparation of the committee report and engrossment (a new version of the bill, as amended by the full committee).

If you try your own version . . .

Sometimes, at the request of a legislator, you may do a rough draft for staff or you may need to prepare an amendment without time for staff review before it is offered. The most important technical rules are listed below. These rules ensure that the intent of the member offering the amendment can be understood, either by staff preparing the final amendment or in an actual committee meeting, if a committee member is using your own typed or handwritten words.

To prepare or ask for an amendment you must know the bill being amended, the version the committee is working on, and where in the bill you want the amendment.

Reference the correct document

The bill being amended will have a name, either "House File" (always written "H.F.") or "Senate File" (always written "S.F."), and a number. Assume for this example: "H.F. 1." By the time you want to suggest an amendment, the originally introduced bill may already have been replaced by a "delete everything amendment," a subcommittee or division report, or an engrossment. Or you may want to ask a legislator to amend an amendment to the bill. If you prepare an amendment that references an obsolete version of the bill, your changes may not fit the current version. To find out the current version ask the legislator you are working with, the committee administrator for the committee hearing the bill, or House Research or Senate Counsel staff for the committee.

You might want to suggest that a member offer an amendment to an amendment the committee has before it. Amendments are usually identified at the top of the page with some combination of initials and numbers that identify the office or individual legislative staffer who prepared it. (For example, HA-500, SCS072, H315A1.)

In any event, know what document you are trying to change, and reference it in the opening line of what is drafted for a legislator:

.................... moves to amend the amendment to H. F. No. 1, labeled HA-988, as follows:

Know the amending operations

First you should know how bills in the Minnesota Legislature show proposed changes in current law. Existing law is printed as it appears in the statutes. Language proposed to be added to current law is underlined. Language proposed for removal from current law is shown with strike marks through it:

The supreme court shall consist of a chief justice and six eight associate justices.

An amendment can make four kinds of changes in a bill. These directions at the beginning of an amendment tell how to change the document being amended:

Using the above terms--not synonyms for any of them--insures that the revisor's auto-engrossing capacity can incorporate an amendment into an engrossment of the bill. The convention used at the Minnesota Legislature within each step of an amendment is to first indicate what to strike or delete, then to state any insertion.

Page 2, line 24, strike the semi-colon and insert a comma

Make changes in the right order

The pages of a bill and the lines on each page are numbered. List all changes in numerical order by page and in numerical order by lines within a page. For example, amendments to page 2 come before amendments to page 7. Within a page, amendments to line 5 precede amendments to line 9.

If an amendment will amend whole sections or subdivisions of Minnesota Statutes that are not already in the bill, list those new subdivisions or sections in the amendment in numerical order (e.g., amend section 253B.06, subdivision 3; 253B.06, subdivision 5; 257.01; and 259.101 in that order.).

Putting changes in the right order may be a critical time saver that benefits the member requesting an amendment. For example, if you bring a typed amendment to a committee at the last minute, the chair may decide to send staff out to put it in proper form before the bill is taken up. The resulting delay may not be helpful to the amendment.

Amendments prepared on the revisor's system are printed on pages with numbered lines. This makes discussion and drafting any further amendments easier. Numbered lines are not required. However, if you are preparing a document and have the capability to show numbered lines, it is very helpful to the committee in discussion.

Strike and Delete

To take language out of a bill, reference the page and line where it appears and quote the language to be removed. If the language is underlined, underline when quoting it in order to insure that the intent is achieved. This is especially true if you cannot remember the difference between "strike" and "delete."

Examples:

Page 5, line 11, strike "30 days"
Page 5, line 11, delete "30 days"

Each of these examples would result in removing different words if the same line of a bill contains the phrase "30 days" in existing law and a new reference to "30 days" added by the bill being amended. You want to be sure the right words are taken out.

To remove a whole section, a line (lines), or a page (pages), from a bill, you do not need to quote all the affected language. The following would be easier and correct:

Page 3, delete section 5
Page 6, delete lines 12 to 30

Reinstate

There are two ways to put back language in current law that a bill proposes to remove:

Page 4, line 12, reinstate "not"
or
Page 4, line 12, reinstate the stricken "not"

Insert

Usually an amendment directs placing an insertion in relation to the word or punctuation it would follow. Sometimes it may be clearer or shorter to direct the insertion in relation to what it would precede. This choice is equally correct.

Page 9, line 22, after "more" insert "or less"
or
Page 9, line 22, before the period, insert "or less"


Revised: July 2008