Samuel asked us “1) First, what happens if a majority of a house of Congress wants to pass a bill, but the relevant committee doesn't bring it to a vote? Is there a way to override the committee, and if so, how does this work?”
The answer is that yes, there is at least one way: the “discharge petition.” (There are other ways, and since the House writes its own rules a majority of representatives can do almost anything by changing the rules, and that happens frequently. But for today we’ll stick to the discharge petition procedure.)
First, on Sept. 23, Arizona held its special election for its 7th district to fill the seat vacated by former Rep. Raul Grijalva when he died earlier this year. His daughter [pictured above], Adelita Grijalva, won as expected.
The younger Grijalva is expected to be signature 218 on Rep. Massie’s (R-KY4) discharge petition which would bring to the floor a bill that would require the Trump Administration release files on Jeffrey Epstein. (It will put representatives on the record on Epstein files, but because the bill will likely die in the Senate it may not result in the release of the files.)
So what is a discharge petition? As the Congressional Research Service says,