UNANIMOUS CONSENT

Often shortened to “UC,” this term means that 100% of the Senators physically present on the Senate Floor agree to a pending request. Senators have such sweeping rights to Floor debate that unless 60 of them vote together to invoke cloture, a single Senator can hold up almost anything by refusing to grant Unanimous Consent. There are hundreds of Senate rules and procedures which are commonly waived by Unanimous Consent-- a classic example is the rule that every bill must be read aloud three times. If a bill is a few hundred pages long that would take a whole week-- effectively killing that bill.

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