1606, May 1, on a question whether a member having said Yea, may afterwards sit and change his opinion? a precedent was remembered by the Speaker, of Mr. Morris, attorney of the wards, in 39 _Eliz._, who in like case changed his opinion.--_Mem. in Hakew._ 27.
After the bill has passed, and not before, the title may be amended, and is to be fixed by a question; and the bill is then sent to the other House.
$When a question has been once made and carried in the affirmative or negative, it shall be in order for any member of the majority to move for the re-consideration thereof.--_Rule_ 22.
1798, Jan. A bill on its second reading, being amended, and on the question, whether it shall be read a third time negatived, was restored by a decision to re-consider the question. Here the votes of negative and re-consideration, like positive and negative quantities in equation, destroy one another, and are as if they were expunged from the journals. Consequently the bill is open for amendment, just so far as it was the moment preceding the question for the third reading. That is to say, all parts of the bill are open for amendment, except those on which votes have been already taken in its present stage. So also may it be re-committed.
The rule permitting a re-consideration of a question affixing to it no limitation of time or circumstance, it may be asked whether there is no limitation? If, after the vote, the paper on which it has passed has been parted with, there can be no re-consideration: as if a vote has been for the passage of a bill, and the bill has been sent to the other House. But where the paper remains, as on a bill rejected, when, or under what circumstances, does it cease to be susceptible of re-consideration? This remains to be settled, unless a sense that the right of re-consideration is a right to waste the time of the House in repeated agitations of the same question, so that it shall never know when a question is done with should induce them to reform this anomalous proceeding.$
In Parliament, a question once carried, cannot be questioned again, at the same session; but must stand as the judgment of the House.--_Towns._ _col._ 67; _Memor. in Hakew._ 33. And a bill once rejected, another of the same substance cannot be brought in again the same session.--_Hakew._ 158; 6 _Grey_, 392. But this does not extend to prevent putting the same questions in different stages of a bill; because every stage of a bill submits the whole and every part of it to the opinion of the House, as open for amendment, either by insertion or omission, though the same amendment has been accepted or rejected in a former stage. So in reports of committees, _e. g._ report of an address, the same question is before the House, and open for free discussion.--_Towns. col._ 26; 2 _Hats._ 98, 100, 101. So, orders of the House, or instructions to committees may be discharged. So a bill begun in one House, sent to the other, and there rejected, may be renewed again in that other, passed, and sent back.--_Ib._ 92; 3 _Hats._ 161. Or if, instead of being rejected, they read it once, and lay it aside, and put it off a month, they may offer in another to the same effect, with the same or a different title.--_Hakew._ 97, 98.