After a bill has been introduced and referred to committee for thirty legislative days or more, any Member may file a motion (under clause 3 of rule XXVII) with the Clerk of the House to discharge the committee from further consideration of the bill. A member may also file a motion to discharge the Rules Committee of a special rule, pending before that committee for at least seven legislative days, providing for the consideration of that bill.

Beginning in the 105th Congress, discharge petitions may cover only a single introduced measure (not multiple bills). If the Member is successful in convincing a majority of the total membership of the House (218 Members) to sign a discharge petition, the petition becomes eligible for consideration on the second or fourth Monday of the month after a seven legislative day layover (except during the last six days of any session when the layover is waived). The discharge motion is debatable for 20 minutes, one-half of the time for the proponents and one-half of the time for the opponents. If the motion to discharge a bill is adopted, it is then in order to move that the House immediately consider the bill itself; if the motion to discharge a rule is adopted, the House turns immediately to consideration of the rule.

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Note: Under a Rules change in the 103rd Congress, signatures on a discharge petition must be made available to the public on a daily basis by the Clerk. The names of new signatories are printed in the Congressional Record on the last legislative day of each week.