Perfecting Amendments

A quick note on United States legislative jargon, since the parliamentary term "perfecting amendment" has been tossed out quite a lot recently and may not be familiar to all participants.

An amendment can be either "perfecting" or a "substitute."  The distinction depends upon the amendment's drafting format, what other amendments have been offered, and how the amendment formally relates to those other amendments.  The distinction between a "perfecting" or a "substitute" amendment generally does not depend upon the effect of the amendment.  A perfecting amendment could, for example, entirely flip the meaning of a provision by adding a "not."

In the House of Representatives:

> The difference between perfecting amendments and substitute amendments depends primarily on the way in which they are drafted and not on the magnitude of the policy changes they would make.


https://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%26*2%3C4R%5C%3F%3E%0A (p. 3-4)

In the Senate:
> the distinction between perfecting and substitute amendments can depend on the way in which the amendments are drafted, not on the significance of the legislative changes they propose.


https://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%26*2%3C4RLO8%0A (p. 6-7)

For purposes of this process, I have understood "perfecting" to roughly mean an amendment that alters only one provision of the base text.  A "perfecting or friendly" amendment, then, either alters only one provision of the base text or refines the base text to better reflect drafting intent.

Jonathan