Table (verb)
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In parliamentary procedure, table as a verb is shorthand for the motion to lay on the table. The motion, if adopted by majority vote, suspends consideration of the current main motion and all subsidiary motions immediately. The motion is not debatable.
This motion is, properly, used only when it is necessary to suspend consideration of a motion in order to deal with another matter that has come up unexpectedly and which must be dealt with before the pending motion can be properly addressed. [1] It has, however, become common to misuse the motion to end consideration of the pending main motion without debate, or to mistakenly assume that its adoption prevents further consideration of the main motion at all, or until a specified time; neither use is correct.
A motion that has been laid on the table in this manner may be taken up again by adoption of a motion to take from the table. This motion is not debatable, and requires a majority for adoption. A motion may be taken from the table only until the end of the next session (commonly, the next meeting) after the one in which it was laid on the table, if that session occurrs within three months of the session in which it was laid on the table; if there is no session within those three months, the motion may only be taken from the table during the current session. If these time limits are not met, the motion dies.
One possible source of the common misuse of the motion to lay on the table to kill a motion without debate is the use of the motion in the United States House of Representatives, where laying a motion on the table effectively does just that. [2]
All of this confuses people accustomed to the usage of the British parliament, where to "table" a measure is to propose it for consideration, as in bringing it to the legislative table. See British Parliament for examples. This usage is also the most common meaning encountered in Canadian English.
