Advocacy Glossary
Markup
What does markup mean?
A markup is the committee meeting where legislators amend and vote on a bill, line by line, before deciding whether to send it to the full chamber. Most of a bill's real changes happen in markup.
Why it matters for advocates
The name comes from the literal practice of marking up the bill text with changes. Members offer amendments, debate them, and vote. What emerges can look very different from what went in.
For advocates, markup is a deadline. The meetings that shape a bill happen before the markup is scheduled, not after. Once a committee has voted, changing the text becomes much harder.
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