# Crossover Deadline A date fixed in a legislative chamber's own rules by which a bill must have passed that chamber in order to be taken up by the other one. After it passes, a bill still sitting in its house of origin is finished for the session, whatever its support. Because the deadline is published in advance, it functions less as a filter on merit than as a constraint on calendar control: it sets the point by which a presiding officer's scheduling decisions have become irreversible. Bills are frequently amended into measures that have already crossed over, which is how a subject that missed the deadline can still reach a floor in the second chamber. Crossover deadlines are rules rather than constitutional provisions, so a chamber can suspend its own, usually by a supermajority or by unanimous consent. ## See also - [[How a State Legislature Makes Law]]