House Rules Changes Passed

With little drama the House of Representatives passed the rules package which will govern their deliberations on Monday night 220-213. It was the first order of business for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s new majority on the first day of the 118th legislative session. The 55-page package includes most of the concessions McCarthy made to the conservative caucus.

This rules package includes the right of any single member to make a motion to vacate the Speaker’s chair.  In the recent past only party leadership could make such a motion.  This rule should help to keep the speaker from becoming overly powerful.  This was an absolute requirement that the 20 rebels demanded from the party elites.  This should allow individual members more voice in the business of the chamber.

A short summary by one analyst:

(1) No more omnibus bills, only Single Subject Bills.
Assume this means if the Senate passes an omnibus bill and sends it to the House for approval, that it will need to be split into individual bills when the House drafts their version for a vote. Good-bye trillion-dollar monster bills.

(2) Creates new Select Subcommittee titled “Weaponization of the Federal Government” –this new subcommittee is under the Judiciary Committee. Members will have access to the most highly classified information. To the alarm of the Dems this includes access to the Special Counsel investigation into PDJT.

This should be a good place to watch to see just where elite Republicans stand on the issue of PDJT.  If they soft pedal this and will not seriously look into the corruption here, we will know who needs to be removed from Congress in the next election cycle.

(3) Creates Select Subcommittee looking into the Covid Pandemic.

(4) Initiatives to Reduce Spending and Improve Accountability. Lots of weeds to read thru but it looks like in multiple ways it improves control over spending and blocks some of the maneuvers used by the Senate and Uniparty to slide things thru

(5) Increases to 3/5 majority required for any new tax rate increases.

(6) 72 hours minimum to review any bill before voting. Prevents forcing votes before members have time to read the bill.

This combined with the No Omnibus bills should end the Pelosi tactic of “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”

(7) Holman rule — can attach amendments to any bill to defund a particular official or part of an agency (87,000 IRS agents and SC against PDJT etc.)

(8) Reps now have the ability to put forward amendments.
Previously this was the power of the leadership, not the rank and file.

It appears on the surface that McCarthy is keeping his promises.  There are other handshake agreements that were reached regarding committee structures that will be on the horizon shortly.  Hopefully the revolt of House members who believe in America will continue to bring benefits.

If you want to wade through the 55 page document, you can find it at this link:

https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-01/House%20Rules%20Package.pdf