Your Guide to 117th Congress House Rules Proceedings

The House Rules package for the 117th Congress has been approved and all the juicy details are in Monday’s Congressional Record. Don’t have time to comb through the 50+ dense pages? We’ve got you covered with a handy index of what’s included:

Resolution adopting the rules of the House for the 117th Congress H. Res. 8	H13
Vote to table	H18
Vote to refer to a select committee	H19
Section by section of the changes H. Res. 8 will make to the standing rules	H23
Vote on Rep. Cole amendment	H34
Vote on motion to commit to a select committee	H35
Vote on the resolution	H36
Election of Members to certain standing committees	H36
Fixing the daily hour of meeting for the first session of the 117th Congress	H37
Consent to assemble outside the seat of Government	H37
Authorizing Speaker, Majority Leader, and Minority Leader to accept resignations and make appointments	H37
Granting Members permission to extend remarks and include extraneous material in the Congressional Record	H37
Making morning-hour debate in order	H37
Appointment of Members to House office building commission	H37
Reappointment of individuals to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission	H37
Appointment of Members to act as Speaker Pro Tempore	H38
Clerk designation of deputies with signing authority	H38
Sergeant at Arms notification of ongoing public health emergency	H38
Speaker designation of “covered period” for covid emergency	H38
Chair Announcements on 1. floor privileges 2. introduction of bills and resolutions 3. unanimous consent requests for the consideration of legislation 4. 1-minute speeches 5. recognition for special order speeches 6. decorum in debate 7. conduct of votes by electronic device 8. use of handouts on the House floor 9. use of electronic equipment on the House floor 10. Use of the Chamber 11. Conduct during a covered period	H38
Regulations for use of deposition authority	H41
Remote committee proceedings regulations	H41
Remote voting by proxy regulations	H42
Executive Communications	H43
Public Bills and Resolutions	H43

House Rules for the 117th Congress

The House of Representatives adopted a new rules package on Monday. Here is the text of H. Res 8, a section-by-section summary, a press release that highlights some of the major changes, and a decent overview of activities of the House Rules committee. We have put together a guide to rules reform proposals over the last decade, and, as you know by now, we have advocated for a number of improvements and closely followed the Member-day hearing. Roll Call’s Lindsey McPherson has a good high level summary of the contents. Please note: the House made minor changes to the draft rules, previously called H. Res 5, between Sunday and Monday.

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Forecast for January 3, 2021

THE TOP LINE

Welcome back, Congress. It’s like you never left. Did you miss us? If so, make sure you subscribe (and tell your friends.) Our back issues are here.

Tick Tock: On Friday (Jan.1), the Senate overrode the NDAA veto (even as Sen. McConnell killed the boost to COVID relief), and today the House and Senate convene for the 117th Congress. The House is expected to adopt its rules on Monday; the Georgia elections, which decide control of the Senate, are on Tuesday, as are the House’s consideration of several good government bills on suspension (including the Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act); the House and Senate (in joint session) will count the electoral college vote on Wednesday.

So what exactly is a continuing body? The Senate considers itself a continuity body and the House does not. What this means, in part, is that the House must re-establish its rules and committees at the start of each Congress, but the Senate doesn’t. And yet, the House somehow has common-law rules that guide some of its day-one procedures and began operating today, but some Senate committees cannot operate because they are missing their chairs and have yet to reach an operating agreement (pending the results of upcoming elections). Weird.

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Forecast for December 28, 2020

You shouldn’t be at work and neither should I. But since we’re here, this is the latest on the decline and fall of the American republic. Happy holidays!

THE TOP LINE
The COVID/Omnibus bill has been hung up by Pres. Trump and the circumstances could mean a government shutdown lasting two weeks or more… and there’s little Congress can do. Update: As of 8pm Sunday, Pres. Trump has now signed the bill, apparently flipping his position, albeit with the result of undermining a week’s work of unemployment benefits for millions of people.

New Congress? The House of Representatives will convene on Sunday, January 3rd, when it will adopt rules and vote on the Speaker. The Senate will also meet, but absent the results of the Georgia elections — set for January 5th, although it may take time to certify the results — it will likely do little.

Who is going to object to the electoral college vote? The counting of that vote is set for January 6th. Here’s a letter from 18 House Republicans suggesting they will object. CRS has a report on counting electoral votes by Congress.

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Forecast for December 21, 2020

THE TOP LINE

You gotta be kidding. We prep this newsletter during the week and finalize it over the weekend. Alas, there’s no way we could possibly evaluate what is in the appropriations + COVID bill(s) for you — and there’s no way most Members of Congress could know what they’re voting on, either. It looks like the negotiations took so long Congress will do a 24-hour CR for when the 2-day CR elapses Sunday at midnight. Details will leak out after House leadership informs members as to its contents (which, as of this writing, are sparse.)

There’s no way members of the House or Senate will have any idea of the details of what’s inside the bill (except, in broad strokes, what they’re told), they won’t have enough time to figure it out, and, even if they understood its contents, the political circumstances mean they won’t have the opportunity to amend or object. This is business as usual for leadership-controlled brinkmanship. Create an artificial cliff (like the end of a CR), wait until it is about to expire, put a holiday break on the other side, and jam a bill through.

COVID RELIEF? This entire COVID relief process has been madness. And the Washington Post’s report that White House staff talked outgoing Pres. Trump from proposing $2,000 stimulus checks while House Dems negotiated themselves down from $3T to less than $1T is ::chef’s kiss::. Political analysts suggest the main reason Sen. McConnell finally was willing to entertain any relief legislation was to avoid undermining elections in Georgia, in which Republican control of the Senate is at stake. If we were in Congress, it would be inappropriate to speculate on motives, but we are not. Our guess is Senate Republicans will block any future relief measures, at the strong encouragement of Sen. McConnell, banking on his belief that making things worse for Americans means that Pres.-elect Biden will get the blame.

Like an iceberg. The process by which Members are selected for committees is one of the most important — and opaque — processes in Congress. As that has been happening right now, we explore it down below.

Rules, rules, rules! We are very excited to see what emerges out of the House Rules Committee process, which will generate new rules for the 117th Congress. By now you know we have our wish list. We suspect our friends on the Rules Committee will be working right up until the deadline to get everything drafted. (Good luck!) While we’re at it, are any changes in store for the Senate?

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Forecast for December 14, 2020

THE TOP LINE

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I really don’t want to talk about the totally avoidable train-wreck that is the CR, approps omnibus, and COVID relief efforts, which are as infuriating as they are predictable. The latest contretemps are the natural consequence of institutional design and political incentives, shaped by those in power to maintain their power. It is not a story of political polarization; it is not a story of earmarks; it is not a story of a broken budget process; and it is not a story of #bothsides. The final result will be insufficient to the moment, directed by those at the top, and designed to preserve leadership’s control over the chambers, with the anti-governance folks having a veto over those who want to help people in the face of a pandemic claiming 3,100 lives daily. (Maybe I shouldn’t write these newsletters before drinking coffee?)

Intrigue. Behind the scenes, the deck chairs are being re-arranged with respect to the internal power structures in both chambers —

• House: We’ve already seen leadership elections and chair selections in the House (check out our leadership list), with committee appointments to come. The evaporating Democratic majority means a very close call for Speaker Pelosi — a(n unlikely) challenge might destabilize her re-election by the full chamber — and very tight margins over the next two years to move legislation (which likely will happen on a party-line basis). Meanwhile, the House is working to update its rules, which had important reforms last Congress and may contain additional welcome improvements; they may also reflect mechanisms to sustain majority control.

• Senate: Senate Democrats have been working to create a few more opportunities for members to serve as committee chairs (including two unusual but welcome updates to their (secret) caucus rules.) We don’t know what the Senate will look like until the outstanding Georgia elections are resolved. A shift from Sens. McConnell to Schumer, while unlikely, could unlock the possibility of much overdue reforms to that chamber and would make it possible to address aspects of our democracy that Sen. McConnell has worked for decades to unbalance.

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Who Steers the Ship in the 117th Congress? An Examination of House Steering and Policy Committee Membership

House Democrats and Republicans use internal party committees to control major aspects of the legislative process, including choosing who gets to serve on legislative committees. Who serves on these committees and how are they chosen? Read on. (If this seems familiar, we looked at internal party committee makeup for the 116th Congress here).

Under the House rules, each party decides committee assignments for its Members. As a result, the steering and policy committees are an integral piece to secure intraparty power. With a large number of Members competing for a relatively small number of key committee assignments and leadership roles, the parties’ respective steering committees act as a filter for who rise and fall, creating a sorting mechanism among the party’s internal factions. It is also a mechanism by which leadership taxes Members to provide financial contributions in support of the party.

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2021 Congressional Budget Priorities: House vs. Senate

Senate appropriators released their Fiscal Year 2021 Legislative Branch spending bill proposal back in November — more than a month into the fiscal year. How does their pitch stack up against the House numbers released in July?

To find commonalities and differences in funding, we created a side by side comparison, including dollar and percent differences, available online here and embedded below. Please note the below data does not factor in continuing resolutions keeping the lights on until a final FY 2021 spending agreement is enacted.

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Forecast for November 30, 2020.

THE TOP LINE

Agreement? House and Senate appropriators reached a bipartisan agreement last Tuesday on the 302b numbers — the amount of funding available for each appropriations subcommittee — but LOL, we won’t know these numbers until the bill is released. Is there a path to completing the omnibus on time? Kevin McCarthy announced he will oppose the deal ($) because it does not follow the (pre-COVID) 2019 budget cap agreement. So much for a veto-proof vote?

Committee vacancies and waivers — i.e., who can serve on which committee — can be a touchy subject, which is why we’re glad the CPCC has put together this handy compilation of expected House chair vacancies. This week will see movement in the House on who will fill the big chairs on Appropriations, Foreign Affairs, and Agriculture. (How do they get chosen? We cover what we know of the House process, but we still don’t know all the members of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, who do the winnowing.) We’re also keeping our eyes on how the appropriations cardinals are chosen, but we don’t know when that will happen.

Senate committees are in limbo, including the ratio of majority to minority staff, awaiting the resolution of two senatorial elections in Georgia. WaPo’s Paul Kane described the consequences of three headless committees that can’t hold confirmation hearings, a senator who may lose his job for two days, and the potential for a lot of confusion. We previously wrote about how Senate committees get their funding and their funding levels, and CRS has more on historic ratios of Senators on committees.

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Why isn’t the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights protecting Congress during the Pandemic?

Wouldn’t it be good to have an independent office that had the authority to impose a uniform set of mandatory safety and health standards across Capitol Hill? Such an office already exists and Congress is giving them a pass.

The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR) is the independent, centralized workplace safety and health agency for the House, the Senate, and other Capitol Hill offices, including the Architect of the Capitol, Capitol Police, the Library of Congress, and even the Government Accountability Office. This office has strong enforcement powers. The OCWR also handles employment cases in a separate process.

Almost twenty-five years ago, this office, originally called the Office of Compliance, opened its doors. In 1997, the Office of Compliance Board of Directors, a panel of five private sector appointees, adopted regulations to implement the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, as required by law. Congress ignored them.

In the intervening years, this office has dropped the ball on pressing Congress to approve its OSH regulations. Now, there is a call for immediate action. The OCWR has the legal authority to develop standards for employees. Will it exercise its OSH authority to mandate enforceable standards?

Without regulations, the custodians and craftspeople, congressional staffers, and other essential workers are left without effective protection. One House member was reported to compel his staff to come to work without masks to show support for the Administration. The law requires OSH regulations, issued by the OCWR, because the federal OSHA rules don’t apply directly to the legislative branch.

There is precedent for emergency standards to be imposed without advance congressional approval. For permanent standards to apply, Congress would need to approve OCWR-adopted regulations, but the OCWR must make the first move.

In the midst of a pandemic, one would think that the OCWR Board of Directors might take the initiative. Instead, it reflects the branch that created it. The OCWR is infected with congressional dysfunction.

Isn’t it time for congressional employees, Senators, or Representatives to demand action? Don’t hold your breath. And wear a mask!

Kevin Mulshine served as a Senior Advisor and Counsel to the Congressional Office of Compliance from 1995 to 1997. Subsequently, he served as Inspector General for the Architect of the Capitol. He is a cum laude graduate of the Howard University Law Center.