Republicans Propose Rules for the 119th Congress

The Rules package is largely status quo, with a few significant tweaks.

House of Representatives Republicans published their proposed rules and separate orders for the House of Representatives a little after noon on New Years' Day, January 1, 2025. Here is the text of the proposed rules package and a fact-sheet, known as a section-by-section, that explains the intent of the provisions. The proposed rules and separate orders ("the Rules") are bundled into a resolution that is expected to be considered this Friday, January 3rd, as part of the opening activities of the new Congress.

This past Monday I wrote about how rules packages work and the existence of a parliamentary state of nature until they are adopted. I won't repeat that all here, but it's worth reading if you're unfamiliar with the process.

I will also share a link to a compendium of rules packages and members and civil society proposals for amending the Rules that I've compiled over the years. The Rules do not necessarily need to be adopted on January 3rd, and if the Speaker election goes sideways, we may see them pushed to a later date or the adoption of interim rules. Many of the rules and separate orders are repeated from Congress to Congress with little or no change. The Rules package details changes to the rules and which "separate orders" will be continued or amended from prior congresses.

As a disclosure, I'm very interested in what rules and separate orders are included in the Rules and have made recommendations for what should be included going back to the 112th Congress. This past August, in conjunction with the conservative Foundation for American Innovation, we issued these recommendations for updating the rules.

I commend House Republicans for publishing the package 48 hours in advance of its expected consideration. House bills are required to be published online 72 hours in advance of consideration, and while that requirement does not (yet!) extend to House resolution, I believe it should. 48-hour notice is a step in the right direction.

I’ve read the resolution and side-by-side quickly, so let me know if I’ve made any mistakes or missed something good. This blogpost is intended to provide a good first impression of what’s inside.

---

What are the proposed rules changes?

Eight proposed changes to the House rules are included in section 2 of the resolution. I'm going to touch upon the highlights.

Removing the Speaker. The change that the media will focus on – and which was the focus of extended debate in the Republican conference – is that an effort to remove the Speaker requires a member of the majority party (i.e., a Republican) to attempt to make the privileged motion to bring up the resolution, which needs eight additional co-sponsors.

This is a big change from the 118th Congress, where any member could offer a privileged resolution to declare the office of the Speaker vacant. What this means is that nine members must link arms to try to depose the Speaker. It also means they must be members of the majority party – so Democrats cannot make the motion.

Presumably Republicans who have been kicked out of the party – I don't know how we would know who qualifies – wouldn't be able to make such a motion. So Rep. Sparks, who said she won't join the GOP conference, apparently can't make the motion. (Seems likely, right?) If the GOP conference votes to kick out other members, presumably their effort also would not be recognized as privileged. That means, I suppose, that adversaries of the Speaker could be booted out before their effort comes to a vote pursuant to House GOP conference rules— which takes a 2/3s vote of party members

This is bad news for majority control of the House of Representatives. It can lead to a situation where a minority of members will retain affirmative agenda-setting control, although Matt Glassman and others have pointed out how a majority of members could use votes as an opportunity to wrest control from the notional majority.

Electronic committee voting. About half of the committees in the House of Representatives have been using electronic voting, which allows the committee to count votes electronically instead of verbally. This has proven to be widely popular and has saved tons of time during committee meetings. The House has blessed committees establishing rules for electronic voting and the House Administration Committee has been charged with promulgating regulations to his effect. This lines up nicely with the Clerks’ efforts to create a “committee portal.”

New names. The Oversight Committee has been renamed to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Education and the Workforce has lost the word "the" from its name.

Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Last Congress, the House defunded and disestablished the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, with some of its functions ended and other functions being rolled into the CAO. The House Rules have been updated to reflect these unfortunate changes.

"Separate Orders." The House of Representatives routinely adopts separate orders each Congress, which are resolutions that control the operations of the House for the duration of the Congress. This time, the House has incorporated some of those separate orders into the standing rules laid out in section 2.

The separate orders incorporated into the standing rules include:

• How to track Article V memorials, which are (I think) requests by the states for constitutional conventions and withdrawals of those requests.

• Reserving bill numbers 1-20 for majority and minority leadership use.

• Setting out default rules for district work periods, including weakening the hand of rank-and-file members with respect to war powers resolutions, resolutions of inquiry, and the consensus calendar.

  ---

What are the Separate Orders?

There are 22 separate orders included in this rules package; there were 27 separate orders in the 118th Congress, and many are repeated.

I've skimmed the separate orders and the only new separate order concerns artificial intelligence. In essence, the provision instructs the House Admin Committee, Clerk, CAO, and others to integrate the use of AI into the operations and functions of the House. Here’s the text:

At a quick glance, the following separate orders from the 118th Congress are reincorporated into the 119th. This is a little tricky because I skimmed the summaries and have not done a word-by-word comparison of the bill text, which are published in a different order. I could have missed things or provisions could have been added or removed. They are:

• The Holman Rule

• Spending reduction amounts in appropriations bills

• A range of budget matters (I really don’t understand this one)

• Congressional Member Organization operations

• Placing measures on consensus calendar

• Funds to resolve contested elections

• Germaneness for amendments

• Claims of no effect for union resolution (this language doesn't do any work)

• Providing for limited remote committee witness testimony

• Broadening publication of legislative documents in machine-readable formats

• Improving the committee document repository

• Prohibiting lobbyists from member exercise facilities

• Displaying labor rights in offices

• Requiring members to pay for discrimination settlements

• Mandating anti-harassment policies in offices

• Member day hearing requirement for all full committees except ethics

• Blocking seven members of House Oversight Committee from demanding executive branch documents unless the Chair agrees (this weakens a right guaranteed elsewhere)

• Extending the ability to conduct depositions to certain committee staff

• Allowing War Powers resolutions to proceed

• Continuing the House's litigation authority in certain matters

I have to look further, but I think there is new language with respect to allowing the Judiciary Committee Chair and the Office of General Counsel to continue civil actions regarding the enforcement of subpoenas.

The House has apparently decided not to continue separate orders on the following issues:

• Single subject for legislation (this was not wise)

• Scoring conveyances of federal land — UPDATE: It is included, I just missed it. It’s been moved to section 2 under budget matters

• An ethics reform task force

• Transferring Jan. 6th committee records to the Admin committee (no longer necessary)

It also merged the following separate orders into the House rules:

• Memorials

• Bill numbers

• District work periods

  ---

House Offices

Section 4 of the resolution re-establishes a series of select committees and House offices. They include:

• Reestablishing the select committee on China competition.

• The House Democracy Partnership (works to develop effective parliaments around the world).

• The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (a bipartisan caucus promoting human rights).

• The Office of Congressional Ethics – but now renamed as the Office of Congressional Conduct.

---

Speeding Consideration of Legislation

Section 5 of the resolution provides for expedited consideration of twelve red-meat bills on culture war, anti-immigrant, pro-cop, and dirty fuel issues.

---

What's missing?

With the brouhaha over Rep. Gaetz and the Ethics Committee effectively legalizing member conversation of campaign funds for personal use, I'm surprised there's not more stuff in the rules package on ethics. They don't require the Ethics Committee to have a member day where they must listen to what representatives want on ethics issues. They don't address a ban on stock trading by members of Congress. Odd.

The Rules package does contain good language on AI, but it fails to address other issues of technological modernization, such as:

• Creating a House Chief Data Officer

• Expanding the House Digital Service

• Establishing a House Office of Science and Technology

Nor does the chamber grapple with the consequences of the Supreme Court's repeal of the Chevron doctrine. There's no evidence in this package of:

• Increasing capacity for committee staff

• Establishing a House regulatory review office

• Providing for tracking of executive branch fellows or detailees

There also are some missed opportunities on transparency. The rules package doesn't address:

• Requiring a list of all reports due to Congress

• Keeping track of the House's vital statistics

• Providing TS/SCI clearances to every member office (as the Senate does)

We don't see efforts to strengthen Article I, such as

• Addressing subpoena power and contempt authority

• Establishing a commission on the security and continuity of congress

• Modernizing Legislative Service Organizations

• Addressing the powers of the Clerk to pay staff when the Speaker has not been selected

All in all, this is a small ball rules package aimed at providing continuity in the the House of Representatives as we see radical transformation in the Executive branch. Given the circumstances, that’s not surprising at all— and the AI provision is most welcome.

Fortunately, the House can modify its rules and adopt resolutions at any time, so perhaps we will see the Rules updated to reflect the ongoing modernization and reform efforts that are happening inside the House.