Changing the rules

...Moreover, the House will be able to construct policy alternatives with significantly less compromise of its more liberal perspective before facing the necessary concessions to the Senate and accommodation with the president...

...This delay on committee assignments generated speculation that the Democratic leadership wanted (or needed) the additional threat of withholding committee seats to ensure passage of several contested rule changes...

...The new rules, in effect, allow the floor manager (usually the Appropriations Subcommittee Chair) to propose that debate be ended at any time after Appropriations Committee amendments have been considered...

...Washington report CHANGING THE RULES THE 98th GETS STARTED THE MEDIA ATTENTION given to the opening of the 98th Congress was not nearly as evident during what may be viewed as the "actual" start of the new House of Representatives, that is, in December, when the Democratic Caucus met to organize for the 98th Congress...

...As the majority party, the Democratic Caucus considered a number of amendments to the rules - the way the House conducts its business - and accepted ten changes...

...Receiving most attention in the floor debate on the rules package was the change in the way in which riders - legislative language in the form of limitations - to appropriations bills may be offered on the floor...

...They will see that the legislative timetable just keeps ticking away...

...Wright only allowed that the discharge rules change was dropped by the Caucus that morning, "due to the somewhat controversial nature of the proposed changes and the controversy that attended the proposal...

...It is more likely that the changes were simply becoming too costly in good will for the leadership for what they hoped to gain - after all, the discharge petition was the most opposed proposal in the Caucus...

...Other rules changes assisting the leadership include the Speaker's discretionary authority to postpone a roll-call vote on approving the Journal - thereby circumventing nuisance quorum calls...

...Given these circumstances, why wasn't the move made to increase the number of required signatures and thereby lessen the electoral anxieties of many Democrats...

...If a majority of the House supports the floor manager, debate is ended, and the House may vote for final approval...

...Since the rule would allow a point of order to be raised against such a provision, this amendment might be used by the leadership in preventing the Senate from adding tax or tariff amendments to unrelated measures - an additional defense tactic available to the House to protect its independent policy role...

...The rules changes will enable the House to reassert its role as the prominent chamber in fiscal matters...

...Soon enough Members will look upon that opening day as one of the longer periods they spent with their children...

...However, when Majority Leader Jim Wright brought these hard-won rules to the floor, the most hotly contested change was omitted - namely, the proposal to increase to two-thirds the number of signatures required on a petition to discharge a constitutional amendment from the Judiciary Committee...

...The media has been preoccupied by the removal of Texas Democrat Phil Gramm from the Budget Committee...

...John Breaux's losing bid for the Budget Committee) and the increased number of liberals assigned to the money committees...

...Hence a majority of Members will be able to avoid voting on such politically damaging floor amendments as limiting funds for abortion or busing - if they have not already been successfully added in Committee...

...They will be wrung out in the 98th Congress at every stage of the legislative process - budget, appropriations, and authorizations - and in every subcommittee, committee, and floor action...

...The recent actions of the Democratic leadership begin to address these criticisms...

...Committee assignments, one of the few effective tools of party discipline available to the leadership, were delayed for the major committees until the votes on the rules changes had occurred on opening day...

...Was there such concern over Democratic disgruntlement that it was felt the entire rules package would be threatened...

...Moreover, there was many a nervous soul looking at the prospect in the upcoming Congress of constitutional amendment votes on school prayer, busing, and abortion brought to the floor by the use of a discharge petition signed by a majority of Members (although two-thirds are, of course, required for passage of a constitutional amendment...

...This has been achieved through the manipulation of the committee assignment process and the enactment of the Caucus-sanctioned rules package, despite Democratic disinclination and voluble Republican railing...

...JEREMIAH BARUCH...

...Yet of greater importance are both the difficulties encountered by many other "Boll Weevils" in the committee assignment process (including Louisiana Rep...

...This further centralization of authority ought to be of benefit to party leadership, particularly considering the number of liberals added to the committee membership...

...The Democratic leadership has nonetheless been able to maximize the results of the '82 election by extending the impact well beyond the additional twenty-six seats won...

...The position of the Ways and Means Committee is also improved by a rule preventing any other committee from reporting any measure containing a tax or tariff matter...

...The decisions made by the Caucus at that time should be noted well since they will have an impact on the power of the Democratic leadership...

...Observers of Congress lament its porous and diffuse nature, decrying too many points of access and a dispersion of power...

...The withdrawal should give pause to those who have readily predicted the demise of social issues on the congressional agenda...

...Since 1975, in the House, Members and Members-elect of both parties meet early in December to take the necessary steps to prepare for the new Congress including electing party leaders and approving committee assignments...

...The evening news coverage of the new Congress treated us to a warmed-over portrait of Members and their families...

...Children were nestled and coddled, and good will oozed...

...Given the contention surrounding several of the other rules changes, particularly a proposed restriction on legislative riders, there seems to have been a tactical retreat by the leadership...

...Yet the motivation remains obscure...

...It appears that the opposition was of such intensity, apparently fueled by pro-life concerns, to have generated (ironically) the extraordinary measure of a petition to the Speaker, signed by over fifty Members, requesting that this proposal not be submitted...

...But these concessions and accommodations will begin well before the chambers confront each other at the conference committee tables...

...The Democratic leadership had been embarrassed, and Members distressed, by a pre-election vote on the balanced budget amendment...

...Not only are the prospects diminished that conservative-initiated riders will be coming out of the committee, but it also is less likely that the leadership will be displeased with overall priorities in the appropriations bills finally reported to the full House...

...By increasing its authority as a gatekeeper for legislative riders, the power of the Appropriations Committee is appreciably enhanced...