Introduction
Charges that the Congress is unresponsive, arrogant, and
ultimately ineffective have been an increasingly significant
political issue for the past decade. Now that the 1994 elections
have changed partisan control of Congress and delivered a clear
reform mandate, the new leadership of the House of Representatives
has assembled a package of rules changes designed to make that body
more accountable and more effective. These proposals, to be
approved on the first day of the 104th Congress, January 4, 1995,
include provisions to reduce congressional bureaucracy, to make
voting and budget procedures more fair and open, to encourage a
more deliberative and accountable legislative process, and to
subject Congress to most laws now applied to the private sector.
These are large and important first steps toward making Congress
more responsive to American voters and, in the process, restoring
public confidence in that institution. As historic as they are,
these changes should mark only the beginning of continuing
congressional reform efforts, including the ultimate adoption of
term limits.
For four decades, the House of Representatives was under the
control of one party. During that period, House procedures became
increasingly arbitrary and secretive. The House's internal
management grew sloppy and bred corruption. Committee-based fief-
doms were dominated by special interests, and committees often were
unable or unwilling to produce legislation responsive to broad
public desires. Congressional Republicans increasingly criticized
these developments, calling for a more streamlined, responsive, and
equitable legislative process. In the end, voters felt alienated
from their elected officials, and Congress's approval rating
plummeted. The new House rules package largely achieves the goals
of the institution's critics, with scores of minor and major
changes in House rules designed to:
Improve deliberation by banning proxy (absentee) voting in
committees, ensuring minority rights in the amendment process, and
requiring fuller reporting on spending bills.
Streamline the legislative process by cutting the number of
committees and subcommittees, abolishing joint referrals of
legislation, and slashing committee staff.
Promote accountability by requiring that committee meetings be
open to the public and to the broadcast media, requiring roll call
votes on major legislation, prohibiting changes in debate
transcripts, and conducting a comprehensive audit of House
finances.
Increase responsiveness by imposing term limits on the Speaker
and committee chairmen and providing for consideration of a measure
to apply federal laws to Congress as the first legislative vote in
the 104th Congress.
The rules changes prepared for the first day of the new House
session include numerous other provisions designed to help achieve
these four goals, which the new majority also promises to pursue in
its day-to-day administration of the House by, for instance, making
legislation and background information quickly available to the
public electronically on the Internet.
After the first day, this new, more open House of
Representatives should seek further improvements in the legislative
process, including deeper cuts in congressional staff, spending,
and free mail, reductions in congressional support agencies
(requiring Senate cooperation), budget process reforms, and term
limits.
Filling the Reform Vacuum
Public approval of Congress has been declining for over a
decade, fueled initially by a consensus that legislators were
failing to act on the nation's problems. Voter animus was
heightened by a series of scandals which symbolized the degree to
which Congress had become self-serving and detached from the
concerns of average Americans. At the same time, public awareness
of procedural abuses in Congress was increasing, fueling grassroots
movements for limits on the number of terms that Members of
Congress could serve. Beginning in 1990, term limits were approved
in every state that held a vote on them. In 1992, a record-setting
class of freshmen Representatives was elected on a wave of reform
sentiment. By 1993 an obscure House procedure known as the
discharge petition became the object of a talk radio-spawned mass
movement to open up the workings of Congress.
Despite these warning signs, leaders of the 103rd Congress took
little or no action to improve the institution, gambling that the
public would lose interest in the issue. In a meeting with a dozen
reform-minded freshman Democrats shortly after the 1992 elections,
then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley argued that nobody would be
concerned about congressional reform by the time of the 1994
elections. As a result of leadership pressure, the 103rd Congress
failed to change such institutional embarrassments as deceptive
budgeting, an overgrown staff and committee system, entrenched
leadership structures, proxy voting, secret committee meetings, and
near- dictatorial powers exercised by committee chairmen. Foley's
prediction that the public would lose interest was wrong. Voters
recognized that these congressional abuses had become threats to
representative self-government, and their conviction was a
significant factor in the revolutionary election results of
1994.
The Republicans' Contract With America includes term limits and
eight changes in House rules which the candidates promised would be
enacted on the first day of the 104th Congress. Since the election,
Republicans have assembled a rules package which fulfills those
promises and adds several provisions designed to produce a more
efficient, open, and fair legislative process. By passing this
proposed new rules package, the House will accomplish more reforms
in one day than the previous Congresses have in twenty years. These
historic changes should not be the end of the reform process,
however. In the coming months Congress should examine unfair
incumbent electoral advantages such as the franking (free mailing)
privilege and large personal staffs, and sharply reduce staffing in
support agencies (possibly taking advantage of the opportunity to
sell one of its office buildings). It also should consider
additional truth-in-voting reforms such as lengthier review periods
for legislation, formal restrictions on closed rules (which
prohibit or limit amendments on the House floor), and application
of the Freedom of Information Act to Congress.
Contract Reforms
The reforms included in the Contract With America will be
offered as eight separate resolutions, allowing for a separate
debate and vote on each.
Staff Cuts and Committee Reforms. The new rules package will
eliminate three House committees -- Post Office and Civil Service,
District of Columbia, and Merchant Marine and Fisheries -- and 25
subcommittees.
Congressional committees and subcommittees have grown
enormously. Congress's 1947 reorganization, which cut the number of
committees and subcommittees to under 200, was undone by rapid
committee and subcommittee growth in the 1970s. This expansion
nearly doubled the number of committees and subcommittees; their
total did not fall significantly under 300 until the early
1990s.
Growth in committees and staff has ensured that Congressmen will
be removed from policy choices and hindered from passing
legislation, since a larger committee structure subjects bills to
redundant scrutiny and more special-interest group influence. The
concomitant larger number of committee assignments sometimes has
forced members to neglect some of their committee duties and thus
devalued the importance of committee work and the deliberation that
is supposed to take place there. Reducing the number of panels will
make Congress better able to focus on legislative priorities.
The committee reform provision also will shrink House committee
staff by one-third. House committee staff has grown almost
twelvefold since World War II, with the most dramatic increases
again occurring in the 1970s. The growth rate of House committee
staff has far outpaced the substantial growth in Senate committee
staff as well as growth in the personal staff in either House -- in
the last two decades alone, committee staffs in the House of
Representatives have grown by 158 percent. Congress is the most
heavily staffed legislature in the world by a factor of five; with
nearly 40,000 employees, it has grown over twice as fast as the
entire federal government since World War II.
Staff cuts are worthwhile for a number of reasons, not the least
of which is the opportunity for savings from the nearly $2.3
billion yearly expense of the institution. Furthermore, experience
shows that the larger the congressional staff, the more likely it
is to pursue independent agendas, usurping decisions properly left
to democratically elected representatives. Former Senator Walter
Mondale (D-MN) described the pressures on an overstaffed
legislator: "I felt sorry for them, so I would try to work with
them. Pretty soon I was working for them." A larger legislative
staff eager to improve the country from Washington, D.C., also
creates pressure for the expansion of the federal government.
Truth in Budgeting
The second of the Contract provisions will require committees to
compare new spending recommendations to the provisions of current
law. The new leadership is also committed to additional
truth-in-budgeting reforms, including reform of the "current
services baseline," but cannot accomplish them on the first day in
session since they will require changes in statutes or in
procedures affecting both Houses of Congress. Term Limits for
Committee Chairmen.
House committee chairmen will be prohibited from serving more
than three consecutive Congresses (six years). Limitation of tenure
for committee chairmen begins to address some of the concerns of
advocates of full-scale legislative term limits. A central problem
of previous Congresses has been that the committee chairmen, who
set Congress's agenda, had spent decades in office. In the 103rd
Congress, for example, two of the House's three most powerful
committees (Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce) were chaired by
Congressmen who had held the chair for over a decade, while the
third (Appropriations) had just been vacated by a Congressman who
had held it since the 1970s. Over 90 percent of House committees
were chaired by Members who had spent at least ten terms in office.
Although this figure will drop to 55 percent in the 104th Congress
-- partly because of the switch in party control -- the dangers of
concentrated power and of committee chairmen who are resistant to
new ideas remain.
Term limits for committee chairmen would increase the likelihood
of their openness to new perspectives. They would also reduce
opportunities for wasteful, district- and reelection-oriented
federal spending aimed at favored constituents and special interest
groups. Voters would also have less reason to evaluate incumbents
running for reelection on the basis of seniority, and thus more
reason to take into account candidates' views on the issues of the
day.
Elimination of Proxy Voting
Elimination of the practice of allowing absent members of a
committee to loan their votes to other members is a critical step
to ensure fairness and to improve committee deliberation. Although
House Rules have strictly prohibited one Member of Congress from
casting votes for another on the House floor (indeed, ethics
reprimands have been triggered by this rule's violation), proxy
voting was the norm in most committees in the 103rd Congress. In
1993, for example, the House Committees on the Judiciary, Public
Works and Transportation, and Energy and Commerce used proxies on
every single legislative vote.
Historically, proxy voting allowed the majority party leadership
to extend its control over committee outcomes by scheduling
multiple, contemporaneous committee and subcommittee meetings.
Committee chairmen, who determine their committee's entire
legislative agenda, could postpone votes on controversial matters
until they controlled sufficient proxy votes to ensure that the
vote would go their way. Proxy voting also promoted committee
absenteeism by ensuring that legislators who skipped meetings would
retain their ability to cast votes in absentia. It allowed
legislators to abandon their deliberative responsibilities by
voting for or against legislation without hearing any discussion or
argument on its merits. Abolishing proxy voting will reduce the
power of committee chairmen and foster deliberation by forcing
Congressmen to show up for work in committees if they want their
votes to count.
The additional rules reforms to follow the eight Contract
provisions include four related changes. "Rolling quorums"
(allowing Congressmen to stick their heads inside a meeting room
briefly and thus meet the minimum attendance requirement for a
committee to do business) will be prohibited, and most committees
would be barred from meeting when the House is in session. Most
Members will be restricted to two full committee and four
subcommittee assignments, preventing the inflation and devaluation
of committee assignments. Finally, joint referral of a bill to two
or more committees will be abolished. Like the proxy ban, these
provisions will emphasize the importance of members actually
working on legislation in House committees, increasing committees'
accountability while improving their product.
Open Meetings
The new rules package will also ensure public access to
committee meetings. In previous Congresses, committees frequently
closed their doors to the press and public, a step the panels could
take for nearly any reason. In fact, the two House committees that
most often operated in secret -- Appropriations and Ways and Means
-- were the bodies making controversial choices about federal
taxation and spending.
Former Speaker Foley, who helped write the committee-closing
rules roughly two decades ago, once suggested that secret meetings
make for better decisions. "I think sometimes there is a feeling
that there is better discussion, less inhibited, more free and full
discussion... in closed session." But Foley's suggestion that
public accountability poisons deliberation runs counter to American
ideals of republican self-government, in which citizens are
expected to pass judgment on the actions of the lawmakers who
represent them. In fact, past examples strongly suggest that the
public interest would have been served by increased openness and
disclosure. For instance, the Ways and Means Committee prevented
the public from observing discussions of the 1988 catastrophic
illness legislation. Just months later, as the public began to
understand the consequences of the law, it was repealed. Greater
openness in government might have prevented that legislative
disaster.
The new rules will allow committees to close meetings only if a
public session would endanger national security, compromise law
enforcement, or defame or incriminate individuals. Further,
broadcast media would be permitted to cover any open hearing or
meeting (currently, media coverage is subject to a vote of
approval). Related additions to these Contract provisions include
requirements that committees publish recorded committee votes in
their reports (most voting records are now available only by
personal journeys to committee offices) and that committee
transcripts could not be altered other than for minor grammatical
changes.
Making Tax Hikes More Difficult
The new rules package would require a three-fifths vote of the
House to pass any income tax rate increase and prohibit retroactive
taxation of income. Among Washington commentators the 60 percent
rule has been particularly controversial, with claims that the new
rule is anti-democratic or even unconstitutional. Behind the heated
rhetoric of Beltway commentators is the conviction that new tax
increases are needed. The supermajority requirement is quite
similar to restrictions voters have imposed on numerous state
legislators. Among the most beneficial aspects of the 60 percent
tax rule is that any future Congress desiring to raise taxes would
have to alter or waive the rule, providing a warning sign of a
potential tax boost. The provision also balances the burden of a
1990 budget law which effectively requires a 60 percent vote in the
Senate to cut taxes (unless the reductions are offset by increases
in other taxes or cuts in entitlement spending).
Authorization of House Audit
The seventh Contract-related rules change will authorize a
comprehensive audit of House records, assets, and facilities by an
independent accounting firm. Some House accounts have been audited
sporadically by the General Accounting Office, an internal
congressional agency. Despite the fact that one such audit
uncovered the House Bank scandal, most House accounts have not been
examined regularly, and some may have never been reviewed by an
independent examiner. This audit will be the first complete
accounting of the House's financial status ever made available to
the public.
Applying Federal Laws to Congress
The last of the Contract reforms is a rule paving the way for
the first legislative action of the new House -- consideration of
the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA). This measure has both
substantive and symbolic importance. Passage of the CAA will
underscore the principle that no American should be immune from the
law or receive special treatment in its application. The bill also
will encourage legislators to continue to review the burdens that
federal laws place upon American citizens and ensure that the
benefits they bring exceed their attendant costs. The laws which
would be applied to Congress include the Civil Rights Act, the
Americans With Disabilities Act, the National Labor Relations Act,
the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Worker Adjustment and
Retraining Notification Act, and the Family and Medical Leave
Act.
The House passed a version of the Congressional Accountability
Act near the end of the 103rd Congress, but the measure died
because the Senate failed to consider it. As a stopgap solution the
House extended coverage of the specified laws to itself by an
internal rules change in September of 1994, but a statute rather
than a House rule is necessary to grant congressional employees
review rights in federal court. This year the Senate appears poised
to act on the Accountability Act early in the session, giving it
very good prospects for passage.
The major remaining flaw in the current version of the
Accountability Act is the exclusion of the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) from the list of covered laws. The FOIA does not apply
to the private sector because it is intended to give the public
access to government information. Excluding FOIA can only give the
appearance that Congress thinks it has something to hide, and runs
counter to the openness in government principles infused in most
other House reforms. A joint House- Senate group apparently will
study application of FOIA to Congress, though without a promise of
action.
Additional First-Day House Rules Reforms
The new Republican majority in the House will go beyond reforms
promised in the Contract With America with a further package of
rules changes which will also be adopted during the House's first
meeting on January 4. These reforms are fully consistent with those
offered in the Contract, further advancing principles of fairness
and accountability in House procedures. The most significant of
these are term limits for the House Speaker, more equitable
procedures governing special rules used for significant
legislation, and a more open appropriations process.
Ending the Emergency Spending Loophole and Other
Appropriations Reforms
The new rules package will close a loophole that enabled
legislators to stuff pork into emergency spending bills. Because
emergency relief bills are not subject to overall spending limits,
they have been abused to advance programs which could not be
justified in the regular legislative process. For instance, the
$6.2 billion that President Clinton requested for earthquake relief
in 1993 ballooned into an $11 billion federal spending spree by the
time Congress had finished adding such extraneous items as federal
employee pay raises and funding for a New York train station.
Although the House in the 103rd Congress passed legislation banning
such budgetary sleight of hand, the Senate failed to take action on
the measure. Passage of this reform through House rules will
eradicate this problem in the House even without Senate action.
Several other changes in the appropriations process will grant
rank- and-file Members more say in spending decisions. Members will
be permitted to offer "en bloc" amendments to transfer
appropriations money from one program to another and to offer
limitation amendments that prohibit federal funds from being used
for specific purposes. En bloc amendments currently are not
allowed, and limitation amendments are allowed only if sponsors can
first defeat a procedural motion.
New rules would also require appropriators to identify projects
that are not authorized (as is normally required). This step will
both draw attention to authorizing committees which are failing to
perform their job and to appropriators who are too eager to do it
for them. For instance, no foreign aid bill has been authorized for
the last eight years, which has left all decisions in that area
entirely in the hands of appropriators.
Greater Specificity About Rules Waivers
One particularly egregious abuse of House procedures has been
the practice of the blanket rules waiver, which authorizes
departure from all House rules. Blanket waivers have enabled the
majority party leadership to force immediate votes on lengthy bills
while avoiding questions about what particular rule needed to be
avoided, what part of the bill required special treatment, and what
the departure from standard procedure would accomplish. For
instance, when Rep. Jack Brooks (D-TX) came before the Rules
Committee to request a blanket waiver on the 103rd Congress's crime
bill, he was asked by Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) what aspects of the
gargantuan legislation needed waivers. "I don't know," Brooks
responded, "and I wouldn't tell you if I did!" Among the items
Brooks was hiding was a large grant to a university in his own
district. The new waiver restrictions would require the Rules
Committee to specify "to the maximum extent possible" any departure
from standard House Rules, giving legislators who opposed bending
the rules a road map to focus their criticisms far more
sharply.
Minority Rights to Offer Amendments
Many House Republican complaints over the last decades have
centered around the fact that they have not been allowed to
contribute to the legislative process. This situation has been
exacerbated by historically large proportions of amendment-limiting
rules. Too often majority party leaders refused to allow the
minority party any role (Former Speaker Tip O'Neill is reported to
have said during his tenure that "Republicans are just going to
have to get it through their heads that they are not going to write
legislation!"). Republicans have pledged to adhere to their own
calls for fairness as a majority party by:
Guaranteeing in House rules the minority's right to offer at
least one amendment to every piece of legislation in the form of a
"motion to recommit with instructions," and
Pledging that at least three-quarters of House rules will be
open to all amendments (reversing the nearly three-quarters closed
ratio recorded by Democrats in the last Congress).
Honest Housekeeping. Several new rules will provide better
information to the public, including:
Requiring recorded votes on appropriations, tax, and budget
bills. Previously, such legislation was occasionally passed by
voice vote, which denied constituents information on Congressmen's
policy choices. Preventing revision of the Congressional Record. In
previous Congresses, Members were able to hide mistakes or
embarrassing statements they uttered on the House floor by
submitting corrections to Record compilers. Such rewriting of
history, which allowed Congressmen to appear in the best possible
light in the Record, would be disallowed by the new rules.
Providing more timely information on the identity of Members
signing discharge petitions (a method of bypassing recalcitrant
committees). Providing House documents and records to the public
via the Internet or by other electronic means (a step the new
leadership has pledged which does not need a rules change).
Abolition of Legislative Service Organizations
(LSOs)
There are currently 140 special interest congressional caucuses:
of these, 28 have been permitted to be LSOs. This status permits
groups to have office space, access to House equipment and
services, and funding through Members' clerk-hire accounts.
Unfortunately, LSO spending was poorly controlled, allowing
spending on items prohibited under normal rules. Items billed to
LSOs in the past include $2,646 worth of glass sculptures used for
gifts, $4,000 for pastries, a $9,000 reception, and over $10,000 in
one year for a petty cash fund -- with no receipts. Over one-fifth
of the $35 million spent by LSOs in the past decade remains
unaccounted for. Not only did LSOs occupy scarce congressional
offices, they contributed to policy fragmentation and client-based
approaches to public policy, often acting as official proxies for
outside special interest groups.
The new rules abolish LSOs, which could save a significant
portion of the $5 million yearly that they cost. Because LSO funds
came from individual congressional accounts, which are not
addressed in the first-day rules changes, actual savings will
depend on subsequent action by Congress.
Abolition of Commemorative Legislation
The new rules package would ban commemorative legislation such
as National Dairy Goat Awareness Week and National Tap Dancing Day.
Although legislation that honors certain groups or activities is
appreciated by the beneficiaries, such activity diverts
congressional attention from more important matters.
Abolition of Delegate Voting
In the 103rd Congress, the majority congressional leadership
awarded the five delegates from the District of Columbia and U.S.
Territories the right to vote on the House floor in most instances.
Republicans opposed this measure, arguing that the delegates
neither represented citizens of the states (as specified in the
Constitution) nor, for the most part, paid federal taxes. The new
rules package would eliminate this controversy by restricting the
right to vote on the House floor to those representatives of (in
the Constitution's words) "the People of the Several States."
Term Limits for the Speaker
Reforms in the committee system and other changes in House rules
have the effect of concentrating more power in the hands of the
Speaker. While most observers agree that centralization was needed,
many Congressmen also feared that concentrating power for too long
in the hands of any one person might lead to abuses similar to
those being combatted by these same rules changes. In response to
these concerns, incoming Speaker Newt Gingrich has agreed to
support a House rule limiting his own tenure (and that of his
successors) to four terms (eight years). As with term limits on
committee chairmen, or on Congress as a whole, this reform strikes
an appropriate balance between the powers necessary to govern a
great nation and the danger of leaving such power in the hands of
any one official for too long.
Rules Reforms Beyond January 4
Following the sweeping rules changes on the first day of its
session, the House should not and likely will not abandon further
reform efforts. Many needed reforms will require the cooperation of
the Senate, the passage of legislation, or simply more study and
consideration than was possible in the two months between election
day and the opening of the new Congress. Among the most important
of these reform areas are:
Additional Staff and Budget Cuts
House Republicans considered but postponed a proposal to reduce
the number of employees that each Representative is permitted to
hire. Over 40 percent of personal office employees are devoted to
casework or essentially political functions. While Congressmen
should remain sensitive to special problems of constituents, most
casework is on routine matters such as pensions, entitlement
benefits and passports. These problems could be better addressed
through nonpartisan ombudsmen, for example, leaving
Congressmen more time to address broader problems, and leaving
fewer staffers available for private electoral purposes. For
instance, hundreds of staffers currently spend the bulk of their
workday writing and sending hundreds of millions of franked letters
yearly, which serve as supplementary quasi-campaign mailings for
incumbents seeking reelection. The "volunteer" campaign work
performed by many congressional staffers sometimes approaches being
a sub rosa condition of hire and almost certainly contributes to
the record incumbent reelection rates of over 90 percent that House
Members have seen on average over the last two decades. Congress
should also reduce the franking budget and consider further
restrictions on pre-election mailings. Finally, the House and
Senate should work together to reduce staffing in the bloated
congressional support agencies, particularly the General Accounting
Office. Matching the one-third reductions in House committee
staffing is a realistic goal for the support agencies. Both staff
and franking are likely to be addressed this spring in the
congressional appropriations process.
Ending Baseline Budgeting
The new rules package requires committees to compare proposed
spending to actual current spending levels. However, without
further changes, the overall federal budget process will still use
"baseline budgeting," which compares proposed spending to imaginary
totals based on actual spending, inflation, and demographic and
economic factors. This system has permitted Congress to slip
disguised spending increases into budgets without taking
responsibility for doing so. The Medicare baseline, for instance,
typically calls for yearly increases of 12 percent to 13 percent,
double or triple the rate of inflation.
As Texas Democratic Representative Charles Stenholm has noted,
baseline budgeting "creates a bias to increase spending." The new
rules package would address this problem in the case of individual
bills, but Congress should also change the Budget Act so that the
entire budget process operates on the same principle. The House
passed baseline reform legislation last year which died in the
Senate. Early House action this year would vastly improve prospects
in the Senate, where new leaders may be more favorable to this
change.
Truth in Voting
In the 103rd Congress, Representative Mike Crapo (R-ID)
introduced the Truth in Voting Act, a package of rules reforms
designed to make the House's legislative process more open,
understandable, and accountable. Roughly half of the dozen
truth-in-voting reforms in Crapo's bill are included in the House's
new rules package. The balance of Crapo's truth-in- voting reforms,
however, are worthwhile.
Establish a "deficit lockbox" for spending
cuts
Although Members of Congress love to trumpet their votes in
favor of politically popular spending cuts, the implied benefit of
these cuts -- that they will save money or reduce the deficit -- is
almost always nonexistent. A House vote to cut spending simply
cedes control of the funds in question back to the appropriations
conference committee that originally spent the money. That
committee can simply restore the cut spending or reallocate the
money to another pet program; either of these options destroys the
savings aimed at by budget-cutters. A lock box would allow
lawmakers to designate spending cuts for deficit reduction.
Require a three-fifths majority to waive
rules
Although incoming Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon (R-NY)
has pledged to make three-quarters of the legislation the House
considers open to amendment, requiring a supermajority vote to
block further legislative improvements would provide a better
guarantee of minority rights in the amendment process. The House
could preserve the right of the majority to force action by
specifying conditions (such as time limits or pre- publication
requirements) which could be adopted by a simple majority vote,
while requiring a higher threshold for conditions which might shut
out minority voices or rush legislation unreasonably.
Eliminate House rules that make procedural tricks
possible
Among the rules abuses targeted by Crapo's Truth in Voting bill
are "self- executing rules" which cloak substantive provisions in
procedural votes. In the past, the House has made policy through
procedural votes on such disparate matters as aid to the Contras,
congressional pay, changes in deficit targets, and endorsement of
President Clinton's policies on homosexuals in the military.
Perhaps the most disturbing example is a permanent self- executing
provision, House Rule XLIX, also known as the "Gephardt Rule" which
permits continual increases in the federal debt limit, in line with
annual budget resolutions, without the embarrassment of voting to
hike it. Crapo would also prohibit "king-of-the-hill" rules which
permit Members to vote on both sides of the same issue.
Apply the Freedom of Information Act to
Congress
Although the new House's first order of business -- at last to
apply federal laws to itself -- is praiseworthy, this endeavor will
remain flawed and incomplete until Freedom of Information Act
coverage is included. Congressional secrecy has done more to harm
the institution and make it susceptible to scandal than perhaps any
other action. Abuses centering around the House restaurant, post
office, and bank scandals would likely have been eliminated or
curbed far earlier had knowledge about their details been available
to the general public. Citizens have a right to know about the
contacts that Members of Congress make with special-interest
lobbyists and federal regulatory agencies. Applying FOIA to
Congress is the best way to ensure that such information is
disclosed.
Rein in conference committees
Federal programs often become more expensive over the course of
many years, but they rarely become $5 billion more expensive over
the course of a few weeks. When the $22 billion Senate crime bill
and its $28 billion House counterpart went to conference committee,
that committee produced a $33 billion product. Although massive
public scrutiny eventually enabled congressional budget-cutters to
reduce the bill's expense, unlimited committee discretion routinely
enables committee members to add new spending to the legislation
that ultimately must be voted on by both Houses of Congress. New
House Rules specifying that conference committees may not fund
programs at a higher level than either House of Congress had
approved would eliminate committee skullduggery and redistribute
power from conference committees to rank-and-file legislators. Such
rules should also require conference committees to follow the
dictates of any motions to instruct passed by the House, rather
than allowing conferees to ignore those often overwhelming
votes.
Term Limits
The Contract With America promises only a House vote on term
limits. However, if House leaders make only desultory efforts to
secure the two-thirds supermajority necessary to pass a
constitutional amendment, term limit supporters will be outraged
and citizens may feel they were tricked. While the reforms the new
House majority has embraced are huge improvements, the task of
congressional reform will not be complete until term limits become
the law of the land. Only term limits can guarantee that
Republicans will keep their vows to remember life in the minority
and to remain sensitive to the will of the American people. The
clearest test of House leaders' real commitment to term limits
would be a vigorous effort to find a way to defuse the controversy
between six- and twelve-year House service limits, which threatens
to complicate this already difficult effort.
Conclusion
Although disputes over the way the House operates are often
portrayed as arguments over arcane details with little
significance, the votes that establish the rules by which the House
does business are some of the most important ones that House
Members will cast over the next two years. Previous Congresses
operated under rules that inflated staff, weakened the quality of
House deliberation, kept important matters out of the public's
view, and eroded individual Members' accountability. Passage of the
new rules package will be an unprecedented House cleaning: it will
make the House more efficient, more accountable, more deliberative,
and more open to public scrutiny.
Among the highlights of the new rules are: Application of
private sector laws to Congress; Elimination of numerous House
committees and subcommittees, a one-third cut in committee staffs,
and a prohibition on proxy (absentee) voting; Imposition of term
limits on committee chairmen and the Speaker; Requirements for open
meetings and better reporting of committee action, particularly in
the appropriations process; Greater fairness in the rules process
governing consideration of major legislation.
Even after their historic first day, House leaders should remain
committed to reform by pursuing: Further staff and budget cuts;
Budget process reforms;
Additional truth in voting measures;
A term limits constitutional amendment.
The historic changes that the new Republican majority will make
in the rules of the House of Representatives on January 4 should
not be an end, but a beginning to the process of reforming
Congress. Further reforms in Congress's structure and in the budget
process are particularly critical. Many steps in these areas will
require joint action by the House and Senate, making them
impossible to address on the first day of the congressional
session. The new House and Senate leaders should quickly begin
working together to address these needed reforms. Ultimately,
Members of Congress must not forget that a term limits
constitutional amendment is the true measure of congressional
reform.
Dan Greenberg, Congressional Analyst
David M. Mason Director, U.S. Congress Assessment Project