Using the Rules Committee to Block Democrats
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 2003; Page A21
A little "inside" on how Congress operates
In 1994, Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) lamented how Democrats were routinely preventing Republicans from getting votes on their more conservative ideas. "All we are asking for is fair treatment on both sides of the aisle here," he said.
A decade later, Dreier now rules the House Rules Committee with an iron fist and routinely prevents Democrats from getting votes on their more liberal ideas.
On many high-profile issues, Dreier, whose committee decides the rules for each debate, has refused to allow Democrats an opportunity to offer a substitute amendment on the House floor. He has infuriated Democrats by denying them votes on their plans for everything from unemployment insurance to tax cuts.
This may sound like inside baseball, but it has a huge impact on what bills pass the House and become laws.
By preventing Democrats from offering amendments, Republicans virtually eliminate the possibility of the House passing legislation not endorsed or written by GOP leaders. As important, they eliminate a key opportunity for Democrats to divide Republicans by writing alternative bills that might appeal to moderate Republicans. Republicans also protect their members from swing districts from having to vote for or against some bills that could hurt them politically in the next election.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said the GOP's "autocratic" rule is thwarting the will of the estimated 140 million people represented by the 206 Democrats in Congress.
"We don't have a diabolical plan to cut them off," said Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), a member of the Rules Committee. "But we do run the place."
Republicans have used the Rules Committee to block Democrats from offering more generous unemployment benefits to a bigger pool of workers, greater homeland security funding and smaller tax cuts.
Democrats are "looking for venues to be the loyal opposition, searching for any and all opportunities" to thwart GOP policies, said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), a member of the Rules Committee.
It is the GOP's job to play "traffic cop" and decide when and how to stop Democrats from messing with their plans, Reynolds added.
Reynolds said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who controls the Rules Committee because he appoints its members, is simply following in the tradition of Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr., a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, and others before him who made the committee a powerful tool for the speaker.
The Rules Committee, unlike all other House committees, is stacked with so many members of the majority that minority members are often rendered impotent. Republicans hold nine seats, Democrats four. All other committees closely reflect the balance of power in the House.
Also, most important, the speaker appoints the Rules Committee chairman, while all others are selected by their colleagues.
Republicans campaigned for the majority in 1994 promising to run the House differently. Now they say they are simply doing to Democrats what Democrats did to them during their 40 years of power, which ended in 1994.
In many respects, they are right. Democrats did frequently deny Republicans votes on their ideas.
"Clearly from time to time, we shut down debate," Hoyer said. "What's different here is . . . we did not do it as much and . . . we had not harangued for 10 years about what an awful process this is."
The GOP's most contentious approach is using the "suspension calendar" to pass controversial bills. The suspension calendar is traditionally reserved for noncontroversial legislative matters, such as renaming a post office or passing a resolution commemorating people or events. It takes a two-thirds vote to pass bills under suspension, and they cannot be amended.
This year, Republicans repeatedly have tried to pass bigger-ticket items through this process. On several occasions, it has backfired. In March, 21 Republicans defected and teamed with Democrats to defeat the GOP's Smallpox Emergency Personnel Protection Act. Other times, Republicans were forced to pull bills when it became clear they didn't have the votes to pass them.
In an interview, Dreier said he "learned quickly" that running Congress as the majority party requires some of the same procedural tricks he complained about a decade ago.
"I was bellyaching. I had not known what it took to govern," he acknowledged. Now, "our number one priority is to move our agenda . . . with one of the narrowest majorities in history."
The Republicans do throw the minority a procedural bone: the ability to offer a motion to recommit. This allows the minority a chance to voice its opinion on the floor but not directly substitute its ideas for the majority.
THE WEEK AHEAD: The Senate expects to devote this week to Medicare legislation. The House will consider a number of bills, including child abuse prevention, Internal Revenue Service changes and making the inheritance tax cut permanent.
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