{
  "id": "R41501",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R41501",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 373880,
      "date": "2010-11-18",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-07T01:23:12.871846",
      "title": "House Legislative Procedures and House Committee Organization: Options for Change in the 112th Congress",
      "summary": "Members and leaders of both parties have questioned whether legislative practices, while consistent with House rules, have gotten out of balance, with too much deliberation sacrificed to efficiency or electioneering. They have made speeches, introduced resolutions, and, when in the minority, issued critiques of the House\u2019s legislative management. Practices targeted have included waivers of layover rules, use of structured and closed special rules, and waivers of committee assignment limitations. The purpose of this report is to provide Members with an analysis of House legislative rules and practices, and committee organization and procedures, that could be changed in the 112th Congress. Some analyses respond to bipartisan Member concerns over the House\u2019s legislative management, others to the needs of leaders in managing such a large body.\nChange to legislative procedures and to committee organization in the House of Representatives can be achieved in a number of ways, including the opening-day rules resolution, freestanding resolutions, the Speaker\u2019s announced policies, party rules, and majority-party leadership commitments.\nA House rule or set of rules might be drafted a number of ways. Questions for a proponent of a rules change include: What is the balance being sought between deliberation and decision making? What leader or group of Members will be empowered by a change, or will the House be the decision maker? Will an action be allowed, forbidden, or made conditional? How will the rule be enforced? How could party rules supplement or supplant an existing or new rule?\nNumerous House rules address the committee system, including structure, membership, jurisdiction and referral, and procedures. Numerous Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference rules and decisions on committees supplement or even circumvent House rules to ensure the majority party\u2019s dominance of committees\u2019 policymaking and to organize committees to reflect the majority party\u2019s values. The number, jurisdiction, size, and party ratios of committees are important for these reasons. In addition, as the number of waivers and temporary assignments has expanded, the average number of assignments for Members has risen. These attributes of the committee system, and others, could be changed if Members wish to do so.\nThe means by which legislation is developed has become an issue in and of itself in recent Congresses. Members of both parties, whether their party has been in the majority or the minority, have criticized departures from \u201cregular order\u201d and the development of leadership alternatives outside of and subsequent to the committee process. The evolution of rules and practices in the House in the past 25 years, however, has favored decision making and efficiency. Members seem now to be asking whether the House favors decision making too much over deliberation? Whether the minority has been excluded too much from influencing legislative outcomes?\nBecause important legislation, including conference reports and amendments between the houses, is almost always considered in the House chamber under a special rule reported by the Rules Committee\u2014the \u201carm of the leadership\u201d\u2014the use of structured and closed rules has become the principal means by which the House makes decisions efficiently. If the House wishes to rebalance decision making and deliberation, numerous options exist for working within the special rules process to increase deliberation and Member participation in policymaking.\nThis report will not be updated.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
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      "topics": []
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  ],
  "topics": [
    "Foreign Affairs",
    "Legislative Process",
    "National Defense"
  ]
}