Votes Outside the House Rules: January 10 to February 7, 2011
Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution says of Congress that “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” But from time to time, leaders of the House of Representatives have expedited proceedings by suspending the Rules of the House and bringing bills up for quick consideration without amendment or debate. When he was in the minority last year, such behavior irked John Boehner:
“Leaders overreach because the rules allow them to. Legislators duck their responsibilities because the rules help them to. And when the rules don’t suit the majority’s purposes, they are just ignored.
There’s no accountability, and there are no consequences. Whether we here in Washington believe this or not, the people clearly do. Think about how our constant flouting of the rules sits with a small business owner who has to spend his or her day complying with all the mandates and regulations our government sends down.”
- Representative John Boehner, September 30 2010
Now that John Boehner is Speaker of the House and in control of the majority and the Rules Committee itself, how often will he overreach or ignore the House Rules? How often will he abide by the House Rules, which were passed under his own administration to great fanfare and the reading of the Constitution in January of 2011?
To track the actions of the Congress under this reformist outsider turned Speaker, we at That’s My Congress will track the record of legislation coming up for consideration on the floor of the House. As weeks pass, how many of the bills that make it to the floor are considered under House rules? How often are rules being suspended for reasons of expedition?
Here’s the record so far of the 112th Congress on the suspension of its own rules:
By February, a majority of bills were being considered under the suspension of House Rules. As the weeks continue to pass, we’ll continue to provide updated information.
[...] in protected First Amendment activities, was granted only 40 minutes of debate this afternoon. The reauthorization bill had no committee consideration (even though it was referred to two committees), and no amendments will be permitted. Not that too [...]
[...] the Republican leadership had followed their own House Rules, this bill would have passed. But the Republicans suspended their own rules, which meant that the margin required for passage rose to 2/3 (290 votes if all 435 members were [...]