• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Congress>
  3. congress>

At Least One Bipartisan Vote: House Needs Modernizing

David Hawkings
January 04, 2019

While the partisan standoff that's pushed the government shutdown into a third week is getting the bulk of the media's attention, an unusual glimmer of bipartisanship marked the start of the new Congress.

Setting the rules for operating the House of Representatives is traditionally an entirely party-line affair, with the majority party unified in dictating the terms and the minority party just as unified in resisting. But not this year.


In what appears to be a first in modern times, part of the new rules package was overwhelmingly approved Friday, 418-12, the only "no" votes coming from a clutch of the most combative Republican conservatives. The provision, which creates a Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, was welcomed by lawmakers from across the ideological spectrum who view the House's internal procedures, technologies and work culture as contributing to the Capitol's dysfunction.

And on Thursday, when the bulk of the new House rules were approved, 234-197, the package won the support of three centrist Republicans who had pressed for several of the provisions in the hope of improving transparency and promoting consensus-building in the legislative process: Tom Reed and John Katko of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

At the same time, three progressive Democrats opposed the entire package because of its pay-as-you-go language requiring tax increases or offsetting spending cuts in House legislation expanding social safety net programs: Ro Khanna of California, Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The special panel's jurisdiction, the new rules say, is "policies to develop the next generation of leaders; staff recruitment, diversity, retention, and compensation and benefits; administrative efficiencies, including purchasing, travel, outside services, and shared administrative staff; technology and innovation; and the work of the House Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards," the organization that monitors lawmakers' official communications with their constituents to assure they do not become de facto campaign propaganda.

"Many will decry the select committee as a half measure unlikely to produce real results, but its establishment is a signal from leadership that the congressional reform movement has gained enough traction to warrant internal study," said Casey Burgat of the R Street Institute, a generally conservative think tank that studies ways to make Congress work better.

A 2017 survey of senior Capitol Hill staffers by the independent Congressional Management Foundation found only 6 percent were very satisfied with the Hill's technical infrastructure, for example, and only 15 percent very content that the congressional workforce had the requisite knowledge, skills and abilities to support the membership.

The committee will have six members from each party and its recommendations, which are due by the end of the year, will need the support of eight lawmakers in order to advance to the full House. The chairman will be Derek Killmer, who is beginning his fourth term representing Washington's Olympic Peninsula and is also the incoming chairman of the centrist New Democrat Coalition.

The rare burst of bipartisanship in setting the House rules is almost certain to disappear when lawmakers vote next week on a final provision, which would authorize the House's lawyers to get involved in the appeal of a federal judge's ruling in Texas last month declaring the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. As has distinguished nearly a full decade of debate since the first Obamacare bill moved through the House, not a single GOP lawmaker is inclined to vote to stick up for the law.

From Your Site Articles
  • 4 principles to guide us past our Covid crisis divisions - The Fulcrum ›
  • Ro Khanna on dignity and democracy - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Membership is set for the Committee for the Modernization of ... ›
  • Resources: The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress ›
  • First big bipartisan vote establishes House select committee on ... ›
congress

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

Grand Canyon gap in America today

Dave Anderson

Chief Justice John Roberts and Chief Justice Roger Taney are Twins– separated by only 165 years

Stephen E. Herbits

Conservatives attacking Americans’ First Amendment rights

Steve Corbin

To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

Julio A. Alicea

Policymakers must address worsening civil unrest post Roe

Sarah K. Burke

Video: How to salvage U.S. democracy from the "tyranny of the minority"

Our Staff
latest News

America’s greatest resource- Education

William Natbony
1h

The Carter Center and Team Democracy unite to advance candidate principles for trusted elections

Ken Powley
2h

There is no magic pill for postpartum depression

Priya Iyer
28 September

Advancing human rights, worldwide

Leland R. Beaumont
28 September

How statelessness gambles with the lives of American families

Samantha Sitterly
27 September

Podcast: Is reunification still possible?

Our Staff
27 September
Videos
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Our Staff
Video: The history of Labor Day

Video: The history of Labor Day

Our Staff
Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Is reunification still possible?

Our Staff
27 September

Podcast: All politics is local

Our Staff
22 September

Podcast: How states hold fair elections

Our Staff
14 September

Podcast: The MAGA Bubble, Bidenonmics and Playing the Victim

Debilyn Molineaux
David Riordan
12 September
Recommended
America’s greatest resource- Education

America’s greatest resource- Education

Big Picture
Grand Canyon gap in America today

Grand Canyon gap in America today

Elections
The Carter Center and Team Democracy unite to advance candidate principles for trusted elections

The Carter Center and Team Democracy unite to advance candidate principles for trusted elections

Big Picture
There is no magic pill for postpartum depression

There is no magic pill for postpartum depression

Big Picture
Advancing human rights, worldwide

Advancing human rights, worldwide

Big Picture
Chief Justice John Roberts and Chief Justice Roger Taney are Twins– separated by only 165 years

Chief Justice John Roberts and Chief Justice Roger Taney are Twins– separated by only 165 years

Big Picture