Citizens across America will have a powerful tool to hold their elected leaders accountable come January. The House of Representatives today adopted new standards that increase transparency and improve access to legislative data. All of the information will be publicly available in a searchable format on one website. “With the adoption of these standards, for the first time, all House bills, resolutions and legislative documents will be available in XML in one centralized location,” said House Administration Chairman Dan Lungren (R-CA). “Providing easy access to legislative information increases constituent feedback and ultimately …
Republican leaders this week unveiled a new mobile app that helps Americans follow the action of the House of Representatives from the palm of their hand. The app is available on the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Android phone and tablet. The app, called WhipCast, is the first government app to be simultaneously released on all three major mobile platforms. The project was spearheaded by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who stars in the promotional video. “Prior Congresses wrote and passed legislation in the dark of the night,” wrote Brian …
The House of Representatives is poised to pass legislation today that prohibits the National Labor Relations Board from interfering in the business decisions of U.S. companies. The bill would effectively end the NLRB’s complaint against Boeing’s expansion plans in South Carolina. Boeing came under attack from the NLRB in April after constructing a plant in South Carolina to build its 787 Dreamliner. The case is currently before an administrative law judge in Seattle. South Carolina Rep. Tim Scott wants to put an end to the matter now. The freshman Republican …
President Obama repeatedly asked members of Congress to pass the American Jobs Act last week. But when no Democrat filed Obama’s bill after he presented it to Congress, a conservative congressman swiped the name for his own legislation. The American Jobs Act introduced in the House of Representatives looks quite different from the version President Obama outlined in his speech to Congress. Instead of hiking taxes on working Americans to pay for another stimulus, Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-TX) legislation offers a tax cut. UPDATE: Gohmert’s bill now has a number. …
Newt Gingrich knows a thing or two about how Congress operates. The former lawmaker represented a Georgia district for 20 years and spent four of them leading the U.S. House as speaker. So when Congress approved the Budget Control Act, creating the 12-member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Gingrich didn’t hold back his criticism. “I think this super committee is about as dumb an idea as Washington has come up with in my lifetime,” Gingrich said last week. “I used to run the House of Representatives. I have some …
The House of Representatives is not merely a larger Senate. The Constitution divided the legislative branch into two Houses, with different constituencies, term lengths, sizes, and functions for each house. For example, only the Senate offers advice and consent on treaties and appointments of judges and executive officials. And as Erik M. Jensen explains in his Constitutional Guidance for Lawmakers essay, only the House of Representatives holds the power to raise revenue – an essential element of the power of the purse. Federalist No. 58 described the House’s power over …
Fulfilling their constitutional power to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings,” this Wednesday, January 5, 2010, the newly assembled House of Representatives will adopt the Rules of the House for the 112th Congress. Speaker-designate John Boehner has proposed a series of changes to the House rules designed to make the House more transparent and help eliminate unnecessary Federal spending. The Top Five New Rules include: The new rules require a member of the House who wishes to introduce a bill to submit for publication in the Congressional Record a statement …
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in March. No single statement better epitomizes everything that is wrong with how Congress works. While Speaker Pelosi was referring to Obamacare at the time, she could have been referring to any of the thousand-plus page bills Congress passed this year. This was not how the Framers intended Congress to be run. The House of Representatives was designed to be a broad-based legislative body, more representative of widespread public …
Changing the membership of the Congress does not fix its out-of-touch culture. Congress’ immense unpopularity reflects the need for fundamental change in how it operates. The Heritage Foundation is proposing four immediate changes—starting at the top. The proposals would restore more power to rank-and-file members of the House of Representatives, who currently yield too much to party leaders. The goal is to strengthen the Constitutional design of “the people’s House,” whereby power is intended to function from the bottom up, not the current top down system. Heritage’s proposal is titled, …
Why Reconciliation Exists What Is Reconciliation? Reconciliation is an optional step of the annual budget process that allows legislation to be approved by 51 votes in the U.S. Senate rather than the traditional 60 votes necessary to withstand a filibuster. This could also be achieved with 50 votes plus Vice President Biden as the 51st.This process is a shortcut that limits debate, including floor debate, to only 20 hours. The Purpose? Reconciliation was created to streamline Senate rules to make it easier for lawmakers to achieve the spending and tax …
