August 04, 2010 05:51 AM UTC

Polis & Lamborn Co-sponsoring a House Rules Change

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• by: Phoenix Rising

(And now for something completely different.   – promoted by ClubTwitty)

I never thought I’d see Reps. Jared Polis and Doug Lamborn next to each other on a House measure as co-sponsors.  And what’s more, I never expected I would write the words “I agree with Doug Lamborn”, but I have to do so tonight.

Today, Jared Polis (CO-02) and Doug Lamborn (CO-05) co-sponsored House Resolution 1573, a proposed change to the House Rules, to take effect at the beginning of the next Congress, that would introduce single-subject requirements on all House bills, resolutions, and amendments.

The rule would duplicate a requirement followed quite successfully by the Colorado State Legislature.  Full text and more analysis below the dotted line…

HRES 1573 IH

111th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. RES. 1573

To amend the Rules of the House of Representatives to prohibit bills and joint resolutions from containing more than one subject.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

July 29, 2010

Mr. POLIS of Colorado (for himself and Mr. LAMBORN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Rules

RESOLUTION

To amend the Rules of the House of Representatives to prohibit bills and joint resolutions from containing more than one subject.

Resolved, That (a) rule XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives is amended by adding at the end the following new clause–

’11.(a) No bill, joint resolution, or amendment to any bill or joint resolution that contains more than a single subject may be received or considered in the House. A question of order on the number of subjects in any such bill, joint resolution, or amendment thereto, may be raised at any time.

‘(b) The single subject of any bill or joint resolution shall be expressed in the title.

‘(c) Paragraphs (a) and (b) do not apply to a bill, joint resolution, or amendment thereto that complies, consolidates, revises, or rearranges the statutory law.’.

(b) The amendment made by this resolution shall take effect immediately before noon, January 3, 2011.

The effects of this Rule change would be staggering, and in my opinion welcome.  Consider the following:

• No more amendments completely unrelated to the subject at hand on a bill that could either poison or sweeten the bill.
• No more bills constructed with one essential vote with all kinds of less palatable cruft attached.
• And the Big One: returns initial control of budget bills to the House where it belongs.  This one’s not obvious unless you understand Senate proceedings.  The Senate, constrained by the Constitution from initiating a spending bill, often takes House spending bills and guts them for another spending purpose.  Most recently, the Senate health care reform bill started life as H.R. 3590, To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes..  Under the proposed Rule, the House would be unable to accept such a replacement, and the Senate would be forced to start with the original House bill.

Congratulations to Reps. Polis and Lamborn for introducing such a significant yet simple change.  Now I guess it comes down to showing support.

[Update: The Constitution states that the House has sole power over revenue raising bills, but as I note in the comments, it has expanded that interpretation to include appropriations bills by simply refusing to consider Senate-initiated appropriations bills.  The Senate, in turn, often absconds with House-initiated appropriations and tax bills and replaces them with their own text, which the House then does consider to be “in order”]