{"id":8179,"date":"2011-01-04T15:09:04","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T20:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=8179"},"modified":"2011-01-04T15:09:04","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T20:09:04","slug":"house-gop-advancing-%e2%80%98rule-of-law%e2%80%99-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/8179\/house-gop-advancing-%e2%80%98rule-of-law%e2%80%99-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"House GOP Advancing \u2018Rule of Law\u2019 Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to how a bill becomes a law, the route popularized in most textbooks and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ\" target=\"_blank\"><em>School House Rocks<\/em><\/a> is of little value.\u00a0 Instead of clear procedural steps the process is rife with secret votes, waived rules, and last minute amendments that completely change a bill hours before final passage.\u00a0 The failure of the Pelosi-Reid Congress to abide by any semblance of a consistent process made lawmaking into nothing more than the personal whims of liberal elites.<\/p>\n<p>No longer.\u00a0 The incoming majority of House Republicans is <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/editorials\/2011\/01\/new-house-rules-inspire-cautious-optimism\" target=\"_blank\">poised to pass House Resolution 5<\/a>, a fundamental overhaul of the way the House does business.\u00a0 Today, the <em>Heritage Foundation<\/em>\u2019s Foundry Blog teases out <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2011\/01\/04\/top-five-new-rules-of-112th-congress\/\" target=\"_blank\">the five most important changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>(1)\u00a0\u00a0 Members introducing new legislation must provide a statement of what powers the Constitution grants to Congress to enact the bill.<\/p>\n<p>(2)\u00a0\u00a0 Any bill that increases mandatory spending must adhere to a \u201cCut-As-You-Go\u201d rule requiring the legislation to cut an identical amount of spending elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>(3)\u00a0\u00a0 All bills must be posted online in their entirety three days before the House votes on them.<\/p>\n<p>(4)\u00a0\u00a0 The text of any amendment must be publicly available for at least 24 hours before the House votes on it.<\/p>\n<p>(5)\u00a0\u00a0 Vote avoidance maneuvers like \u201cDeem-And-Pass\u201d are eliminated.\u00a0 If members want to raise the debt ceiling \u2013 or socialize medicine \u2013 they must do so on the record.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) is fond of saying, \u201cprocess is substance,\u201d by which he means that <em>how<\/em> a bill becomes a law is just as important as <em>what<\/em> is in the bill.\u00a0 Passing House Resolution 5 will go a long way towards restoring the public\u2019s confidence in Congress\u2019s ability to play by a set of fair, easily understood rules.\u00a0 If House Republicans go further and insist on restoring the lost constitutional limits on federal power, they will enjoy a long ride in leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to how a bill becomes a law, the route popularized in most textbooks and School House Rocks is of little value.\u00a0 Instead of clear procedural steps the process is rife with secret votes, waived rules, and last minute amendments that completely change a bill hours before final passage.\u00a0 The failure of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[84,2233,77,2154,2234,111,306],"class_list":["post-8179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-congress","tag-david-dreier","tag-harry-reid","tag-house-gop","tag-legislation","tag-nancy-pelosi","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8179"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8183,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179\/revisions\/8183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}