“Congress has been testing this speaker-dominant model for at least 30 years,” said Kevin Kosar, congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Certainly it has some advantages in terms of being able to make commitments to voters and then push legislation through the House on party-line votes. The downside is legislators feel like they’re not legislators.
“Legislators now need more authority to behave as legislators,” Kosar added. “If they don’t have that authority, they’re going to do other stuff, like a dog without a toy chewing on the couch. They will engage in the performative stuff.”
The Freedom Caucus released an outline of the reforms they are seeking over the summer, following it up with a memo directed at incoming lawmakers warning them how little power they’d have under the centralized status quo. On Wednesday, the group saw many of its ideas taken seriously, as Republicans began sifting through a list of 24 specific proposed changes to conference rules.
At least some of those wishes, like expanding the Steering Committee, are likely to come true.
Other proposals include a prohibition on earmarks; a ban on suspending the rules, a fast-track procedure, on bills with price tags over $100 million; and a requirement to pass spending bills before the fiscal year begins, or else no other legislation can be heard on the floor.