On hold: Lawmakers unhappy with fast-track bills under Johnson

As lawmakers await another deadline to fund the government, Speaker Mike Johnson faces a new round of criticism in the House over his preferred move in passing bills: bypassing the Rules Committee , sidelining members of the Freedom Caucus and relying on Democratic votes.

The frustration centers on the speaker’s extensive use of a House procedure known as “halting the rules,” which is designed to speed the passage of legislation by barring amendments, limiting debate and avoiding separate votes on rules to enact legislative provisions. debate. Placing the bill on the informal “pause calendar” bypasses the House Rules Committee, a powerful body that under normal circumstances controls the flow of legislation.

The catch: Any measure considered under a suspended rule would require a two-thirds vote to pass, meaning Republican leadership would have to rely on Democratic help.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has used the pause process to push major legislation in recent months, including a $79 billion bipartisan tax bill and an $886 billion defense policy bill, as well as two plans to maintain A stopgap spending bill that sources government funding.

While they disagree on its importance, a growing number of lawmakers from both parties have criticized Johnson for what they say is his over-reliance on suspending rules to pass consequential and controversial projects. The loudest protests came from members of the House Freedom Caucus, who said Johnson was avoiding negotiations with their members on policy disputes by suspending proceedings.

“I sense the leadership is trying to bypass conservatives and instead work with Democrats to get things passed,” Rep. Ralph Norman said in an emailed statement earlier this month.

Norman described it as a “bad habit” that Republican leadership has fallen into. “I object to leadership using suspensions so frequently to pass these large bills with huge political implications, and we’re seeing that all too often now,” he added.

The South Carolina congressman is one of three renegade conservative members of the Rules Committee, along with Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy of Texas and frequent ally Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Together, they can prevent legislation they don’t like from passing the panels and reaching the House floor.

They secured those seats thanks to concessions from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had to court hardline Republicans as he sought to win the election in early 2023. Now the Republican conference is reaping what it has sown, according to some Democrats. .

“This is the result of McCarthy’s deal,” said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., a member of the Rules Committee. “Because of the infighting in the Republican Party, they couldn’t pass the rules in session.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said relying on a pause in the calendar to handle must-pass bills could set a bad precedent for the future. “I think it’s terrible,” she said. “I don’t think that’s a good thing for the future.”

DeLauro pointed out the irony of the situation, which leaves Johnson in a weak position in negotiations with Democrats, whose votes he must now rely on to pass major bills as he tries to clear the two-thirds hurdle instead of Simple majority.

“They gave power to Democrats in order to cater to the far right,” the Connecticut Democrat said. But, she insisted, “I’m not particularly happy about that.”

Exclusion rules

On the increasingly rare occasion that a debate rule reaches a House vote, its passage is no longer guaranteed.

Last month, more than a dozen conservatives joined Democrats in scrapping the rules for unrelated legislation in protest of Johnson’s budget deal with Democratic leadership. The scene was similar to one last June, when members of the Freedom Caucus helped overturn another procedural vote out of anger over McCarthy’s handling of the debt ceiling. At the time, it was the first substandard rule since the early 2000s.

The count is now up to six. Rep. Scott Perry, who voted to kill the rule in January, argued that the tactics were necessary when other ways to oppose or amend the bill were eliminated. “There are only a limited number of tools you can use to reflect your views,” the Pennsylvania Republican said. “The reality is a lot of things in Washington are about influence, and if that’s the only influence you have, then that’s all you have.”

There are also smaller skylights on the House floor. In December, Roy tried to force a recess motion to block a vote on the National Defense Authorization Act, the sweeping legislation being pushed through while the rules were suspended.

DeLauro places the blame largely on rebellious hardline Republicans. “I don’t know what was going on in his head,” she said of Johnson. “But the Speaker may want to use the Rules Committee, but he can’t do that because now there’s a group of people trying to disrupt the order of the day.”

Members of the Freedom Caucus said the party’s disagreement over the Rules Committee was no excuse for Johnson’s suspension schedule.

“This is not how a democratic republic should function,” Perry said.

“What’s lacking is sufficient debate on major legislation and, equally important, a lack of amendments that would address voters’ concerns,” Perry said. “The United States sees no weakness in any policy.”

Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good went further, accusing Johnson of relying on the process as a “capitulation” to House Democrats.

“This is a return to the John Boehner era,” lamented the Virginia Republican. “I’m concerned that you’re going to start losing support further to the point where you can pass a bill with a Democratic majority.”

That’s exactly what happened last November, when Republican leadership relied on Democrats to provide the majority on a stopgap spending bill.

Looking ahead, Goode warned that members of the Freedom Caucus may continue their tactics. The solution, he believes, is for Republican leadership to “start making these bills more palatable to Republicans and include at least some of our priorities or spending cuts so we don’t have to suspend the rules.”

Meanwhile, Democrats on the Rules Committee weren’t too happy either.

“The Rules Committee is kind of like the traffic police of Congress,” Ranking Member Jim McGovern said on the House floor this month. However, the Massachusetts Democrat noted that the last time a bill reported by the committee passed the House and Senate and was signed into law by the president was nine months ago.

“What we’re seeing now is that the Rules Committee has become irrelevant because the amendments we’re seeing are not serious and don’t have bipartisan support,” Legge Fernandez said. “It’s really sad.”

The quantity and quality

Concerns about suspension proceedings are nothing new.

House complained about overreliance on it nearly half a century ago. For example, in 1975, the House Republican Reform Task Force proposed limiting the practice, claiming that some bills were “even cynically shelved in order to defeat them,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

More recently, according to CRS data, during the 110th Congress, which began in 2007, more than 1,500 bills were introduced in the House of Representatives under rule suspension, accounting for 71 percent of all bills considered during that term. By the 116th Congress, that number had dropped slightly, to 66 percent, according to a recent CRS analysis.

It’s not just a question of how much legislation gets through the process, but what legislation.

DeLauro explained that historically, the suspension calendar has been used to pass non-controversial legislation, such as bills to rename post offices or honor fallen veterans, and she has watched the practice change during her 33 years in the House.

Although Democrats used the tactic when they took control of the gavel in 2020 to pass an emergency funding package aimed at providing pandemic relief, the House has never in modern history used the pause rule to pass final full-year appropriations legislation.

Johnson may be preparing to break that precedent. As Congress races against the next March 1 appropriations deadline, appropriators have said that holding off on voting appears to be the default option to wrap up this year’s spending bill.

This report has been corrected to reflect the number of stopgap spending bills passed under Johnson.