Rock and Rulzzz
The House is debating their House Rules right now (meanwhile the Senate has gone home until Tuesday) and it looks like they’re going to work right through lunch.
It may not be immediately apparent why this is interesting. But this is where we get a hint of the politics that are going to be at play this session.
- Whether and how to record their votes.
- How to vote on the Speaker next time.
- When reps can stop debate and make a point of order (a very tactical move, both strategically and timing-wise)
- How the Speaker can choose who goes on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Historically, about 10 of the 29 members are chosen on seniority, and the other half are chosen by the speaker. This doesn’t give the speaker 100 percent control over that panel – so that was changed in 2003, over the loud objections of Democrats (and other non-favorites of the speaker) who knew (and they were right, as it turned out) that they wouldn’t get to sit on that committee unless they had seniority privileges.
A lot of it sounds like housekeeping, but it’s a lot more important to the politics of hte process than it appears.