A new House majority always comes with new rules, and Democrats of the 116th Congress have a laundry list of changes they’re preparing to make.
The Democrats will establish new committees to examine climate change and to improve House functioning, along with creating an office dedicated to increasing racial diversity among congressional staff. The longtime ban on hats and other head coverings in the chamber will be lifted to accommodate newly elected Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who wears a hijab.
In their Jan. 3 opening-day rules package, Democrats will also vote to provide a full 72 hours for lawmakers to review legislation before a bill can be brought up for a vote, and they’ll make it easier for members to force a vote on legislation through the discharge petition process, which is currently limited to certain days of the month. Another rule would require a three-fifths majority to raise taxes on the bottom 80 percent of income-earners.
One of the biggest changes in the House will be introduced in the coming months as Democrats begin writing the 2020 appropriations bills: Democratic lawmakers are planning to bring back earmarks.
Earmarks, formally known as “congressionally directed spending,” ended in 2011 after growing public disdain for costly pork-barrel projects and abuse by lawmakers prompted then-Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio., to ban the practice. But Democrats, and many Republicans, have since clamored for at least a limited return of earmarks, which they say help them better tailor spending to the needs of their districts. The current ban leaves it up to the executive branch to decide where money should be spent and, according to earmark proponents, makes it particularly hard to direct federal money to critical infrastructure projects.
Democratic leaders are likely to begin allowing earmarks when the party drafts spending bills next year, to widespread welcome from lawmakers in both parties. “We used to earmark essentially for low-income housing,” recalled Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., who has served in the House since 1983. “I can go around the district now and see senior-citizen housing is there because we were able to specify particular projects. You call those an earmark?”
Democrats will also seek to escape the now-routine battle over raising the nation’s borrowing limit by voting to reinstate an old provision authored by former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., that automatically raises the debt ceiling when the House votes on an annual budget resolution, which is used as a spending framework for the upcoming fiscal year.
According to the Treasury Department, the national debt stood over $21.8 trillion in late December. The move to auto-raise the debt ceiling is likely to anger fiscal hawks who will see a lost opportunity to pressure lawmakers to cut spending.
The current limit is expected to allow the federal government to borrow money until approximately March, which is roughly when the House takes up a budget resolution, presuming they can agree on one. The House proposal does not compel the Senate to automatically raise the debt limit with its budget resolution, but passage by the House would at least ease one of the annual fiscal fights that have plagued Congress in recent years.
House Democrats are also planning big changes for their leadership. In February, the caucus will vote on a new proposal that would for the first time impose term limits on their leadership team. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader and former speaker, struck a deal with incoming freshman lawmakers and newer Democratic members to step down after four more years in office in return for their support to retake the gavel on Jan. 3. But if she wants to serve one more term, it would require a vote of two-thirds of her caucus, not just a majority.
The same rules would apply to incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and incoming House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., but would be limited to the Democrats and not the GOP, who are governed by their own conference rules. Neither Hoyer nor Clyburn is enthusiastic about the term limit plan, and indeed, it might not win enough caucus votes to pass. For her part, Pelosi said she will adhere to the limits either way. Now aged 78, she is poised to become the nation’s oldest-serving speaker before her term ends.
