House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is considering what amounts to dirty pool to snuff out the chance for Republican House members, and therefore their constituents, to affect legislation even at the margins.
As Susan Ferrechio reported in these pages, Pelosi is seriously considering a change in the permanent rules of the House to eliminate the age-old practice known as the “motion to recommit” a matter before voting on final passage.
“The MTR, as it is known, effectively gives the minority party a chance to amend legislation just before it’s about to be passed,” said Ferrechio. “Normally, those amendments are easily blocked by the majority. But Republicans have scored two victories so far with MTR measures by luring in Democrats from swing districts, and Democratic leaders aren’t happy about it.”
The reason MTRs are a matter of essential, bedrock fairness is that the House, unlike the Senate, uses a Rules Committee to regularly and strictly control the ability of members to offer amendments to bills once they reach the floor. The Rules Committee determines in advance which sorts of amendments can be offered at all. Thus, no member who doesn’t sit on the original committee from which the bill came will have any opportunity to alter the bill even slightly unless the Rules Committee, firmly controlled by the House leadership, deigns to allow it.
Thus, the MTR offers the minority party one, and only one, final chance to have at least a small say in the specifics of a bill en route to passage. It is an important bow to minority rights and basic fairness in a majoritarian legislative body. It also tends to promote better legislation. If, on a rare occasion, an MTR succeeds, it can only do so by virtue of members of the majority party joining the minority party in agreeing that the minority’s final offering would improve the bill. In this sense, an MTR is less about power politics than about getting things right for the American people.
An MTR isn’t some mere House invention either. It is part of the “gold standard” of fair meeting practices, Robert’s Rules of Order (Article V, Section 32). In a formal legislative body, it should be seen as an essential element of proper procedure.
Cynics might say Pelosi’s proposal is little different than the so-called “nuclear option” sometimes used in the Senate to change rules with a simple majority vote. They might say everything is power politics now: sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. But what she is considering is arguably worse than the nuclear option because it strikes at the very constitutional notion of the House as a majoritarian institution.
The nuclear option, for better or worse, cleared away a prudential Senate rule on unlimited debate that was not constitutionally required. It restores a situation where a simple majority of members, rather than the majority party’s leaders, decide on matters pending on the floor. It takes away an extra superstructure, not a foundation of the chamber’s design.
Pelosi’s plan, in contrast, would prevent House majorities from working their will against the designs of party leaders. It silences not only the minority party, but also any members of the majority party who want to join them. In actuality, it keeps the House from determining what a majority of its members wants to do on that particular issue.
In short, the Senate’s nuclear option is still at least majoritarian, whereas the elimination of MTRs would deny actual majorities the chance to shape legislation. If Pelosi succeeds in pushing through this rules change, it would be a serious affront to the essential ideals of the American republic.
