The Democratic House Majority proved successful last night in its attempts to role back some of the reforms took root during the previous legislative session.
The most serious changes in how the House will operate during the next two years has to do with:
- The ability of the all-powerful House Rules Committee to amend bills that come out of the Senate seeking approval of the entire House. The rules committee is dominated by House Democrat and Republican leadership, and since the Dems are in the majority, that means they rule the Rules Committee. While that might seem at first no big deal, it does mean the Democratic majority can do the ol’ gut-and-replace, meaning they take a bill for say fishing licenses, rip out the innards and turn it into a bill for a new tax on smokeless tobacco. And they can make it incredibly difficult for the entire House to amend that bill once it goes before the entire 203-member chamber.
- Make moving debate and votes past the 11 p.m. deadline much easier. Significant because if you remember, the controversial lawmaker pay raise vote in 2005 came while most of us saw the back of our eyelids while the clock said “a.m.” and the sun was at least four hours from rising in the east.
The previous rules were put in place while the House was in a reform state of mind following the voter outrage that followed the 2005 pay raise. They were put there specifically to make situations like the pay hike much much harder.
Democrats say they want to strengthen their hand against the Senate GOP, which is the most difficult mountain for Dems and Gov. Ed Rendell to climb to reach their legislative goals. But frankly, I just don’t know how these changes to internal operating rules strengthens the House position with Senate. I just can’t see right now how the video poker proposal or new taxes on tobacco are going to get through the Senate regardless of what happens with House rules.
So this appears simply as a way to streamline the Democratic agenda in the House and make the minority Republicans ineffective.
