Chapter 3
The Speaker of the House and the Committee on Rules
Christopher M. Davis
Analyst in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
The rules . . . are not for the purpose of protecting the rights of
the minority, but to promote the orderly conduct of the business of the
House.
Speaker Thomas B. Reed
[To provide the Speaker] absolute control of the House through its
Committee on Rules is giving greater power to the Speaker of the House
than any man in this free Republic ought to possess.
Representative Joseph W. Bailey
The Speaker of the House and the Committee on Rules have existed since
the First Congress. In fact, the first select committee established in
the House in 1789 was a Committee on Rules; the first rule it reported
detailed the duties of the Speaker.
For the first 90 years of its existence, the Rules Committee was a
temporary and relatively unimportant entity. From 1789 to 1880, however,
both the link between the Speaker and the Rules Committee, and the power
of each, would grow. This accumulation of influence was gradual, and was
tied directly to the actions and aspirations of individual Speakers. In
1858 a sitting Speaker was named a member of the Select Rules Committee,
and in 1880, the panel was made a permanent standing committee which the
Speaker chaired.
Since 1880, the committee has been at various times an agent of the
Speaker's power, an opponent and counterweight to it, a political
traffic cop, a leadership gatekeeper, an unmovable parliamentary
roadblock, an investigative and oversight body, and a secondary
legislative filter. The Rules Committee has played an increasingly
important role in the Congress. Through it, Speakers of the House have
been able to largely control not only the flow, but the substance, of
legislation from the standing committees to the House floor. The
committee has become one of the most important ingredients in a
Speaker's ability to govern.
As one scholar points out, ``Sometimes a Speaker has dominated the
[Rules] Committee from his position as its chairman; more often than
not, he has exerted great influence over it through his impact on the
selection of its members. More rarely, he has been confronted with an
independent and sometimes rebellious committee.'' \1\
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\1\ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, A History of the
Committee on Rules, committee print, 97th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington:
GPO, 1983), p. 6.
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The power relationship between the Rules Committee and the Speaker has
often been a synergistic one, each reinforcing the other. It is little
wonder, then, that the House Rules Committee is often called ``the
Speaker's committee.''
The Origin of the Rules Committee
While today the Rules Committee is central to the power of the Speaker
and the operations of the modern Congress, the origin of the committee
is far more modest. In April 1789, when a quorum was finally achieved in
the First Congress after weeks of waiting for Members to arrive from the
13 States, the first select committee established was a committee on
rules. The 11-member panel, appointed by Speaker Frederick A.C.
Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania and chaired by Representative Elias Boudinot
of New Jersey, was directed to ``prepare and report such standing rules
and orders of proceedings as may be proper to be observed in this
House.'' \2\ When the select committee reported back to the House 5 days
later, the first rule it recommended outlined the duties and powers of
the Speaker of the House. This rules package was known as the ``Boudinot
rules,'' after the chair of the select committee.
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\2\ Journal of the House of Representatives, 1st Cong., 1st sess., April
2, 1789, p. 6.
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At this time, and indeed, for the next 90 years, the Committee on
Rules wielded scant influence over the substance of legislation or the
order of procedural business in the House. During these early years,
when the Congress was small, and conducted comparatively little
legislative business, the Rules Committee was largely a housekeeping
panel that met at the beginning of a session to craft a rules package
or, more frequently, simply to readopt the Boudinot rules of the First
Congress. In many early congressional sessions, the Rules Committee met
once to accomplish this task, and not again; in other Congresses, the
panel did not make a single report. One congressional scholar has
pointed out, ``the custom of re-adopting the Boudinot Rules . . . left
little [work] to a Committee on Rules.'' \3\ In fact, in its early
history, the select committee was so insignificant to the operations of
the House that, during one 11-year period--from 1817 to 1828--Speakers
of the House did not even bother to appoint Members to the committee.\4\
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\3\ DeAlva Stanwood Alexander, History and Procedure of the House of
Representatives (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 182.
\4\ James A. Robinson, The House Rules Committee (Indianapolis: Bobbs-
Merrill, 1963), p. 59.
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From 1841 to 1883, however, the Rules Committee began a gradual
evolution that would transform it into one of the House's most powerful
committees. As a result of this evolution, the Rules Committee would
become so central to the power of the Speaker and the scheduling of the
business of the House, that in spring 1910, almost 121 years to the day
after the first Select Rules Committee was established, the House, in a
rare instance of open revolution, would rise up in bipartisan revolt
against the Speaker of the House and strip him of his seat on the Rules
Committee, an entity which had become ``the citadel of his power.'' \5\
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\5\ Ibid., p. 57.
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This journey to the heights of power was a slow one, however, that
evolved even as the young legislative body grew. In June 1841, the House
gave the Rules Committee the power to report from time to time; prior to
that, the panel had only been permitted to report at the beginning of a
Congress on possible revisions to the rules. This change was made in the
hope that the additional power granted the committee would allow it to
undertake a comprehensive reform of the Chamber's rules, which had
become a ``hodgepodge'' that ``bordered on chaos.'' \6\ The committee,
however, was unable to make a comprehensive reform of House rules.
Shortly thereafter, Speaker John White of Kentucky, conferred additional
influence on the committee by ruling that the panel could ``make reports
in part at different times.'' \7\
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\6\ A History of the Committee on Rules, pp. 44-45.
\7\ Ibid., p. 44.
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In 1849, the House, frustrated with the continued confused state of
the rules, briefly made Rules a standing committee with the hopes that
doing so would enable it to comprehensively reform the Chamber's rules.
After 4 years, however, the panel had still not been able to accomplish
this task. Simply put, ``what resulted was more of the same.'' \8\
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\8\ Ibid., p. 45.
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In 1853, the House adopted a resolution making legislation reported
from the Rules Committee privileged for consideration, mandating that
reports from the panel be ``acted upon by the House until disposed of,
to the exclusion of all other business.'' \9\ This additional grant of
power failed to help the panel achieve comprehensive rules reform and,
in 1857, the panel remained so unimportant that the House did not even
create it until a full 6 months of the 35th Congress had elapsed.
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\9\ ``The Rules Again,'' Congressional Globe, vol. 23, Dec. 5, 1853, p.
4.
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In 1858, however, an important breakthrough occurred. The House
established a select panel made up of the Speaker and four other Members
to revise the rules and report back to the full House; this was the
first time that a Speaker had served on one of the Chamber's legislative
committees. Under the resolution, the Speaker named the four other
members of the select committee. During floor debate, one Member offered
an amendment to have the House, rather than the Speaker, appoint these
members, but it was overwhelmingly defeated and the resolution
establishing the select committee was adopted with almost no debate.\10\
Although the action received little debate on the floor, it marked the
first time the Speaker was in full command of the Rules Committee.
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\10\ ``Revision of the Rules,'' Congressional Globe, vol. 28, June 14,
1858, p. 3048.
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In the 36th Congress, the select committee reported back its suggested
revisions of the rules, which were subsequently adopted by the House.
Included in the report were provisions providing for a five-person Rules
Committee appointed and chaired by the Speaker of the House.\11\ The
Speaker would remain a member of the House Rules Committee, serving as
its chair, appointing its members (as well as the members of all House
committees) and exercising its power and authority for the next three
decades. Thus, after 1858, the powers of the committee and the authority
of the Speaker became even more closely linked, ``a circumstance which
served both to enhance the role of the committee and to strengthen the
influence of the Speaker.'' \12\
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\11\ U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, A Short
History of the Development of the Committee on Rules, typed report by
Walter Kravitz and Walter J. Oleszek, Jan. 30, 1978, p. 4.
\12\ Ibid.
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In 1880, the Rules Committee was made a permanent standing committee
of the House and given legislative jurisdiction over ``all proposed
action touching the rules and joint rules.'' The House undertook this
action in the course of another comprehensive overhaul of its rules,
which reduced the number of standing rules from 166 to 44.\13\
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\13\ George B. Galloway, History of the United States House of
Representatives, 89th Cong., 1st sess., H. Doc. 250 (Washington: GPO,
1965), p. 47.
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The first chairman of the revamped committee, Speaker Samuel J.
Randall (D-PA), used his authority on the Rules Committee to bolster the
influence of his office, establishing that all future rules changes
should be referred to the Rules Committee, and that its reports could be
brought to the floor any time.\14\
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\14\ Ibid., p. 47.
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The powers of the committee and the Speaker continued to grow when
control of the Chamber shifted again in 1881. One of the first Members
to recognize the full potential of the Rules Committee to manage
legislative business was Representative Thomas Brackett Reed (R-ME), who
was appointed to the Rules Committee in 1882.
In February 1883, in an important development that foreshadowed the
role of the modern Rules Committee, the House upheld a Speaker's ruling
that the committee could report a special order of business for a
specific bill. The significance of this ruling was that it allowed the
House to take up individual bills by a simple majority vote rather than
being forced to rely on the cumbersome suspension of the rules
procedure, which required a super majority vote of two-thirds, or by
unanimous consent.\15\
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\15\ Ibid., p. 48.
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This ruling was prompted by Representative Reed, who called up a
resolution reported by the Rules Committee that sought to allow the
House to suspend the rules by simple majority vote and request a
conference with the Senate on tariff legislation. A point of order was
made by Representative Joseph Blackburn (D-KY) against the resolution on
the grounds that the Rules Committee did not have the authority to
report such a resolution. In making his argument, Blackburn pointed out
that the resolution was neither a House rule nor an amendment to House
rules, and should thus be ruled out of order. Speaker J. Warren Keifer
(R-OH) overruled the point of order on grounds that the resolution was
``reported as a rule from the Committee on Rules.'' The Speaker
explained that, just as the Rules Committee could report a rule to
suspend or repeal any or every rule of the House, subject to approval by
the House itself, it could also issue a rule that would ``apply to a
single great and important measure . . . pending before the Congress.''
\16\
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\16\ House Committee on Rules, Official Web site, www.house.gov/rules,
accessed on Aug. 12, 2003.
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While this was the first instance of the House adopting a ``special
rule'' for the consideration of a specific bill, it did not at that time
lead to a flood of special rules from the Speaker, or give an indication
of the tremendously important procedural development it would later
prove to be. ``The method of adopting a special order from the Committee
on Rules by a majority vote,'' one historian noted, ``was not in favor
for the following three Congresses. In 1887, it was regarded as a
proceeding of `doubtful validity' . . . it was not until . . . 1890 that
this method . . . gained the favor of the House as an efficient means of
bringing bills out of their regular order for . . . immediate
consideration.'' \17\
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\17\ Chang-Wei Chiu, The Speaker of the House of Representatives Since
1896 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1928), pp. 120-121.
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By 1890, the function of providing special orders of business for the
consideration of legislation became routine and was the sole prerogative
of the Rules Committee and its chair, the Speaker. Speaker John G.
Carlisle (D-KY), regularly issued special rules from the committee for
individual bills, further cementing the practice. ``Since that time,''
former House Parliamentarian Asher Hinds points out, the issuance of
special rules ``has been in favor as an efficient means of bringing up
for consideration bills difficult to reach in the regular order and
especially as a means for confining within specified limits the
consideration of bills involving important policies for which the
majority party in the House may be responsible.'' \18\
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\18\ Asher C. Hinds, Hinds' Precedents of the United States House of
Representatives, 5 vols. (Washington: GPO, 1907), vol. IV, 3152.
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When Republicans retook control of the House in the 51st Congress,
1889-1891, Representative Reed was chosen Speaker. He immediately took
advantage of his position as chairman of the Rules Committee to control
legislative business on the floor through the use of special rules. More
importantly, Speaker Reed used his power as Speaker and chairman of the
Rules Committee in tandem to clear minority obstruction of floor
business.
As presiding officer, Reed issued several landmark rulings that in
effect, outlawed minority obstructive tactics, particularly the
``disappearing quorum,'' a parliamentary innovation pioneered by John
Quincy Adams during his 17 years as a Member of the House following his
one term as President. By this tactic, minority Members, although
physically present in the House Chamber, would refuse to vote, thus
denying the body the quorum needed to do business. Speaker Reed ruled
against these obstructions as presiding officer, and then, as chairman
of the Rules Committee, codified his rulings into the standing rules of
the House. These provisos, together with a comprehensive overhaul of the
rules undertaken by Reed, came to be known as the ``Reed rules,'' and
serve as the basis for the power of the modern Speaker and the
operations of the present-day House. Most notably, the Reed rules
established a framework by which the Speaker, as leader of the majority
party in the House, could move his legislative agenda forward.
Additional power accrued to the Speaker through the Rules Committee
when, in 1891, the committee was given the authority to report at any
time. Two years later it was also granted the right to sit during
sessions of the House.\19\
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\19\ Ibid., 4321.
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Even when viewed through the prism of the House in later periods of
centralized power, it is difficult to convey the absolute control
exercised by the Speaker during this period.
So absolute was ``Czar'' Reed's control of the business of the House
through the scheduling powers of the Rules Committee, that, when told of
a particularly long debate that had consumed the time of the Senate, the
Speaker was able to remark without humor or irony, ``Thank God the House
of Representatives is not a deliberative body.'' \20\
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\20\ Asher C. Hinds, ``The Speaker of the House of Representatives,''
American Political Science Review, vol. 3, May 1909, pp. 155-156.
The Revolt Against Speaker Cannon
The power of the Speaker of the House, through and by the Rules
Committee, continued to grow under Speaker Joseph G. ``Uncle Joe''
Cannon (R-IL), who served as the Chamber's presiding officer from 1903
to 1910. Speaker Cannon was a colorful figure, and a strong believer in
party discipline. He did not hesitate to use his power in appointing
committee members and even committee chairs, and in punishing those who
did not obey his wishes.
In assessing the leadership of Speaker Cannon, one scholar has
remarked, ``Particularly significant was Speaker Cannon's power as
chairman of the Committee on Rules. The Committee was small--never over
five Republican Members prior to 1910. The three-to-two edge of the
Republicans was potent, however, since the Speaker appointed the members
carefully--insuring that they agreed with his views.'' \21\
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\21\ Charles O. Jones, ``Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: An Essay
on the Limits of Leadership in the House of Representatives,'' The
Journal of Politics, vol. 30, Aug. 1968, pp. 617-646.
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Cannon was well prepared to use the committee as an instrument of
power, having observed its use under Speaker Reed. Indeed, Cannon was no
stranger to the use of raw political power. As chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee in 1898, Cannon ``wooshed through a then
staggering $50 million appropriation to allow President William McKinley
to fight the Spanish American War--without consulting or even informing
his fellow committee members about it.'' \22\
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\22\ Michael Kilian, ``Tough Act to Follow,'' Chicago Tribune, Jan. 23,
1995, sec. 2, p. 1.
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Cannon continued that use of political power when he became Speaker
and Rules chair. ``Before March, 1910, the power of the Speaker was in
part due to the increase in the power of the Committee on Rules,'' as
one writer has observed, because the committee ``had privileges which
were not accorded by the House to any other committee. Through a special
order, the Committee . . . regulated what should be considered, how long
debate on a bill should last, when a vote should be taken, or whether a
bill should be voted with or without amendment. It proposed amendments
to legislative bills over which other committees had jurisdiction.''
\23\
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\23\ Chiu, The Speaker of the House of Representatives Since 1896, pp.
124-125.
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Speaker Cannon used his power over the Rules Committee coupled with
his power of recognition to manage the business of the House down to the
smallest detail. Writing of Cannon's daily meetings with his Rules
Committee lieutenants and rank and file Members seeking the Speaker's
permission to consider their bills, one reporter related:
If the Speaker decides in the applicant's favor, he takes a little pad
and writes the Congressman's name and number of the bill on it. Later,
when the House assembles and the Speaker calls it to order, he has this
little pad in his hand or lying beside him on his desk. The various
successful applicants arise and shout ``Mr. Speaker!'' while the
unsuccessful ones sit glumly in their seats . . . The Speaker does not
even look at the shouting applicants. He studies his pad and calls out,
``The Gentleman from Ohio,'' or ``The Gentleman from Illinois,'' until
the entire list is exhausted. There is more finality in a Cannon ``yes''
or ``no'' than in that of any other man in America. \24\
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\24\ ``A Glimpse Into Speaker Cannon's Famous Red Room,'' New York
Times, Dec. 13, 1908, p. SM8.
Minority Leader (and later Speaker), Champ Clark, summed up Speaker
Cannon's partisan use of the Rules Committee when he told his House
colleagues in 1910, ``I violate no secret when I tell you the committee
is made up of three very distinguished Republicans and two ornamental
Democrats.'' \25\
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\25\ Representative Champ Clark, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 45, March 17, 1910, p. 3294.
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It is clear that, ``the legislative agenda, the progress of bills,
members' committee assignments, almost every function of the House, all
. . . was under the control of the Speaker and the five-member House
Rules Committee, which was made up of Cannon and four of his hand-picked
colleagues.'' \26\ So absolute was Speaker Cannon's rule, that one,
perhaps apocryphal, story claimed that, ``when a constituent asked one
representative for a copy of the rules of the House toward the end of
Cannon's Speakership, the member simply mailed the man a picture of the
white-bearded Cannon.'' \27\
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\26\ Ibid., p. 1.
\27\ Kilian, ``Tough Act to Follow,'' sec. 2, p. 1.
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In 1909, the House, which had become increasingly frustrated with
Speaker Cannon's iron grip over the legislative agenda, enacted a
potential restriction on his scheduling power through the Rules
Committee when it adopted the ``Calendar Wednesday'' procedure. Under
this procedure, each Wednesday was reserved exclusively for the various
standing legislative committees to call up measures in their
jurisdiction for floor consideration. This procedure could be used to
bring to the floor measures for which the Rules Committee had granted no
hearing or special rule. While the adoption of Calendar Wednesday was an
attack on the power of the Speaker, in practice, Cannon was largely able
to render it ineffective.
Noted parliamentary expert with the House, Asher C. Hinds, argued that
far too much was made of the Speaker's power vis-a-vis the Rules
Committee. He wrote in 1909, ``The power of the Speaker, as it is
related to the Committee on Rules, is much overestimated. When a
committee has once reported a bill, that bill is in the hands of the
House.'' \28\ Hinds further argued that the Rules Committee did nothing
in practice that was revolutionary or inappropriate, but only did what
the party caucuses had routinely done in previous years. It is important
to keep in mind, however, that while Hinds was intimately familiar with
the operations of the Cannon House, he was also the clerk at the
Speaker's table, so his viewpoint arguably cannot be considered entirely
unbiased.
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\28\ Hinds, ``The Speaker of the House of Representatives,'' p. 162.
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Speaker Cannon and his Republican majority had ample warning of the
unrest brewing among the more progressive Members of both parties during
the 60th and 61st Congresses. Some observers of Congress have alleged
that this mounting frustration was attributable less to Cannon's
absolute control of the House through the Rules Committee than the fact
that he used that power to prevent the House from voting on progressive
legislation which rank and file Members of Congress of both parties
supported. ``It was `Uncle Joe' Cannon's economic and social
philosophy,'' one scholar argues, ``that first aroused [Republican
insurgents] against his autocracy'' \29\ Whatever the genesis of the
reform movement, Speaker Cannon was steadfastly unwilling to heed the
growing chorus calling for reform. In characteristically blunt style, he
said, ``I am damned tired of listening to all this babble for reform.
America is a hell of a success.'' \30\
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\29\ Robinson, The House Rules Committee, p. 61.
\30\ Greg Pierce, ``Joe Made Them Cry Uncle,'' Washington Times, May 7,
1986, p. 2D.
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Member frustration spilled onto the floor when, ``Twelve insurgents
refused to vote for Cannon for Speaker at the opening of the special
session in 1909 called by President Taft to consider the tariff . . .
[and] a combination of insurgents and Democrats defeated a motion to
adopt the rules of the previous Congress. At that point Minority Leader
Clark offered a resolution which would have increased the size of the
Committee on Rules, removed the Speaker from the committee and taken
from the Speaker his power of appointing all committees except Ways and
Means.'' \31\
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\31\ Jones, ``Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith,'' pp. 617-646.
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The Speaker was able to fend off this attack by agreeing to a
compromise motion to establish a unanimous consent calendar, a motion of
recommital for the minority party, and increases in the number of votes
necessary to set aside the Calendar Wednesday procedure.
Speaker Cannon later meted out his revenge against the rebels. As one
reporter noted days after the quashed revolt, ``With few exceptions,
members of the House who opposed the Speaker's candidacy or opposed the
adoption of the . . . rules find themselves tonight with undesirable
committee assignments or without the promotion long service on a
particular committee entitled them to expect.'' \32\
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\32\ ``Cannon Disciplines House Insurgents,'' New York Times, Aug. 6,
1909, p. 2.
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While he was able to delay the inevitable, in the end, even Speaker
Cannon's mastery of the Rules Committee could not prevent the full House
from working its will. Frustration with ``Cannonism'' came to a final
head on St. Patrick's Day, 1910, when a small band of progressive
Republican Members, led by Representative George W. Norris (R-NE),
joined with Democrats to again challenge the powers of the Speaker.
Cannon had given opponents a parliamentary opening when he tried to shut
down the use of the Calendar Wednesday procedure. In response, Norris
rose and offered a resolution as a matter of constitutional privilege to
change House rules by removing the Speaker as chair and member of the
Rules Committee, and by expanding the panel's membership from 5 to 15,
to be chosen by State delegations.
In later years, Representative Norris recalled of his reform
resolution, ``I had carried it for a long time, certain, that in the
flush of its power, the Cannon machine would overreach itself. The paper
upon which I had written my resolution had become so tattered it
scarcely hung together.'' \33\
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\33\ Jones, ``Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith,'' pp. 617-646.
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Supporters of the Speaker quickly raised a point of order against the
Norris resolution, arguing that it did not carry the constitutional
privilege its author claimed. Speaker Cannon allowed debate on the point
of order to continue for 2 days, after which he sustained it. Cannon's
decision that the Norris resolution was not in order was then appealed
to the full House which overturned the Speaker's ruling by a vote of 182
to 162. The Norris resolution was then adopted, 191 to 156, after
Representative Norris amended it to provide for a 10-member Rules
Committee elected by the entire House. Cannon continued to serve as
House Speaker, but without the unchecked power he had previously
commanded.
Decentralization of the Speaker's Power Over Rules Committee
Although the overthrow of Speaker Cannon drastically reduced the power
of the Speaker to singlehandedly manage the flow and content of
legislative business, the Rules Committee's power remained largely
intact. The post-Cannon period was a time of general decentralization of
authority in the House of Representatives, and one where power resided
in the caucus and the majority floor leader even more than in newly-
elected Speaker Champ Clark (D-MO). When Democrats regained control of
the House in 1911, they set up a system of governance largely through
party apparatus, making extensive use of binding votes in caucus to
compel Democratic Members to support the majority legislative agenda on
the floor. This era of ``King Caucus'' meant that gone were the days
when the Speaker was ``considered . . . an officer second only in power
and influence to the President of the United States himself, and so far
as the enactment of legislation was concerned, to exercise powers
superior to [the President].'' \34\
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\34\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives, p.
122.
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It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that after 1910 the
weakened Office of the Speaker did not continue to exert influence over
the Rules Committee in the service of the majority party agenda, or to
continue to accumulate power for the panel. The Speaker, in conjunction
with the newly influential floor leader, Representative Oscar Underwood
(D-AL), continued to use the power of the Rules Committee as one of his
most powerful management tools. ``Excepting only the caucus,'' the Rules
Committee during Underwood's speakership became, ``the most necessary
and essential feature of the new floor leader system in the House.''
\35\ Democratic leaders made certain that the Rules Committee continued
to serve as an organ of the majority party by carefully stocking the
committee with solid party loyalists.
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\35\ James S. Fleming, ``Oscar W. Underwood: The First Modern House
Leader, 1911-1915,'' in Roger H. Davidson, Susan Webb Hammond, and
Raymond W. Smock, eds., Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership
Over Two Decades (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), p. 108.
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Although the speakership was weakened during this period, Speakers
continued to accrue power for the panel. In 1920, for example, Speaker
Frederick H. Gillett of Massachusetts ruled that the committee might
report a resolution providing for the consideration of a bill that had
not yet been introduced.\36\ The ruling was an important one that
foreshadowed the modern Rules Committee's ability to manage not only the
consideration, but the content, of legislative business in the House.
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\36\ Clarence Cannon, Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, 6 vols. (Washington: GPO, 1935-1941), vol. VIII,
3388.
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Speakers also continued to use their influence to prevent the Rules
Committee from reporting rules for legislation they and the majority
party opposed. In 1922, for example, the committee blocked a resolution
demanding answers about the Department of Justice's handling of an
investigation relating to war contract fraud \37\ which the majority
opposed.
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\37\ ``House Inquiry Plan is Again Blocked,'' New York Times, May 28,
1922, p. 2.
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The power of the Speaker to control the legislative agenda was further
increased in 1924, when the ``pocket veto'' power of the chairman of the
Rules Committee was curbed by Speaker Gillett after the Rules Committee
chairman had exercised his discretion to hold resolutions from floor
consideration long after the Rules Committee had reported them.
In 1925, during the speakership of Nicholas T. Longworth (R-IL), one
Member bemoaned this ability to obstruct legislation, stating that the
Speaker and the members of the Rules Committee ``were empowered by . . .
House `gag rules' to allow legislation to live or to make it die'' while
other Members looked on, ``. . . as helpless as little children.'' The
Member in question concluded that this was simply, ``too damned much
power.'' \38\
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\38\ ``Howard Charges Gag Rule in the House,'' New York Times, March 19,
1930, p. 19.
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Soon after assuming the speakership, Longworth had moved to restore
the Speaker's power over the Rules Committee. ``To consolidate his
control, Longworth had the Committee on Committees remove three
[insurgent progressive] Members from the Rules Committee . . . and
replace them with dependable party regulars.'' During Longworth's
tenure, Rules Committee chair Bertrand Snell was a member of a group
known as the ``Big Four'' which acted as Speaker Longworth's inner
circle of advisors and the party's principal policy body.\39\
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\39\ Donald C. Bacon, ``Nicholas Longworth: The Genial Czar,'' in
Masters of the House, p. 134.
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This trend toward restoring the Speaker's power over the committee
continued under Speaker John Nance Garner (D-TX), who ``functioned as a
broker, a negotiator who put together coalitions and compromises by
working with and through committee chairs,'' including the Rules
Committee.\40\
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\40\ Anthony Champagne, ``John Nance Garner,'' in Masters of the House,
p. 170.
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In another important development, in 1933, Speaker Henry T. Rainey (D-
IL) upheld the Rules Committee's right to report a resolution for
consideration of a bill on which the House had refused to act under
suspension of the rules. Speaker Rainey also shepherded through the
Chamber an increase in the threshold needed to discharge legislation
from committees--from 145 to 218--to stop legislation awarding veterans
a cash bonus from being brought up in Congress.\41\ This latter
development further empowered the Rules Committee and the Speaker in
relation to rank and file Members.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ ``Discharge Rule Approved,'' New York Times, April 19, 1933, p. 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still later in the Rainey speakership, a Member was named to the Rules
Committee over the Speaker's objections. That Member was ``Judge''
Howard W. Smith of Fauquier County, VA, who would play a crucial role in
the future of the relationship between the Speaker and the Rules
Committee.
The Speaker vs. the Committee: The Emergence of the ``Conservative
Coalition''
During the speakership of William B. Bankhead (D-AL), 1936-1940, the
Rules Committee ceased to be an unquestioned agent and ally of majority
party leadership, due to the advent of a ``conservative coalition'' of
southern Democrats and Republicans on the panel. For the next three
decades, Speakers would find the committee to be, at least on some
issues, an independent and competing power base in need of cajoling and
catering and, at worst, a legislative adversary.
The rise of the conservative rules coalition was a gradual one. The
Rules Committee played an instrumental part in expediting much of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation during his first
``hundred days,'' and through his initial term in office, by reporting
closed rules on major legislation forwarded by the President. As the
economic emergency of the Depression receded, however, a backlash
against Presidential policies that were viewed by southern Democrats as
increasingly liberal and unwise, set in during the 74th Congress. This
growing suspicion of New Deal policies coincided with, and was furthered
by the election of Representative John J. O'Connor (D-NY), a New Deal
critic, as chair of the committee.\42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives, p.
135.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``By 1937, the House Democratic Leadership could no longer count on
Rules Committee Southern Democrats in granting of rules.'' \43\ As a
result, Speaker Bankhead was increasingly unable to promise prompt
consideration of administration legislative priorities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ A History of the Committee on Rules, p. 138.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One visible split between the Speaker and the Rules Committee occurred
during consideration of the President's wage and hour bill, a
legislative proposal that would have set a national minimum wage,
established standards for maximum hours of work, and implemented several
child labor reforms. After the legislation was passed by the Senate in
August 1937, it was subsequently reported from the House Labor
Committee. That is where its progress abruptly stopped. ``With the five
southern Democrats and four Republicans on the Rules Committee opposed
to it, no rule was granted and no hearing was even held on the Wage and
Hour bill.'' \44\ When a compromise wage and hour measure was also
scotched by the Rules Committee, the House Democratic leadership had to
resort to a discharge petition to bring the plan forward for
consideration. In explaining the failure to grant a rule for wage and
hour legislation, Rules Committee member Representative Edward E. Cox
(D-GA) made an argument presaging the coming civil rights battles of the
next two decades, stating, ``This bill is an attempt to . . . destroy
the reserved powers of the states over the local concerns,'' \45\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Ibid., p. 138.
\45\ ``Rule Denied, 8 to 6,'' New York Times, April 30, 1938, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ``gatekeeping committee'' had shut the gate on the Speaker
himself. ``The 1937-1938 fight over the wage and hour legislation was
extremely significant,'' one scholar has noted, ``it not only
highlighted and aggravated the split in the Democratic Party, but it
meant that on some issues the [Rules Committee] was a bipartisan
coalition,'' rather than an arm of the Speaker and the majority
party.\46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ A History of the Committee on Rules, p. 139.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other observers of Congress have argued that, far from being an
example of a stubborn minority holding legislation hostage, the wage and
hour fight was actually an instance of the Rules Committee fulfilling a
legitimate role as a filter for legislation that was not ready for
consideration by the entire Chamber. Following debate on the bill, the
full House overwhelmingly voted to recommit the first wage and hour bill
to committee. ``To say that the Rules Committee was defying the majority
will of the House in not granting a rule,'' one author has reasoned,
``must be qualified in light of the difficulties in getting a majority
in favor of the principle of the bill'' in the House.\47\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\ Robinson, The House Rules Committee, p. 61.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regardless of the interpretation of the significance of the battle,
the wage and hour fight heralded the beginning of a three-decade fight
between Democratic Speakers of the House, most notably Speaker Sam
Rayburn (D-TX), and the committee on issues such as labor protections,
civil rights, and social policy.
The advent of the conservative coalition did not mean that the Speaker
lost all control of the Rules Committee. ``It is important to note that
on many issues, the Rules Committee continued to act on behalf of the
majority party, albeit at times reluctantly.'' \48\ The rise of the
conservative bloc did, however, make the ability of the Speaker to
schedule and manage legislative business on behalf of the majority
significantly more difficult.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\48\ A History of the Committee on Rules, p. 139.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deeply concerned by this ``loss'' of the Rules Committee to the
conservative coalition, the Roosevelt administration actively campaigned
for the defeat of three renegade Rules Committee Democrats in the 1938
elections--Representatives O'Connor, Smith of Virginia, and Cox of
Georgia. ``The chief desire of the [Roosevelt Administration] `purge,'
'' a New York Times writer observed at the time, ``is to eliminate the
important Rules Committee members who have consistently opposed
Administration measures. If these can be beaten . . . the group feels
that the Administration will have unquestioned control of the direction
of House affairs in the next session.'' \49\ When the smoke cleared on
the morning after the election, however, only Representative O'Connor
was defeated, a development that, when coupled with the loss of several
New Deal allies on the panel, left the ``conservative bloc'' on Rules
unchanged.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\49\ Charles A. Michael, ``New Deal `Purge' Said to Seek Control of
House Rules Group,'' New York Times, June 30, 1938, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even worse for the Speaker, the election returned fewer Democrats to
the House as a whole, a development that sounded the death knell to the
Speaker's ability to skirt the committee by using discharge petitions.
Further complicating this strained relationship was the emboldened
nature of the Rules Committee, which proceeded to hold public hearings
on issues embarrassing to the Roosevelt administration, actively
undermined the Speaker's use of the suspension procedure, negotiated
concessions from committees on the content of bills, and granted rules
for the consideration of legislation that favored conservative
interests.
Enactment of the 21-Day Rule
After World War II, the Speaker worked to undermine the power of the
Rules Committee's conservative coalition over the legislative agenda. On
January 3, 1949, Speaker Sam Rayburn, who took office following the
death of Speaker Bankhead, shepherded through the House the adoption of
the so-called ``21-day rule.'' ``Under this rule, the chairman of a
legislative committee which had favorably reported a bill could call it
up for House consideration if the Rules Committee reported adversely on
it or failed to give it a `green light' to the House floor within 21
days.'' \50\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives,
pp. 57-58.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Speaker, together with allies in the Truman administration,
employed the procedure of binding Democrats through a vote of their
party caucus to support the resolution that enacted the 21-day rule.
Indeed, Speaker Rayburn expended considerable effort and personal
prestige in pushing for the rule change, making a rare speech on the
House floor urging Members' support. One scholar observed that Rayburn's
remarks:
were especially directed toward his southern colleagues, many of whom
were voting against the 21-Day rule because they feared it would
increase the chances for the passage of civil rights legislation, which
they opposed. Rayburn contended that civil rights legislation was not
the issue. `The rules,' he said, `of a legislative body should be such
at all times as to allow the majority of a legislative body to work its
will.' \51\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Robinson, The House Rules Committee, p. 67.
Rayburn's efforts were ultimately successful, and when the 21-day rule
was initially passed, observers called it a major power surge for the
Speaker and a defeat for the renegade Democrats on the Rules Committee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
William S. White, of the New York Times, wrote after the vote:
Mr. Rayburn, as he is well aware, has received a power and a
responsibility not given in generations to a Speaker of the House. He
will be in command. He will be responsible in almost the complete sense
of that term, for what the House does, in so far as the Administration
Democrats are not outweighed from time to time by the orthodox
Republicans and whatever bloc of rebellious southern Democrats can be
marshaled.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\ William S. White, ``House Gives Speaker Large Grant of Power,'' New
York Times, Jan. 9, 1949, p. 1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For critics of the 21-day rule, White subsequently observed, ``this
meant . . . a return to `czarism,' for in cutting down the Rules
Committee the Members . . . had simply left it all up to one man's yea
or nay rather than to twelve.'' \53\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ William S. White, ``Sam Rayburn, the Untalkative Speaker,'' New
York Times, Feb. 27, 1949, p. SM10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the 81st Congress, the 21-day rule was successful in helping
Speaker Rayburn bring anti-poll tax legislation to the floor, as well as
forcing a vote on controversial housing and minimum wage bills. The Rule
was also instrumental in obtaining consideration of legislation
establishing the National Science Foundation, as well as bills granting
Alaska and Hawaii statehood. The rules helped the Speaker get around an
obstructive Rules Committee. As one Member of Congress later noted,
``Altogether, during the 81st Congress, eight measures were brought to
the floor and passed by resort to the 21-Day rule, and its existence
forced the Rules Committee to act in other cases.'' \54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\54\ Representative Chet Holified, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 106, Sept. 1, 1960, p. 19393.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 21-day rule was eventually repealed after a bitter political fight
in 1951 between Speaker Rayburn and the conservative coalition of
southern Democrats and Republicans. ``As a result, the power of the
Rules Committee to blockade bills'' sought by the Speaker and the
majority party was restored.\55\ This turnaround was made possible
largely by solid increases in Republican strength in the House following
the 1950 elections, coupled with mounting concern by many southern
Democrats about the possible use of the 21-day rule to force
consideration of civil rights legislation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives,
pp. 57-58.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From 1955 to 1960, the new chairman of the Rules Committee--``Judge''
Howard W. Smith of Virginia--the same Member who had been placed on the
committee over the objections of Speaker Rainey nearly three decades
earlier, and who had been unsuccessfully targeted for electoral defeat
in the FDR ``purge,''--was the ``acknowledged leader of the
[conservative] coalition.'' \56\ The coalition's ability to
independently block legislation would continue largely unchallenged
until 1961, when 79-year-old Speaker Sam Rayburn would mount an assault
on the power of the Rules Committee in one of the final political
battles of his four-decade career in the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\56\ CRS, A Short History of the Development of the Committee on Rules,
p. 11.
Speaker Rayburn and the Purge of the Rules Committee
Toward the end of the fifties, Speaker Rayburn's continued frustration
with the Rules Committee spilled over into public view. ``Judge''
Smith's ability to block legislation supported by the Speaker was
legendary:
Often, when he did not want to bring a bill out of his [Rules]
committee, the Judge would leave town and go to his 70-acre farm in
Fauquier County, Virginia, to avoid calling a meeting. Early in 1957, he
resorted to this tactic to delay consideration of President Eisenhower's
civil rights proposal, insisting that he had to return home to inspect a
barn that had burned down. ``I knew Howard Smith would do almost
anything to block a civil rights bill,'' said Speaker Sam Rayburn upon
hearing this excuse, ``but I never knew he would resort to arson.'' \57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\57\ Charles and Barbara Whalen, The Longest Debate: A Legislative
History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (New York: Mentor Press, 1985), p.
92.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Rayburn arguably did all that he could to avoid the head-on
battle with the committee's conservative coalition that eventually
erupted in 1961, preferring instead to negotiate and cajole Smith to
forward his majority party agenda. In 1959, for example, when members of
the liberal Democratic Study Group [DSG] demanded reform of the Rules
Committee by enlarging its size to defeat the coalition of four
Republicans and two southern Democrats that dominated the 12-person
panel, Speaker Rayburn refused to back the plan, seeking instead to
``assure the House liberals of steps under existing rules'' that could
be used to outmaneuver the obstructive committee, including, ``the use
of . . . seldom-invoked Calendar-Wednesday.'' \58\ In response to
Rayburn's rebuff, the liberal Members issued the following statement:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\ John D. Morris, ``Rayburn Rebuffs Move By Liberals,'' New York
Times, Jan. 3, 1959, p. 1.
We have received assurances from Speaker Rayburn that legislation
which has been duly considered and reported by the legislative
committees will be brought before the House for consideration within a
reasonable period of time. Our confidence in the Speaker is great, and
we believe he will support such procedural steps as may be necessary to
obtain House consideration of reported bills.\59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\59\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives, p.
143.
This ``go along to get along'' approach was in keeping with Speaker
Rayburn's leadership style. ``[Rayburn's] effectiveness has rarely if
ever rested on the use of raw power, coercion or threats,'' one reporter
wrote at the time. ``Rather, it has stemmed from his great personal
prestige, close friendships with other House Democrats in positions of
power, and the esteem, and respect held for him by nearly all
colleagues.'' \60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ John D. Morris, ``Stakes High in Rules Struggle for Rayburn, 79,
and Smith, 77,'' New York Times, Jan. 30, 1961, p. 12.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As 1961 dawned, however, Rayburn's position on the Rules Committee
gradually changed as ``it became evident that enactment of President
Kennedy's legislative program would hang upon overcoming the
conservative coalition control of the Rules Committee.'' \61\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives, p.
143.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In many ways, the 1961 battle between the Rules Committee and the
Speaker was the direct opposite of the 1910 overthrow of Speaker Cannon.
In 1910, Members had risen up because a Speaker, who, through his tight
control of the power of the Rules Committee, had prevented legislation
he opposed from being considered by rank and file Members of the House.
In 1961, however, it was the Rules Committee that was blocking
consideration of legislation, thwarting the will of a powerful Speaker,
the majority leadership, and an increasing number of rank and file
Members who wished to act on the ``progressive'' bills supported by
their constituents.
An editorial cartoon by the satirist Herblock during this period
summed up many liberal Members' feelings on the Rules Committee: it
pictured a baseball player in catcher's face mask and pads standing in
front of, rather than behind, home plate, catching a fastball pitch
before the batter could have a chance to swing at it. The batter
represented Members of Congress and the catcher wore a jersey labeled
``Rules Committee.''
``Speaker Rayburn kept his own counsel until the eve of the session,''
George B. Galloway has written, ``when he came out on the side of the
reformers with a plan to enlarge the membership of the Rules Committee
from 12 to 15'' members.\62\ In doing so, the Speaker resisted--after
initially embracing--the suggestion of members of the Democratic Study
Group to balance the committee by purging it of one of its renegade
southern Democrats, Representative William M. Colmer (D-MS). The Rayburn
plan would instead increase the size of the committee by three,
enlarging the number of Democratic Rules members from eight to ten, and
Republicans from four to five, breaking the conservative coalition's
traditional six-six deadlock on the panel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\ Ibid., p. 143.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the weeks leading up to the opening of the 87th Congress, the
Kennedy administration, lobbyists from labor unions and progressive
groups, and the Speaker and his loyalists, including Rayburn's close
ally on the committee (and later Rules Committee chair) Representative
Richard Bolling (D-MO), lined up votes for the plan to enlarge Rules.
The scramble for votes between the Rayburn camp and the allies of the
conservative coalition was intense, for the vote was to be an extremely
close one. One historian later illustrated this situation by relating
the see-sawing battle waged by the Rayburn and Smith forces to secure
the vote of one southern Member, Representative Frank W. Boykin (D-AL):
Boykin was a friend of Rayburn and a conservative; he was pulled
emotionally to vote both ways. He committed himself to Rayburn; then
under pressure from Smith's camp, he changed his mind and committed
himself to Smith. Rayburn's lieutenants applied new pressure to Boykin
and again he switched. Smith's lieutenants fought back hard for Boykin's
vote, and once more he switched. Again Rayburn's people won Boykin back,
only to lose him again . . . At this point, Boykin had been on both
sides three separate times . . . [but] the fight for Boykin's vote . . .
illustrated the desperation of the struggle. It was so close that every
single vote was of crucial importance.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\63\ Neil MacNeil, Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives,
(New York: David McKay, Co., 1963), p. 432.
In seeking support for his plan, the Speaker utilized all of the
powers of his office. Initially, Rayburn intended to employ caucus rules
to bind Democrats to support for the enlargement plan, repeating the
tactic he used successfully in his earlier campaign to enact the 21-day
rule. Rayburn abandoned the strategy, however, after many southern
Democrats bristled at the arm twisting and threatened to bolt.\64\
Speaker Rayburn also reportedly utilized the Kennedy administration's
control of local public works projects to help convince Members to vote
with him. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall personally made a
number of calls to Members during the days immediately preceding the
vote to discuss ``water projects of vital interest to members in many
sections of the country, particularly in the West and South.'' \65\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ John D. Morris, ``Rayburn Shifts in Rules Battle,'' New York Times,
Jan. 18, 1961, p. 17.
\65\ John D. Morris, ``Rayburn Rejects All Compromise on Rules Battle,''
New York Times, Jan. 29, 1961, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The resolution to enlarge the panel was reported by the Rules
Committee by a vote of six to two on January 14, 1961, after ``Judge''
Smith promised Rayburn he would do so. Smith and Representative William
M. Colmer (D-MS) were the only Democrats to oppose the resolution; no
Republicans attended the committee markup. Following a spirited debate
on the resolution on January 31, 1961, which included a passionate floor
speech from Speaker Rayburn, the House adopted the enlargement plan by a
vote of 217 to 212.\66\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\66\ Congressional Record, vol. 107, Jan. 31, 1961, pp. 1589-1590.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Rayburn's victory was a significant step in restoring control
of the Rules Committee as an arm of the Speaker and his majority
leadership. This win alone, however, did not defeat the conservative
coalition. Just 2 years later, under House Speaker John W. McCormack (D-
MA), majority party Members had to turn back a spirited attempt by the
coalition and its allies to return the panel to its pre-1961 size of 12
members. Despite some slight improvement in the enlarged Rules
Committee's record of cooperation with the leadership, it continued to
obstruct floor consideration of certain education, labor and civil
rights bills for the duration of the Kennedy administration.
Truce: The Return of the Speaker's Power
By the late sixties, the Speaker's relationship with the House Rules
Committee had improved somewhat, as ``Judge'' Smith was defeated for
reelection in 1966 and the committee chair was assumed by Representative
William M. Colmer (D-MS). ``Although of similar ideological bent to
Smith, Colmer viewed the role of the [Rules] Committee in a different
way, in part reflecting his own threatened ouster from the committee and
the adoption of committee rules in 1967 permitting a committee majority
to circumvent a recalcitrant chairman.'' \67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, Official Web
site, www.house.gov/rules, accessed on Aug. 12, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Passage of the Legislative Reform Act of 1970 \68\ coupled with
numerous institutional reforms made in the House Democratic Caucus in
the post-Watergate era, returned to the Speaker the authority to
nominate majority members of the Rules Committee. These reforms made the
Rules Committee a reliable arm of the House leadership for the first
time since the 1910 revolt against Speaker Cannon, and gave the Speaker
true de facto control of the panel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\68\ Public Law 91-510.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The willingness to return considerable power to the Speaker was
undertaken in response to a larger decentralization of the House that
led many Members to turn to the Speaker to provide order in the
coordination of business: to make a busy and complicated legislative
body work. Rank and file Members were particularly willing to return
power to the Speaker after observing periods during the tenures of
Speaker McCormack and Speaker Carl Albert (D-OK) when there was
``paralysis in moving Democratic legislation even though there were
heavy Democratic majorities'' in the body.\69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\69\ Mary Russell, ``Speaker Scooping Up Power in the House,''
Washington Post, Aug. 7, 1977, p. A1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``In the House, the decentralizing reforms of the 1960s and 1970s
were,'' according to congressional scholar Roger Davidson,
``paradoxically, accompanied with innovations that enlarged the power of
the Speaker.'' \70\ Davidson goes on to observe, ``The fruits of these
innovations were not immediately realized. Speaker John McCormack
resisted most of the changes . . . his successor, Carl Albert . . . was
a transitional figure who hesitated to use the tools granted to him by
the rules changes.'' \71\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\70\ Roger H. Davidson, ``The New Centralization on Capitol Hill,''
Review of Politics, vol. 50, 1988, p. 357.
\71\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The main beneficiary of these grants of additional power was House
Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill (D-MA), himself a longtime member of the House
Rules Committee. O'Neill was given more control over the Rules Committee
and the orchestration of the details of legislative business. As
Speaker, O'Neill ``used control on important issues to restrict the
freedom of House Members in offering amendments--in making changes in
important pieces of legislation that he wanted kept intact.'' \72\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\72\ Russell, ``Speaker Scooping Up Power in the House,'' p. A5.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker O'Neill utilized the power of the Rules Committee not only as
a tool of his majority power, but also as a buffer to Member demands,
and as a hedge against minority party attacks. During the Carter
administration, for example, O'Neill was often less concerned with
losing votes on the House floor--an unlikely event given the large
Democratic majority in the body--than with minority Members forcing
Democrats ``on the record'' with politically difficult votes.
Speaker O'Neill responded to this challenge by increasingly using his
control of the Rules Committee to manage floor votes during the eighties
with ``complex'' and ``restrictive'' rules on major pieces of
legislation that barred votes on minority amendments. Whereas
restrictive rules constituted only 15 percent of all rules in the
midseventies, by the end of the eighties they made up 55 percent,
according to a Rules Committee minority staff study.\73\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\73\ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, Official Web
site, www.house.gov/rules, accessed on Aug. 12, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
An additional challenge emerged for the Speaker when Republicans and
``Boll Weevil'' Democrats formed a de facto majority coalition on some
issues following the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. The
shifting electoral terrain meant that a Democratic Speaker, for the
first time in many years, had to worry about losing important votes on
the House floor. In response, Speaker O'Neill had the Rules Committee
manage legislative business in increasingly creative ways, including the
more frequent use of closed rules. An important innovation was the so-
called ``King of the Hill'' rule, where the last measure voted upon in a
series of alternatives would prevail, enabling Members to take ``free''
votes on controversial issues that provided political cover. The
leadership would naturally place its preferred version last in the
sequence.
These efforts met with mixed success. During this period, the Rules
Committee ``crafted rules to enhance the Speaker's power, although they
have been only sporadically successful during the Reagan Presidency when
conservative Democrats have bolted to the White House side.'' For
example, the committee ``fashioned an extraordinary rule allowing
separate votes on seven different budget proposals, with successful
amendments being applied to all seven. Eventually, all seven budgets
were defeated on the floor.'' \74\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\74\ William Chapman, ``Bolling, Near Retirement, Muses About a Battle
That Never Was,'' Washington Post, Aug. 24, 1982, p. A7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As if these challenges were not enough, changing demands on Members of
Congress offered Speaker O'Neill still more challenges in the management
of the Rules Committee. For example, in 1983, the Speaker reluctantly
reduced the membership of the committee from 16 members to 13 members
because he was ``unable to persuade any senior Members to take vacant
seats on Rules.'' \75\ While Members recognized the continued power of
the panel, the growing need for rank and file Members to generate media
attention, raise campaign funds, and become legislative entrepreneurs
had simply made the ``inside baseball'' Rules Committee ``powerful but
unfashionable.'' \76\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\75\ Alan Ehrenhalt, ``The Unfashionable House Rules Committee,''
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, Jan. 15, 1983, p. 151.
\76\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During this season of closed and structured rules, it is important to
note that not all of the rules granted by the committee were exercises
in partisanship; many structured rules were adopted by large bipartisan
margins in the House. Increasingly, however, the minority party viewed
the more frequent use of this type of resolution with concern and
resentment.
``As the House became more politicized and polarized during the
1980s,'' a congressional scholar has written, ``the Rules Committee
played a critical role in assisting the Democratic Leadership in
structuring House floor debates on bills to ensure greater efficiency
and predictability in outcomes.'' Predictably, the more restrictive the
amendment process became, the ``more the Rules Committee was blamed by
Republicans for violating the rights of minority party members to fully
participate in the legislative process and represent their
constituents.'' \77\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\77\ Donald R. Wolfensberger, ``The House Rules Committee Under
Republican Majorities: Continuity and Change,'' Paper prepared for
delivery at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Political
Science Association, Oct. 25, 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker James C. Wright, Jr. of Texas further centralized and focused
the use of the Speaker's Rules Committee power, continuing and building
on this trend of issuing closed rules. In 1987, the Washington Post
reported, ``The Democrat's use of `restrictive rules' which . . .
limited debate and amendments on 43 percent of the bills sent to the
floor,'' was ``a continuation of a practice begun under O'Neill. During
O'Neill's last two years as Speaker, the leadership obtained restrictive
rules on 36 percent of the bills sent to the floor.'' \78\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\78\ Eric Pianin, ``House GOP's Frustrations Intensify,'' Washington
Post, Dec. 21, 1987, p. A1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Davidson stressed at the time that Wright ``exploited his
extraordinary scheduling power . . . using [his] tight control over
scheduling, including aggressive use of the Rules Committee to shape
alternatives during floor deliberations.'' \79\ While critics expressed
concern about these tactics, supporters pointed to their success. ``When
he took office, Wright unveiled an ambitious list of legislative goals .
. . Two years later, nearly all the bills had passed the House and many
had been signed into law.'' \80\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\79\ Roger H. Davidson, ``The New Centralization on Capitol Hill,'' p.
357.
\80\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the end of the 103d Congress, during the speakership of Thomas S.
Foley of Washington, the final tally of open versus restrictive rules
revealed ``the largest number of restrictive rules of any Congress (73),
comprising the highest percentage of total rules ever reported in a
Congress (70 percent).''
Rule Reform and the Republican Majority
At no period in the history of the House of Representatives has the
Rules Committee been more central to the power of, and legislative
agenda pursued by, a Speaker than in the days immediately following the
change in control of the House to Republicans in 1994. ``To best
understand the extent of continuity and change on the Rules Committee
under House Republicans,'' Roger Davidson emphasizes, ``it is important
to first understand how the Republican minority viewed the House under
Democratic control and how it envisioned the institution should be run,
both in terms of changes in the standing rules of the House and the way
in which special rules were framed for considering legislation.'' \81\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\81\ Ibid., p. 358.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In orchestrating the Republican Party's rise to power in the House,
Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) had long focused public attention on the
behavior of the Democratic majority through the Rules Committee. ``One
of the central themes of the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS),
which Gingrich and others formed in 1982,'' Donald R. Wolfensberger,
chief of staff of the House Rules Committee during the 104th Congress,
stresses, ``was its portrayal of a corrupt House in which the majority's
arrogance was regularly reflected in procedural abuses of deliberative
process, not to mention of a beleaguered minority.'' \82\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\82\ Donald R. Wolfensberger, ``The Institutional Legacy of Speaker Newt
Gingrich: The Politics of House Reform and Realities of Governing,''
Extensions, A Journal of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and
Studies Center, Fall 2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just as perceived abuses of power by the Rules Committee had angered
rank and file Members and engendered calls for reform since the days of
Speaker Reed, as Republicans pushed to become the majority party in the
House, their public arguments about why they should be in power focused
increasingly on the actions of the Rules Committee.
At a press conference in the months before the 1994 election,
Representative Gingrich and members of the House Republican Conference
began an effort that was intended to call public attention to what they
claimed were abuses by the Rules Committee and the Democratic leadership
of the regular democratic process. ``Among the props was a poster used
on the House floor of a gagged Statue of Liberty over a running
scorecard of open versus restrictive rules (e.g., ``Democracy-0;
Tyranny-6).'' \83\
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\83\ Ibid.
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Given this approach of centering their public appeal on reform of the
institution itself, it is not surprising that many of the Republicans'
legislative efforts once they assumed the majority in 1995 were centered
around reforming the House through the use of the Rules Committee.
After his election as Speaker, Gingrich ``instigated many . . .
changes in House rules and practices, which all had the common theme of
undermining the independent power of committees and their chairs and
enhancing the power of the majority leadership.'' At Speaker Gingrich's
behest, ``Three full committees were eliminated, and 106 (12 percent) of
the previous Congress's subcommittee slots were eliminated . . .
Gingrich personally designed a new committee assignment system for the
GOP in which the party leader was given a dominant formal role.'' \84\
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\84\ David W. Rohde, ``The Gingrich Speakership in Context: Majority
Leadership in the House in the Late Twentieth Century,'' Extensions, A
Journal of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center,
Fall 2000.
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As with Speaker Reed before him, Speaker Gingrich's reforms were
largely accomplished through amendments to the standing rules of the
House. Speaker Gingrich took an active hand in crafting the rules
package adopted at the beginning of the 104th Congress. As one scholar
has noted, this rules reform package was ``considered under a special
rule [Rules Committee chair Gerald B.H.] Solomon (R-NY) had devised on
Gingrich's instructions'' \85\
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\85\ Ibid.
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Like many powerful Speakers before him, Speaker Gingrich also proved
willing to use his control of the Rules Committee for purposes other
than the scheduling and shaping of legislative business, for example, to
help enforce party discipline. In one instance in 1996, in a move
reminiscent of actions taken by strong Speakers such as Cannon and
Rayburn, Speaker Gingrich reportedly employed the power of the panel to
punish two Republican Members who had endorsed the primary challenger to
a sitting GOP colleague. Congressional Quarterly reported that, as
punishment for this action, Speaker Gingrich had ``instructed [the House
Rules Committee] to reject any floor amendment the two Members might
seek to offer to legislation for the rest of the session.'' \86\
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\86\ Karen Foerstel, ``Punished But Unrepentant,'' Congressional
Quarterly Weekly Report, July 29, 1996.
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The Republican majority came to power promising open rules as the
norm, but, as they had under previous Speakers of both parties, the
demands of governing in a legislative body with narrow party ratios and
a full agenda of business soon contributed to the issuance of fewer
purely open rules on major pieces of legislation. Scholars argue that
this lesson was learned relatively early after Republicans assumed the
majority in 1995. As one observer recounted, ``The first major Contract
[with America] bill out of the box after opening day was the Unfunded
Mandate Reform Act which the Rules Committee put on the floor under an
open rule. Two weeks and dozens of amendments later the bill was finally
completed and its manager, Government Reform and Oversight Chairman Bill
Clinger (R-PA) . . . was totally exhausted and disillusioned with open
rules. From that point on, the Rules Committee took a more cautious
approach, reporting ``modified open'' rules on bills that set an overall
time limit on the amendment process.'' \87\
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\87\ Rohde, ``The Gingrich Speakership in Context: Majority Leadership
in the House in the Late Twentieth Century.''
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As Representative David Dreier (R-CA) ``learned quickly'' after
becoming Rules Committee chair in the 106th Congress, the responsibility
of running the House of Representatives that a majority party holds
sometimes requires some of the same procedures he had expressed concern
about a decade ago. ``I had not known what it took to govern,'' he
acknowledged. Now, ``our number one priority is to move our agenda . . .
with one of the narrowest majorities in history.'' \88\
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\88\ Jim VandeHei, ``Using the Rules Committee to Block Democrats,''
Washington Post, June 16, 2003, p. A21.
Conclusion
From the 1st Congress to the 108th Congress, the Committee on Rules
and the Speaker of the House have been linked. Under czars and
caretakers, reformers and managers, the Rules Committee has played an
integral role in the Speaker's ability to regulate the business of the
House.
This link between the panel and the Speaker has been marked by ebbs
and flows in the tides of power, including battles for independence, a
reinforcing of mutual authority, and periods of close cooperation.
Speakers have controlled the committee with an iron hand, been forced to
cajole and negotiate with it, and been bent to its will. Through those
ebbs and flows has been a constant search for balance, with some Members
believing, as Speaker Reed did, that the rules exist ``to promote the
orderly conduct of the business of the House,'' and others charging that
the rules give the Speaker ``greater power'' than any man ought to
possess in relation to the full House. That struggle for balance and
role continues today.
The Rules Committee has helped Speakers impose order on the chaos of a
young and growing legislative body. It has helped them enshrine the
status quo, and, at other times, been their primary vehicle for reform
and institutional change. Speakers have used the committee to centralize
their power, and the House has, in turn, positioned the panel as a
competing base of authority to their presiding officer. The committee's
power to write and rewrite the rules has enabled Speakers to manage the
business of the House in times of razor-thin party margins, and
increased partisanship, media scrutiny and electoral pressure.
While the days may have passed when an individual can dictate the
actions of the House singlehandedly, the Rules Committee continues to be
the most powerful arm of the Speaker and, in a large part, a centrally
important governing entity of the House. In it, Congress has largely
consolidated its constitutional power to decide the ground rules of its
own proceedings. The panel enables the Speaker to direct the legislative
business of the Chamber and press forward the agenda of the majority
party. It imbues him with the power to reward and punish individual
Members and can act as a shield from Member demands. Most importantly,
it serves as a forum in which the ever-changing and often competing
interests of the House leadership, the legislative committees, and
individual Members of Congress can be raised, negotiated, vetted and
ultimately resolved.
If Congress in committee is Congress at work, as Woodrow Wilson
famously observed, the Rules Committee is where that work is resolved
and finalized. It is the last step in the House's legislative assembly
line and the ``engine room,'' where the procedural, political and policy
mechanics that make the Chamber ``work'' are crafted by the Speaker and
his majority party allies.
For all of these reasons, the panel remains, as much as ever, the
``Speaker's committee.'' The history of the Rules Committee is, in
essence, a history of the power of the Office of the Speaker and the
evolution of the modern House of Representatives.