Kevin McCarthy (left) and Eric Cantor campaigned on transparency and reform. GOP bends its own new House rules

Just hours after taking control of the House, Republicans passed a sweeping set of rules promising transparency and reform.

But the new majority is already showing these promises aren’t exactly set in stone.


After calling for bills to go through a regular committee process, the bill that would repeal the health care law will not go through a single committee. Despite promising a more open amendment process for bills, amendments for the health care repeal will be all but shut down. After calling for a strict committee attendance list to be posted online, Republicans backpedaled and ditched that from the rules. They promised constitutional citations for every bill but have yet to add that language to early bills. (See: GOP backpedals on committee attendance rule)

Republicans say there are subtle reasons for these moves and that they certainly will follow their own rules throughout the 112th Congress. But the hedging on some promises shows just how hard it will be to always match the sharp rhetoric of the campaign with the ugly and complex work of running the House. (See: The era of Speaker Boehner begins)

The promise of full debate in committees, for example, was inspired by Republican complaints that Democrats abused their power in bypassing regular debate. Republicans such as Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Rules Chairman David Dreier of California all have complained that Democrats in the last Congress didn’t bring a single bill under a process called the open rule — a mechanism that allows for nearly unlimited amendments and debate. None of the bills that will be brought to the floor this week will be brought under open rules. When asked directly whether he would bring the repeal bill to the floor under an open rule, Cantor dodged the question. (See: House to vote on health repeal next week)

“The repeal bill is going to be a very straightforward document,” Cantor said this week. “It is going to reflect what I think most people inside the Beltway and outside the Beltway understand about the health care bill that was passed. It is a job-killing health care bill that spends money we don’t have, and we need to repeal it and replace it with the kind of health care that most Americans expect.”

Regarding the failure to put the constitutional citation into bills, Republicans say that typically will come when a bill hits the floor. The three bills that Republicans plan to introduce this week — one to cut the congressional budget, one to repeal the health care bill and another to instruct House committees to present new health care legislation — were posted on the Rules Committee website with plenty of time for review, but none had the constitutional citation for similar review. Aides vowed the citations would be available when the bills hit the floor. How detailed the citations will be remains to be seen, aides on both sides of the aisle say. (See: GOP won't count cost of repeal)

The committee attendance list — which had the potential to be used as a weapon in campaigns for those who miss meetings — never had a chance.

Behind closed doors in the Cannon House Office Building on Tuesday evening, Republicans, led by conservative Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, swatted away the provision. Many in House leadership circles are hardly pleased that the conference dropped a plan that would have had committee attendance posted.

“Until we stop scheduling committee hearings at the same time, then its inherently unfair to say, ‘We’re going to schedule all these hearings at the same time and take roll,” Gohmert said in an interview with POLITICO, defending his amendment.

Gohmert seems to brush off the suggestion that this is a bid to decrease transparency.

“Come to the hearings,” he said. “But it’s not at all. Not roll back, my gosh, just hang around with me a while, you’ll see more transparency. But that’s not a matter of transparency. It’s a matter of inherent unfairness.”

Democrats already are griping about getting bypassed on the health care repeal. Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said he’s feeling “left out because our committee’s being left out.

“The first bill that will be brought to the House floor will be to repeal the health care legislation — without a hearing, without subcommittee or a full committee or testimony from all the different people around this country that have an interest,” Waxman said.

Republican leadership aides say Democrats are simply complaining, and the majority obey the rules they put forth. Furthermore, Republicans say, Democrats ran the House processes into the ground and don’t have credibility to criticize their work.

Republicans contend that it’s only spending bills that would have an open amendment process. In fact, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier reiterated that point this week to a group of newly elected lawmakers.

And what about bypassing the committee process?

The bills didn’t go through committee because the committees aren’t totally assembled yet, and the GOP wanted to move on the legislation quickly, so they are taking the bills straight to the House floor, Republicans say.

And what about the quick work on the health care repeal bill — which also was exempted from deficit reduction rules?

“This [health care] issue was litigated — to the point of mass public protest — throughout the entire 111th Congress,” said Brad Dayspring, a Cantor spokesman. “In comparison to the Democrats’ 2,000-page takeover of health care, this is a two-page, straight repeal of Obamacare. There’s nothing to amend — you either support it or you don’t, and it’s doubtful that Rep. [Nancy] Pelosi will be able to keep her caucus unified like Republicans were in opposition” to the plan.

On one issue — the open rule for amendments — Republicans privately acknowledge that providing Democrats with amendments would have been politically dangerous. Democrats could have forced Republicans to vote on popular parts of health care overhaul — namely, eliminating provisions that would stop patients with pre-existing conditions from being rejected for health coverage.

But the way the first week is shaping up on the floor, an open amendment process just isn’t possible, Republicans say.

“Under the circumstances we have right now, there’s not an ability to do it,” Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said of an open rule. “We pledged an up-or-down vote. Our commitment was an up-or-down vote, and so a clean up-or-down vote means this is how you have to bring it to the floor. If you want to have an up-or-down vote, this is how you have to do it. And that is what our pledge was: an up-or-down vote.”

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said it’s important to show the American people that the GOP is moving quickly.

“Some things you don’t need a hearing on,” Scalise said of the health care law, which his committee will delve into later in the 112th Congress.

New York Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter, who chaired the Rules Committee for the past two years, summed it up neatly while riding to the third floor of the Capitol after Boehner was elected speaker Wednesday.

“Sure. That’s what they were going to do. Wasn’t it?” she said of the open rule pledge that Republicans made. “That’s what I’ve been hearing for the last four years. There’s even more than that. No hearing. You fancy they would let me get away with that? It’s the first day, and they’ve violated everything they said they were going to do.”

Darren Goode contributed to this report.