It’s called the “Congressional Review Act,” and it was one of Newt Gingrich’s smartest and most far-sighted moves.

As part of the the Republican landslide of 1996 and part of the “Contract with America,” Gingrich – then House speaker – pushed through an obscure but potent legislative weapon, the “Congressional Review Act.”

To work effectively, the stars must be aligned just right: It targets executive orders signed by a leaving president in his waning six months (which this does) and one party must control all levers of government (as Republicans do now).

With Trump the President-Elect, everything is in place: Republicans are able to cast off a myriad of Obama Administration executive orders – environmental rules, changes to overtime regulations and rules designed to squeeze more taxes from big corporations.

The last time the rule worked was in 2001 – when George W. Bush took office from Bill Clinton. Then, they scrapped workplace safety rules governing “ergonomics.”

This time, they’re thinking much, much bigger, The Boston Globe reports.

“We plan to robustly use the Congressional Review Act to reverse the midnight regulations of Barack Obama,” said Wyoming Republican John Barrasso, who is a leader of the Senate effort. “His legacy lost. The American people said ‘No, we don’t want that. We want to change direction.’ ” While Barrasso and other Republicans say the tool allows them to rescind “last minute” regulations pushed by the Obama administration, the Byzantine way that time is defined in the act means they will most likely be able to take aim at regulations put in place as far back as late May. Gingrich, now a close Trump adviser, is thrilled his creation will get some use. “We’ve gone through a period where unelected bureaucrats have arrogated a level of dictatorial power that can ruin lives, close companies, and totally disrupt local governments with no recourse,” Gingrich said in a brief interview. “And to reassert the elected officials is, I think, a good thing.”

The Congressional Review Act provides a fast-track process for Congress to overturn unwanted agency rules imposed by an outgoing president. Under the act, all each chamber has to do is pass a “resolution of disapproval” and the regulation is no more.

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Under the terms of the act, Congress only has a few short months to get this all done. “It requires a perfect storm,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of progressive group Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. Among those circumstances, she said, is the party in power should “be one that believes in deregulation.”

Under the act, Democrats can’t fall back on their standard blocking tactic, the filibuster. It only takes a simple majority to pass a “resolution of disapproval.”

The Senate Republican Policy Committee put out a potential hit list called “Reining in Obama Regulatory Overreach.” It includes killing a regulation that prevents states from blocking federal funding for Planned Parenthood. GOP senators also seek to eliminate new rules that prevent US corporations from avoiding federal taxes through “earnings stripping,’’ a key tactic in offshore “inversions’’ that corporations use to relocate to a lower cost country.

Will this work? It seems it might … But as history almost always repeats itself, there may come a day where Democrats can (and certainly will) use Republicans’ own weapon against them. And then the irony will be thick indeed.





