Justin Amash

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade Township, championed two House rules aimed to make legislation easier to read and understand at the start of the 114th Congress.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Justin Amash already made a mark on Congress' new term by requiring upcoming legislation be easier to read and understand.

Two changes, adopted last week by the U.S. House as rules, require new legislation to contain references pointing to previous laws and statutes if it amends existing law. Additionally, legislation out of committee must include entire sections of previous law being amended.

House rules are adopted at the start of each congressional term, meaning they could be abandoned at the beginning of the next Congress. Still, Amash's reforms passed 234-172-1.

"This maintains the wins that we got in the 113th Congress," Amash spokesman Will Adams said. "The more the American public is able to find out what the House is doing, the more likely it is the public will become informed and help make a difference.

"We think, in the end, that produces better policy."

New legislation typically is littered with references to old bills and other laws, but these reforms help provide context to what congressmen and women are looking to change, Adams said. Without it, federal laws sometimes are quite complicated to comprehend.

The rules are very similar to previous ones introduced by the Cascade Township Republican at the start of the previous Congress in January 2013.

Amash introduced the Readable Legislation Act a month later in February to make these measures more permanent but it appeared to stall in committee.

The first reform requires legislation be printed with references linking to amended laws that could help the public determine what the new legislation aims to accomplish, Adams said. The second is similar to "track changes," he explained, but goes a step further by including surrounding text of amended legislation to better follow the newest laws.

A third reform is not a requirement but "a strong recommendation" to determine new ways of making legislation machine-readable with tags to parse through a document's contents.

"Congress is a very old institution and like many old institutions, it sometimes become set in its ways," Adams said. "It takes a representative like Amash, interested in transparency, to give it a kick in the rear to get it going."

This is among Amash's latest activities in the new Congress, which includes voting "present" on Keystone XL pipeline legislation and voting against John Boehner, R-Ohio, as speaker.

Andrew Krietz covers breaking, politics and transportation news for MLive and The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at akrietz@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter.