Paul Ryan vowed an end to the much-despised top-down approach of his predecessor when he took the speaker’s gavel in 2015, promising a House that’s “more open, more inclusive, more deliberative, more participatory.”

“We're not going to bottle up the process so much and predetermine the outcome of everything around here,” he said in his first news conference as speaker.


But two years later, the House Rules Committee, which is controlled by the speaker, just set a record for the most closed rules in a session — barring lawmakers for the 49th time from offering amendments on a bill.

Ryan has yet to allow a single piece of legislation to be governed by an open rule, which allows members to propose changes on the floor.

That makes Ryan the only speaker in modern history to forgo the open process entirely so far, according to senior House Democratic sources. They argue such a strategy — while politically expedient for Republicans eager to avoid toxic and divisive votes — is bad for democracy because it stifles debate.

“The Republican Majority has now made history for all the wrong reasons,” said House Rules Committee ranking Democrat Louise Slaughter of New York in a statement Tuesday. “Under Speaker Ryan’s leadership, this session of Congress has now become the most closed Congress in history.”

Michigan Republican Justin Amash, a process stickler and one of the most conservative members of the House, agreed, arguing in an interview Tuesday that Ryan has not lived up to his promise.

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“When we offer amendments, they have to be approved by leadership before we get a vote on them and that’s not how our system is supposed to work," he said. "Our system was designed to reflect the will of the people... And the speaker’s job is to ensure the system is open and [lawmakers] are given a fair opportunity to present their amendments."

He later added: "Right now that's really broken and it seems to me that people in power here prefer a system where you have as few votes as possible and you attach everything to one or two votes and then everyone has the excuse that they had to vote for it because it has everything in it."

Asked about the matter during a news conference Tuesday morning, Ryan denied that assessment and noted more bills have passed through committees this Congress than under Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and both Bushes — though not all of those have received floor consideration or passed the House.

“We absolutely have an open process,” Ryan told reporters. “We’re going through the committee process. All these bills are going through the committee.”

According to statistics compiled by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office, Republican panels have marked up 449 bills under President Donald Trump so far compared to 410 under Obama, 249 under George W. Bush, 260 under Clinton and 313 under George H.W. Bush. A House GOP Rules Committee source also notes that they’ve allowed 864 amendments on the floor this Congress, which is more than the 778 amendments Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) allowed when she held the gavel in the 111th Congress.

On Monday night, the House Rules Committee approved its 49th closed rule this year, the new record for a session. The result is that more than 1,300 amendments also have been blocked from consideration.

Democrats — and Republican proponents of open rules — argue that shutting out input from lawmakers leads to worse policy because it keeps ideas from being considered in the light of day.

One amendment that Democrats say merited a floor debate, but was sidelined by GOP leaders, was a bipartisan proposal to phase out the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, a hot topic following the Niger ambush that left four U.S. soldiers dead and many Americans wondering about the sprawl of the U.S. military abroad.

That bipartisan amendment, blocked from being offered to a spending bill for Defense and Homeland Security agencies, had support from veteran Republican lawmakers.

Others rejected amendments have been less explosive. Democrats were unimpressed, for example, when Republicans blocked a series of amendments from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on whistleblowing protections, which they argue were absolutely germane and relevant to the whistleblower bill at hand.

“Open process my foot,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said, responding on the House floor to Ryan’s Tuesday comments. “I guess in the age of Donald Trump words simply don’t matter anymore. Black is white. Up is down. Open is closed. And politicians can say whatever they think sounds good and think they can get away with it — facts be damned.”

Democrats aren’t the only ones getting the short end of the stick under numerous closed rules. Republican ideas also get shut out, something that’s peeved members like Amash.

Leadership, for example, recently decided not to allow an amendment by Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.) to give volunteer doctors who provided free medical services greater flexibility on where they practice. Asked about the matter Tuesday, Duncan said he is trying to get the Senate to fix the issue in the health care bill since his was not made in order in the House.

Something similar is happening right now on the GOP's massive tax bill: Republicans across the conference are buttonholing members of the Ways and Means Committee to try to ask them to offer amendments on their behalf in committee. That's because amendments to the tax bill will likely not be allowed on the floor.

Many Republicans are also not happy that the appropriations process has been largely structured in recent years. Once upon a time, several years ago, spending bills were governed by a free-for-all open amendment process that took days. Now, appropriations bills barely reach the floor.

Republicans successfully pressured their leaders this summer into allowing a series of Republican appropriations bills on the floor. But even those were heavily guarded, with an amendment process that only allowed debate on certain changes.

A House Rules Committee Republican source said Democrats are being misleading. The 115th Congress’ number of closed rules is high, the source argued, because the chamber passed a number of Congressional Review Act bills to repeal regulations, and those are not subject to amendment.

The source said modified rules, which make in order certain amendments but not others, allow the process to move faster — a structure leadership often uses.

Leaders like Ryan are also responsible for protecting the majority, and having their members vote on sensitive issues is risky politically.

Republicans also blame Democrats for forcing a more guarded procedure in the first place, accusing the left of trying to tank the legislative process by offering toxic amendments.

They often point to the summer of 2016, when Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) offered an amendment to bar federal funds from going to contractors who discriminate based on employees’ sexual orientation or gender identity. The amendment passed with centrist Republicans joining Democrats. But then those Democrats wouldn’t back the overall bill, leaving GOP leadership stranded after the amendment repelled conservative votes.

The legislation failed on the floor in an embarrassing defeat for the GOP. And Republicans since then have accused Democrats of intentionally trying to derail their legislation.

That argument might work for some, but it certainly doesn’t work for everyone.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), a rules guru and member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said while he thinks the process has “improved” under Ryan, he’d love to see more open rules.

“Let’s fight it out,” he said. “If the idea can win on the floor then that’s what the American people want. That’s what the representative government is about.”

Amash was less forgiving: "We're supposed to have a speaker who keeps the House open and reflecting the will of the people... There's a lot of protection happening right now, where leaders are trying to shield their members from votes."