Changes to House rules

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 10th of January, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up, changing the rules of the House of Representatives.

Before the newly configured House could get down to business, it had to elect a new speaker. It took 15 rounds of voting over four days until the House finally elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Friday evening. He had to make some political concessions that will change how the House conducts business in the 118th Congress.

REICHARD: Here to explain is WORLD Washington reporter, Leo Briceno. Hi, Leo!

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: Hey, Mary. Great to be speaking with you.

REICHARD: Leo, what happened in the House of Representatives last week? Why did it take so long for Kevin McCarthy to be voted Speaker?

BRICENO: Well, in a nutshell, Kevin McCarthy didn't have the votes, you need a majority of the House, which is 218 votes, to become speaker and a group of Republicans were blocking McCarthy's path to that number by voting for alternative candidates, other Republicans, so nothing else could happen until the House appoints a speaker. Representatives can't even be sworn in. So it's been like 100 years—since 1923—since the speaker election has seen a delay like this, since it's gone to multiple rounds of votes.

REICHARD: How big of a group are we talking?

BRICENO: That group of Republicans was, at its largest, 20 Republicans strong.

REICHARD: So, not a really large group.

BRICENO: Well, you're right. It's not, really. Twenty is a small block in a chamber that has 435 seats, right. But there's a tiny Republican majority in Congress, so it was a big enough number to keep the speakership and the majority out of McCarthy's reach. So he could really only afford to lose four to five votes depending on the round to gain the majority and the speakership. So a group of 20 that was more than enough to keep it out of his grasp.

REICHARD: So why did this group of Republicans oppose McCarthy as speaker?

BRICENO: Well, they wanted something. They wanted a number of changes to the House of Representatives and the way that it works. And they wanted to get that via a couple changes to the House rules. So these rules aren't laws, but they're guidelines that dictate the way the chamber conducts business. And so to make a long story short, what they wanted to do was implement a new set of rules or some changes to the rules that would substantially weaken that leadership of the speaker, of Kevin McCarthy.

REICHARD: Well, now, why would they want that if it weakens their own party, in a sense?

BRICENO: You're right, yeah. Well, some people definitely perceived it that way. And many in the GOP saw it that way. But what the group wanted was greater participation on behalf of individual members in Congress. Most people assume that every bill that goes through Congress gets reviewed by the House of Representatives and that there's debate on each bill, that they get ample opportunity to read and research and debate. Well, that's largely not true. By and large, leadership makes the vast amount of decisions. And so the way the bills are negotiated, the way they're brought to the floor, how the party is organized, these are largely all up to leadership. And this opposition to McCarthy, they weren't necessarily frustrated with McCarthy himself—although some of them were, some of them personally despise McCarthy and didn't didn't want to vote for him—but more broadly, they were frustrated by the concentration of power in the speakership, a saturation and insulation of power and authority there.

REICHARD: I see—so this is really about the power a Speaker has in the U.S. House of Representatives, so that’s what we’re talking about.

BRICENO: That’s exactly right.

REICHARD: Okay... well, McCarthy is Speaker now. What did he do to get those 20 Republicans to change their minds?

BRICENO: Well, first, he held out for 15 rounds of votes. That's a long time. He was originally hoping to make little to no concessions. But then the first day went by and the second day went by and it was 13, 14 rounds votes. And it became clear that this group was not going to budge without him meeting some of their demands. So he began to negotiate. So one of the concessions he made, for example, now any Republican can initiate a vote of no confidence against him. Originally, that number was going to be like five but now it's down to one. So any one member of the GOP can start a motion to vacate the chair. So that's an enormous concession because now any one member can can call for his job and then he would have to win another round of votes to continue filling the role.

REICHARD: What does that mean for the 118th Congress?

BRICENO: That remains to be seen. So, it depends on what the party chooses to do with these concessions—and there's a number of them. So opponents of the concessions say, look, these changes make the House a harder place to act on legislation that's important to the party. It makes it more difficult to pass bills. The convenient thing about consolidated power is that decisions happen quickly. There's more of a streamlined process. You have less people in that process of negotiation. That means more bills, more specific goals being met. But that's one side. Supporters of the changes—this group of 20 Republicans—say that these changes will put some power back in the hands of individual representatives. They want to have a say in the big decisions that the party makes. They want to have more say in some of these larger spending bills. So this might give them more say and the opportunity to influence what happens in the chamber and so that's kind of what they were after. And that's what they're hoping to see.

REICHARD: Leo Briceno is WORLD’s reporter in our Washington, D.C. bureau. Thanks so much, Leo.

BRICENO: Of course. Thanks for having me.

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