A last-minute insertion into House Republicans’ rules package for the 119th Congress substantially raises the bar for voting on legislation under suspension of the rules late in the week or over the weekend, in a concession to conservatives upset about recent deals with Democrats on big-ticket spending bills.
The change requires the House to adopt a special rule to consider bills under suspension of the rules — which bars amendments but requires the support of two-thirds of members present and voting for passage — on any days other than Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
House GOP leaders added the suspension language to the rules package shortly before it hit the floor Friday evening and in the aftermath of a somewhat messy speaker election that saw some conservatives initially hold out for concessions in how the chamber operates.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was reelected on the first ballot despite some drama. Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Keith Self, R-Texas, initially voted for other candidates but later backed Johnson following conversations with President-elect Donald Trump, providing the decisive votes. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., did not vote for Johnson.
House Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said that “a number” of Republicans who “were trying to decide how to vote on the rules package did care about how the suspension calendar played out, those are part of the ongoing negotiations about how we are going to play together as a team.”
The House adopted the new rules package on a 215-209 vote late Friday.
The rule limiting suspension votes to Monday through Wednesday was in place prior to 2021, when House Democrats changed it for the 117th Congress, partially due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic at the time.
House Republicans kept the 2021-2022 rule in place during the last Congress — which proved necessary at times to avoid partial government shutdowns and get appropriations bills across the finish line. With members of the House Freedom Caucus and other like-minded conservatives unafraid to oppose rules for legislation they don’t like, leadership has leaned on suspending the rules to get must-pass bills through.
The new rule change also contains a quirk that didn’t exist in the old, pre-117th Congress limitation. Under the old Monday-Wednesday rule, House members could still take up bills under suspension during the last six days of a legislative session.
That exemption is now gone under the new language, which says simply: ‘‘The Speaker may not entertain a motion that the House suspend the rules except on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.’’
If this new rule had been in place for the 118th Congress, the House would have been unable to take up the current stopgap spending law that passed the House late Dec. 20 — a Friday — under suspension.
The continuing resolution expires March 14 — also a Friday — which means the rule change will have implications for passage of final fiscal 2025 spending bills during the next two months.
The House passed all eight stopgap and omnibus appropriations packages on suspension during the 118th Congress, as Republicans struggled with a thin margin — which will be even thinner this year. Of those eight, just three passed the House on a day that would be allowed under the new rule change.
All of those bills divided the GOP conference and relied on Democratic support for passage, which some conservatives saw as the speaker caving to Democrats’ demands.
‘Backroom deal’
House Rules ranking member Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the change represented a “backroom deal” that would threaten the chamber’s ability to respond promptly to crises.
“Nevermind if there’s an emergency like a natural disaster or a terror attack, we can’t move quickly,” McGovern said during floor debate on the rules package. “That’s actually why this extreme Republican majority wants to make this change: They hate bipartisanship.”
Dusty Johnson argued that suspension votes are supposed to only be used for noncontroversial bills.
“I think there’s some thought that if you have Thursday or Friday suspensions that pop up, maybe we aren’t being as honest with one another about what a suspension should actually be,” he said.
Even with the change, there’s a way to waive the rule and bring up bills on suspension late in the week or over the weekend. But that would still require the chamber to adopt a special rule, which would give conservative critics a chance to block it unless Democrats took the unusual step of crossing the aisle to back a GOP-drafted rule.
Alternatively, there is some precedent for motions to suspend the rules, subject to a two-thirds vote, in order to bring up suspensions on an alternative day later in the week. It’s up to the speaker whether a lawmaker can be recognized to make such a motion, however.
Mary Ellen McIntire and Chuck Conlon contributed to this report.
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