Freedom Caucus Pushes; House Rules Changed

Here’s many of the reforms the Freedom Caucus brought to the table that resulted in House Rules changes after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was elected as Speaker in the Republican-controlled 118th Congress:

1. Only 1 member needed to start the parliamentary process to “Vacate the Chair” (had been in place since 1837; former Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi rescinded)
2. Cap government spending at 2022 levels (will affect negotiations on military/defense spending as well as the debt ceiling)
3. Removed the “Gephardt rule” that deemed a debt limit increase as passed by House when it adopted a budget resolution
4. House will vote on separate spending bills for Cabinet-level departments — separate appropriations bills, no more “omnibus” spending bills.
5. New House Rules require a 3/5 supermajority to pass federal income tax hikes.
6. “Pay as you go” (hike taxes for new spending) replaced with “Cut as you go” (halts legislation that increases mandatory spending within a 5- or 10-year period)
7. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will more accurately perform fiscal analysis/scoring, especially longer-term financial impacts.
8. If a bill increases direct spending more than $2.5 billion, debate time is mandatory.
9. CBO must do inflation analysis on major impact legislation, including analyzing Social Security/Medicare legislation for long-term solvency.
10. Creates Select Committee on “Weaponization of Federal Government”
11. Reinstates “Holman Rule,” allowing amendments to spending bills that cut certain programs, reduce the salaries of federal employees, or fire specific employees
12. New House Rules require 72 hours for reviewing of new bills before a vote can be taken.
13. Bills must contain a statement of the bill’s “single topic.” New House Rules make it easier to eliminate provisions in a bill not considered germane to the main focus.
14. New House Rules allow two minutes to record votes when Leadership decides such a time limit is necessary (was five minutes) — to allow more time for floor debate.
15. Three of 9 Republican seats on the 13-seat House Rules Committee will go to Freedom Caucus members.
16. Term limits imposed on Office of Congressional Ethics (removes all but 1 Democrat). New House Rules require the OCE to approve hiring of its investigators within the first 30 days of the new Congress to ensure investigators are accountable to the OCE.
17. Votes to be allowed on the floor:
    — block taxpayer funding of abortions / abortion providers (example: Planned Parenthood)
    — repeal funding for 87,000 new IRS agents (ALREADY PASSED)
    — prohibit the sale of Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China
    — make any release from Strategic Petroleum Reserve contingent upon oil production on U.S. federal lands
18. New House Rules end proxy voting and remote committee hearings, along with masking mandates and the associated fines for noncompliance. Metal detectors have been removed from Congress, and the building has re-opened to the public.
19. New House Rules roll back staff unionization (Democrats passed legislation to facilitate).
20. A new bipartisan task force will review House Ethics Rules.
21. New House Rules require committees to determine whether programs should be moved from mandatory funding to discretionary funding (forces annual spending authorization away from an automatic process into one controlled by lawmakers).

Compiled from DailySignal.com and Politico.com