Among the key modifications to the rules of the House is one that wipes out the GOP’s only opportunity to change legislation on the floor through a century-old procedure known as the plan to recommit.
A second alteration drops the use of pronouns and familial identities, such as mother and father, in House-written rules and replaces them with gender-neutral terms sensitive to all members, “including those who are nonbinary.”
Democrats, who control a slim majority, passed the package after hours of a dispute with Republicans, who cautioned that the changes smother the freedom of speech and undermine millions of voters represented by the GOP, which accumulates almost half of the elected members.
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, charged Democrats with engaging in a “race to wokeness” that disregards an electorate who overturned more than a dozen Democratic seats to the GOP in the November election.
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“The political and moral stakes are high, and American people know it,” McCarthy said. “If censorship replaces open debate on this floor, serious deliberation of the most important issues confronting our country will become impossible.”
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The vote on the rules package kicked off the new Congress one day after Democrats guaranteed the reelection of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to a fourth, nonconsecutive term with the post.
The rules modifications include many new plans directed at empowering the majority and reshaping House procedures to suit its agenda.
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The package involves language that would allow key Democratic priorities, such as legislation to fight climate change, to pass the House even if it adds to the deficit.
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The package would also make it a breach of the rules of the House to spread on government social media accounts knowingly manipulated concepts such as “deep fakes,” and it prevents vengeance against and the disclosure of whistleblowers.
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Democrats also used the rules package to extend a distinctive climate committee and create a new board devoted to “economic disparity and fairness in growth.”
They claimed it was necessary to adjust the motion to recommit because Republicans had been using it to weaken Democratic legislation that they would then vote against.
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The rules reform will change the motion to recommit so that legislation is sent back to the committee level, basically eliminating it.
The GOP successfully changed eight bills in the last Congress using the motion to recommit, frustrating Democratic leaders.
“Since this legislative tool has not been used in good faith, it needs to be reformed," said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
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