By: Mark Glennon*
Plenty of media reaction to the new procedural rules for the U.S. House of Representatives written by its Republican majority was about as hysterical as can be:
“The terrorists have already won,” said the headline on Dana Millbank’s column in the Washington Post. “This is insurrection” by other means, he wrote.
“Insurrectionists mount a new attack on the Capitol by stalling House speaker election,” was the headline on an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune by one of its former reporters.
“Historic chaos” and an embarrassment for the U.S, said Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes.
Similar reaction from the left went on and on, and some on the right were critical, too, though not to that extreme.
But take a look at those new rules.
Ask yourself if Illinoisans in any party wouldn’t overwhelmingly and rightly favor similar rules for both houses of their General Assembly:
- The new U.S. House rules will require 72 hours before a vote rule to give members time to read legislation. Few measures are more needed in Illinois where dumping multi-thousand page pieces of legislation, particularly budgets, with hours at the most left for review, is standard operating procedure.
- The new rules will make it much harder to tax and spend. They impose a “cut go” rule—requiring spending increases to be offset with equal or greater mandatory spending cuts. A three-fifths supermajority vote will be required for tax increases. Imagine such a thing for Illinois.
- Bills presented to Congress under the new rules must be single-subject, not loaded with unrelated provisions or goodies for favored lawmakers. Illinois already has a constitutional single-subject rule but it’s routinely ignored.
- The new rules will allow House appropriation bills effectively to defund the salaries of specific executive-branch officials or specific programs, and require each committee to submit an oversight plan that lays out what action it intends to take on unauthorized or duplicative programs.
- A single Congressman, under the new rules, could request a full House vote on whether to replace the House Speaker. Wouldn’t that have been nice to have when Michael Madigan was Illinois’ House Speaker? Maybe it goes too far to allow just one member to request a vote, but going mostly unreported is that that was the rule until 2019 when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi changed it.
Other new rules will require particular measures favored by some conservatives, such as a border plan and term limits, to be brought to a vote, though no obligation on how to vote is imposed. What’s wrong with that?
Still other changes are particular to the U.S. House and don’t apply to state proceedings, such as establishment of an independent committee to review use of the FBI and other security agencies to censor news, which also has broad, public support. Other less important changes are still being reported.
The process by which the new House Republican majority came to agreement on its new rules is a different matter. It was brutish. House business was essentially delayed by a week. The results were driven by a small minority that I’d say overused its leverage. Some of the new rules may turn out to be defective in practice — we’ll have to see how they are finalized and whether members use them responsibly.
Directionally, however, the end results put a spotlight on fundamental flaws in how the Illinois General Assembly works.
If support for those rules makes one an “insurrectionist,” as those Washington Post and Chicago Tribune columns say, most Illinoisans should probably be labeled as such for the same reason.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
This site is always illuminating
We have the established Illinois political class who have driven Illinois into a ditch. (Many reps have conveniently joined the Illinois “combine”. )
However to be a viable alternative, the rep party (national and Ill) has to return from bizarro maga crazy djt land.
Guess we in Ill are in a doom loop.
There was NOTHING bizarre about the MAGA improvements that were made. Name one.
coup d’etat? thats one
You clearly do not understand that the constitution permits the vp to take the ballots for a state back to THAT state legislature to investigate the lawfulness of the Vote. Several states violatedtheir laws on mailinballot rules and signature verification. Trump merely told the ppl on the South Lawn to go peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol bldg , after his final speech. If you call that a coup d’etat then I wholeheartedly disagree with you. You clearly don’t listen to ppl like Mark Levin and other constitutional scholars, who know alot more more than NYT, WaPo, and the alphabet… Read more »
The coup was against trump and the voters. Justice is coming
Aaron: You GOT THAT RIGHT !
The stuff that dreams are made of!
Mr Glennon, you and your team are like saints to me for all your continuing efforts to uncover all the political CIG (Corruption; Incompetence; and Malfeasance) in Illinois. Many of those House rules you mentioned in your article today enable a few wacko extremists, in the face of self-serving and cowardice silence by many other republicans, to subvert the core legislative responsibilities of the party. The Rep party has largely gone off the rails. Take the first vote they conducted in the House: retract the $80 plus billion to the IRS, which is needed after many years of underfunding the… Read more »
Bad, bad take bordering on naivety. From whom exactly do you think the 70,000 new IRS agents will extract more money? By your own admission, it’s not rich people with lawyers, or middle class W-2 employees. They’re going to target middle class small business owners. Your landscaper, your local salon, your local fried chicken shop, eBay sellers trying to squeeze a few dollars out of every sale, Uber drivers (WHERE ARE YOUR GAS RECEIPT! DEDUCTION DISALLOWED!), your local dry cleaner or non-chain coffee shop, your local diner serving $14 breakfast specials now that eggs are so expensive. This is who… Read more »
How many billionaires in the us? 87,000 irs agents for the 350 or so billionaires? Yea right !
I think the IRS today is underfunded, based on what I hear often from tax pros and accountants. But 70K new agents would be insanely out of proportion. I think that would be another element of the most disturbing trend I see at the federal level by the left — to create an all-powerful, ubiquitous, Orwellian police state in which individual resistance would be futile. The left in charge today has already shown its true colors: They do not believe in free speech, equal application of law, property rights or even a two-party system. Giving them such another huge army,… Read more »
To rough it out, say the top 10% of the US has about 80% of the USA’s wealth. Let’s say 330 million people in the us , so say 32 million hold that wealth. Take one such person, djt. 200 corps or so all over the world and and he has an army of attorneys and tax accountants. Unlike us middle class, whose taxes (vast majority) are automatically calculated and paid directly to the IRS, we rely on the rich to self report accurately. So say djt’s return takes four IRS auditors one year. Say all these 30 million rich… Read more »
See my Comment above.
It bursts your bubble.
SPPM: I think you don’t know what’s going on with the motives behind the Democrats’ evil legislation to hire 87,000 new irs agents. And you don’t know that wealthy folks & very high earners pay most of our income taxes and cap gains taxes, and because they almost always hire a CPA to do their taxes, everything is pretty much on the level. The cpa would lose his/her license if cheating. These 87,000 will go after the ppl who are paid cash and/or checks for their services — low skilleds who do housecleaning, yardwork, odd jobs, painting, etc . And… Read more »
When Illinois collapses, Wirepoint readers may say, “I knew this would happen.” I just wonder how Wirepoint readers will respond when asked, “If you knew, why did you stay?”
It’s not easy for most ppl to just move out —family nearby, job not easily replaced in another state.
You know that, right?….HJ?
Not easy, but doable. You know that right… Stvoh?
No, it is not always doable.
It’s doable (unless you are in prison).
Tell us about yourself HJ, approx age, type of job, and whether you’d like to move out of Chicagoland.
Facts &circumstances are EVERYTHING.
At first, I was embarrassed by the whole Speaker fight. Then, when I realized what concessions they got, as listed by Mark, it all made sense. The “insurgents” were not looking for personal benefits, such as committee assignments, but necessary reforms, reforms that, if under Pelosi, would have stopped her from bulldozing all those spending bills without amendments or a chance to analyze. All the House reforms Mark listed are well thought out and should lead to changes.
Why were you embarrassed? I was enjoying every minute of Democracy play out like it’s supposed to with one faction of our Grand Old Party battling politically with another faction. And guess what – the Party is much stronger for it. Everyone has kissed and made up and now we are singularly focused on impeaching Biden three or four times.
The General Assembly super majority held by the Democrats offers no incentive to establish similar House rules. Transparency, giving members time to read bills before voting, spending cuts, Speaker vacate rules? Fat chance.
Has anyone filed a lawsuit condemning the GA of consistently ignoring its constitutional obligation to submit single-subject bills for consideration? Where are the Republicans on this? Milquetoasts . . .
Thank you Mark for your summaries and details re these important and responsible ways the federal House of Reps will operate. WELL DONE!
And it seems patently obvious, at least to me, that:
#1 Republican House members are the true anti-fascists, and
#2 MSM, as always, is completely derelict in their duty to be objective. They just cannot stop their gut reaction to bash repubs no matter what, and support dems, no matter what and
#3 Four days of repubs arguing among themselves was a small price to pay for these improvements.
There’s more than a few progressives upset that the ‘Squad’ – a handful of uber-progressive members of the house – use the same tactics against Nancy Pelosi during the last congress to gain more leverage.
Just like good like authoritarians, they all got in line and voted for nancy.
But ALL the Dems loved SanFranNan’s infinite spending and vote-buying. And I believe it really IS that simple. Unfortunately for low and mid-income folks, that money-printing & ginormous spending was half the reason for the hyperinflation that’s ruined most families’ budgets (other half being Biden’s war on fossil fuels that started his first hour in office. That massive inflation (which, counting food and energy costs was nearly 20% YOY) also caused the ruination of retirement savings for the upper half (or quarter) of earners and retirees. 2022 set a record for MOST household wealth LOST. It’s not been tabulated yet… Read more »
yes the printing (under trump too, not just nancy) and the war on energy were the primary drivers of inflation. M2 money supply jumped 40% in a year or two which is totally unprecedented. The feds bond buying – $180,000,000,000 a month ($60B of which was for mortgage bonds, every month, for more than two years) also contributed greatly too, as the fed was the primary and largest buyer of all mortgage securities out there, pumping trillions of new money into an already bubbicious housing market.
I don’t blame Trump one bit. You might, but Democrat govs primarily shuttered their small businesses in 2020 and Nancy drew up HUGE spending and dared Trump to veto it. Then FY21 & FY22 continued the madness, 3-yr FY spending was almost $20T, an unheard of amount.
Dems are outrageously irresponsible and it resulted in this household and stock market crashing.