House Legislative Procedures and House Committee Organization: Options for Change in the 112th Congress

Judy Schneider
Specialist on the Congress

Michael L. Koempel
Senior Specialist in American National Government

Members in both parties—in speeches and in resolutions—and leaders of both parties—in critiques of the House’s legislative management issued when in the minority—have questioned whether legislative practices, while consistent with House rules, have gotten out of balance, with too much deliberation sacrificed to efficiency or electioneering. Practices targeted have included waivers of layover rules, use of structured and closed special rules, and waivers of committee assignment limitations. The purpose of this report is to provide Members with an analysis of House legislative rules and practices, and committee organization and procedures, that could be changed in the 112th Congress. Some analyses respond to bipartisan Member concerns over the House’s legislative management, others to the needs of leaders in managing such a large body.

Change to legislative procedures and to committee organization in the House of Representatives can be achieved in a number of ways, including the opening-day rules resolution, freestanding resolutions, the Speaker’s announced policies, party rules, and majority-party leadership commitments.

There are a number of ways in which a House rule or set of rules might be drafted. Questions for a proponent of a rules change include: What is the balance being sought between deliberation and decision making? What leader or group of Members will be empowered by a change, or will the House be the decision maker? Will an action be allowed, forbidden, or made conditional? How will the rule be enforced? How could party rules supplement or supplant an existing or new rule?

Numerous House rules address the committee system, including structure, membership, jurisdiction and referral, and procedures. Numerous Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference rules and decisions on committees supplement or even circumvent House rules to ensure the majority party’s dominance of committees’ policymaking and to organize committees to reflect the majority party’s values. The number, jurisdiction, size, and party ratios of committees are important for these reasons. In addition, as the number of waivers and temporary assignments has expanded, the average number of assignments for Members has risen. These attributes of the committee system, and others, could be changed if Members wish to do so.

The means by which legislation is developed has become an issue in and of itself in recent Congresses. Members of both parties, whether their party has been in the majority or the minority, have criticized departures from “regular order” and the development of leadership alternatives outside of and subsequent to the committee process. The evolution of rules and practices in the House in the last 25 years, however, has favored decision making and efficiency. Members seem now to be asking whether the House favors decision making too much over deliberation? Whether the minority has been excluded too much from influencing legislative outcomes?

Since important legislation, including conference reports and amendments between the houses, is almost always considered in the House chamber under a special rule reported by the Rules Committee—the “arm of the leadership”—the use of structured and closed rules has become the principal means by which the House makes decisions efficiently. If the House wishes to rebalance decision making and deliberation, numerous options exist for working within the special rules process to increase deliberation and Member participation in policymaking.

This report does not cover budget procedures, administrative operations, congressional ethics, constitutional authorities, continuity, or other institutional issues.

Date of Report: November 18, 2010
Number of Pages: 99
Order Number: R41501
Price: $29.95

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“Dear Colleague” Letters: Current Practices

Jacob R. Straus
Analyst on the Congress

“Dear Colleague” letters are correspondence signed by Members of Congress and distributed to their colleagues. Such correspondence is often used by one or more Members to persuade others to cosponsor, support, or oppose a bill. “Dear Colleague” letters also inform Members about new or modified congressional operations or about events connected to congressional business. A Member or group of Members might send a “Dear Colleague” letter to all of their colleagues in a chamber, to Members of the other chamber, or to a subset of Members, such as all Democrats or Republicans. The use of the phrase “Dear Colleague” to refer to a widely distributed letter among Members dates at least to the start of the 20th century, and refers to the generic salutation of these letters. New technologies and expanded use of the Internet have increased the speed and facilitated the process of distributing “Dear Colleague” letters.


Date of Report: November 19, 2010
Number of Pages: 11
Order Number: RL34636
Price: $29.95

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House Offset Amendments to Appropriations Bills: Procedural Considerations

Sandy Streeter
Analyst on Congress and the Legislative Process

One of the most common methods for changing spending priorities in appropriations bills on the House floor is through offset amendments. House offset amendments generally change spending priorities in a pending appropriations measure by increasing spending for certain activities (or creating spending for new activities not included in the bill) and offsetting the increase with funding decreases in other activities in the bill. Offset amendments are needed to avoid the Congressional Budget Act 302(f) and 311(a) points of order enforcing certain spending ceilings.

There are two types of House offset amendments considered in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union (Committee of the Whole): clause 2(f) and reachback (or fetchback) amendments. As provided under House Rule XXI, clause 2(f) offset amendments consist of two or more amendments considered together (or en bloc) that would change amounts by directly adding text or changing text in the body of the bill. Taken as a whole the amendment does not increase the amount of funding in the pending bill. Such amendments (1) must provide offsets in both new budget authority and outlays, (2) may contain certain unauthorized appropriations, (3) cannot add new appropriations or spending set asides, and (4) must not contain legislation. 

Reachback offset amendments are generally offered at the end of the bill and change funding amounts in the pending bill by reference. These amendments (1) must provide offsets in new budget authority, but not necessarily offsets, (2) cannot include unauthorized appropriations, (3) may add new appropriations (and spending set asides), (4) cannot contain legislation, and (5) may provide across-the-board spending reductions as offsets.

Parliamentary rules governing consideration of offset amendments may be suspended or waived, typically by House adoption of a special rule, but also by unanimous consent.

The significant advantages of clause 2(f) amendments over reachback amendments are that clause 2(f) amendments may contain certain unauthorized appropriations and are typically considered before reachback amendments, sometimes limiting offset opportunities for reachback amendments. The main advantages of reachback amendments are they may add new appropriations and include across-the-board spending reductions.


Date of Report: November 19, 2010
Number of Pages: 17
Order Number: RL31055
Price: $29.95

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The U.S. Postal Service’s Financial Condition: Overview and Issues for Congress

Kevin R. Kosar
Analyst in American National Government

This report provides an overview of the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS’s) financial condition, recent legislation to alleviate the USPS’s financial challenges, and possible issues for the 111th Congress. It also addresses current legislation that aims to improve the USPS’s financial condition—H.R. 22, S. 1507, H.R. 5746, and S. 3831.

Since 1971, the USPS has been a self-supporting government agency that covers its operating costs with revenues generated through the sales of postage and related products and services.

Recently, the USPS has experienced significant financial challenges. After running modest profits from FY2004 through FY2006, the USPS lost $5.3 billion in FY2007, $2.8 billion in FY2008, and $3.8 billion in FY2009. (Were it not for congressional action, the USPS would have lost $7.8 billion in FY2009.) In FY2010, the USPS had an operating deficit of $8.5 billion.

Were the USPS to run quarterly deficits in FY2011 similar to those experienced in FY2010 (averaging $2.1 billion per quarter), it would exhaust its cash by mid-FY2011.

A number of ideas have been advanced that would attempt to improve the USPS’s financial condition in the short term so that it might continue as a self-funding government agency. All of these reforms would require Congress to amend current postal law. The ideas include (1) increasing the USPS’s revenues by altering postage rates and increasing its offering of nonpostal rates and services; and (2) reducing the USPS’s expenses by a number of means, such as recalculating the USPS’s retiree health care and pension obligations and payments, closing postal facilities, and reducing mail delivery to less than six days per week.


Date of Report: November 18, 2010
Number of Pages: 22
Order Number: R41024
Price: $29.95

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The 2010 Decennial Census: Background and Issues

Jennifer D. Williams
Specialist in American National Government

The 23rd decennial census of the U.S. population began on January 25, 2010, in Noorvik, AK, where the Bureau of the Census Director, among others, traveled by snowmobile and dogsled to enumerate the residents. Most U.S. households—about 120 million—received their census forms by mail in March, ahead of the official April 1 Census Day, and 74% of the households that received forms mailed them back. From May through July, the Census Bureau contacted about 47 million nonresponding households and by December 31 will release the first census numbers.

The Bureau’s constitutional mandate to enumerate the U.S. population every 10 years has been summarized with deceptive simplicity: count each person whose usual residence is in the United States; count the person only once; and count him or her at the right location. In reality, the attempt to find all U.S. residents and correctly enumerate them is increasingly complicated and expensive, and attracts congressional scrutiny. This report discusses the major innovations that were planned for 2010; problems encountered; issues of census accuracy, coverage, and fairness; and the present status of census operations.

For 2010, the Bureau devised a short-form questionnaire that asked for the age, sex, race, and ethnicity (Hispanic or non-Hispanic) of each household resident, his or her relationship to the person filling out the form, and whether the housing unit was rented or owned by a member of the household. The census long form, which for decades collected detailed socioeconomic and housing data from a sample of the population, was replaced by the American Community Survey, an ongoing survey of about 250,000 households per month that gathers largely the same data as its predecessor.

Another innovation for 2010 was to have been the development of highly specialized handheld computers to automate two essential census field operations: address canvassing and nonresponse follow-up (NRFU). The goal of pre-census address canvassing was to verify and correct census maps and addresses for mailing census forms and sending enumerators. During NRFU, census workers tried repeatedly to visit or telephone people who had not completed their questionnaires and obtain information from them. Testing had revealed such serious problems with the handheld devices that although the Bureau used them for address canvassing, it resorted to the traditional paper-based approach for NRFU. The change required the Bureau to hire and train more NRFU staff, at increased expense. In 2009, the total life-cycle cost of the 2010 census was projected at $14.7 billion, instead of the previously estimated $11.5 billion. The problems with the handhelds fueled concerns that the success of the census could be at risk. Some feared, in particular, that the late-date changes to NRFU could impair census accuracy, reduce coverage, and exacerbate the recurrent likelihood of differential undercount—the greater tendency for minorities and less affluent members of society than for Whites and wealthier people to be undercounted.

Part of the Bureau’s effort to maximize census accuracy and coverage was a communications strategy built on paid advertising, Bureau partnerships with local governments and other organizations, and the Census in Schools program. In addition, the Bureau made questionnaires accessible to people lacking English proficiency or having visual or hearing limitations.


Date of Report: November 17, 2010
Number of Pages: 23
Order Number: R40551
Price: $29.95

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