ADDITIONAL VIEWS OF DAVID DREIER, ROBERT S. WALKER, GERALD B.H. SOLOMON, BILL EMERSON, WAYNE ALLARD, AND JENNIFER DUNN

The main problem with the Congress is that it is ill-organized on dated assumptions and is fundamentally unable to deal effectively with the contemporary problems facing the Nation. The institution lacks the ability to look over the horizon, anticipate emerging issues, and address them before they become a crisis. The breakdown of a rational and coherent law-making process that is truly responsive to the needs of the People and the Nation is perhaps the most urgent issue confronting this institution. The Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress was given a mandate to provide solutions to the impediments in the legislative process. Unfortunately, no joint recommendations will come forward and the recommendations in this report by the House Members of the Joint Committee only partially address this major failing.

There is little question that the American people are distrustful of government and are deeply concerned, in particular, about the state of the Congress. Just over one year ago, the American people were said to have voted for a broad change in the direction of the country by electing a new president. The larger expression for change and reform should not, however, be ignored by focusing solely on the Executive Branch. In that same election, the largest freshman class was elected to Congress since the end of the Second World War.

That infusion of new Members helped usher in dramatic change in this institution by implementing the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, the product of the first Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. Through the enactment of that legislation, the Congress, among other significant reforms, eliminated unnecessary committees, realigned and codified jurisdiction, and imposed the first lobbying reform statutes.

In the ensuing forty-seven years, there have been several attempts at further reform of this institution to meet the challenges of new circumstances. Some of those efforts were successful; most were not. In no case, however, was any attempt made to undertake a comprehensive examination of all aspects of the operations, procedures, and processes of the Congress.

The dissatisfaction of the public, combined with the concern of the membership about the overly bureaucratized and cumbersome congressional system, led to the establishment of the present Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress by the 102d Congress. The resolution which established this bipartisan joint committee was approved by a vote of 412 to 4 in the House of Representatives and by voice vote in the Senate. The mandate of this joint committee was as broad and sweeping as any ever created. It was understood then that comprehensive reform was long overdue. That understanding was reinforced by the arrival of the current freshman class, comprising roughly one-fourth of the House.

On January 26th of this year, the Joint Committee began a series of 36 hearings over 6 months. Chairman Hamilton spoke for us all then when he stated that:

Most of us, I think, on this committee feel like we have an historic opportunity. Institutional reform is no panacea. No miracles should be expected. However, if this committee can proceed with the spirit of constructive bipartisanship, and I believe it can, there is much to be accomplished. Expectations for this committee are very high, and in a sense we are all on the spot.

Unfortunately, after one year of deliberation, those expectations, in our view, have not been met and a unique opportunity to put before the House a bipartisan, progressive, and comprehensive reform program has been damaged by the resistance of a small, entrenched, and powerful faction of the Democratic Caucus to any meaningful reform.

The Joint Committee did not lack for advice or options for change. At the request of the Joint Committee, the Congressional Research Service prepared a thorough report detailing 182 options for reform. The House Republican Leadership put on the table for discussion a package of 48 options for change in the rules and procedures of the House. The Joint Committee benefited from the work of the Renewing Congress project, jointly sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and The Brookings Institution, which contributed two comprehensive reports detailing the need for reform. The Congressional Research Service, again at the request of the Joint Committee, produced 14 plans for realignment of the congressional committee system. We took testimony from over 240 witnesses, including a strictly bipartisan group of 133 Members of the House, who offered numerous suggestions and advice to the Joint Committee.

Yet, once the hearings concluded on July 1st, the full Joint Committee never met in open public session again. We note that the Joint Committee held a productive weekend retreat in late June to begin to sift informally through the hundreds of reform ideas presented to us. However, we also note that three agreements on when to begin deliberations in open session (early September, early October, and November 3d) on the Joint Committee's recommendations were ignored due to the unwillingness of the House Democratic Members to meet pursuant to the agreements.

Out of understandable frustration, the Senate Subcommittee moved on its own on November 10th, and they were justified in doing so. Meanwhile, the House Subcommittee was forced to begin and conclude its deliberations in a compressed five-day period as the Congress moved toward adjournment.

Yet, in spite of the record generated by the Joint Committee and the high expectations for the work of the panel, the initial package of recommendations presented to the House Subcommittee on November 6th was a weak and tepid response to the real problems of this institution. Although it contained some important provisions, the package, as a whole, represented the ``lowest common denominator'' approach to reform. It was hardly the ``bold'' base from which we were expected to begin. It attempted to contain just enough to appear to be a serious effort without fundamentally challenging the manner in which this House is organized. It also failed to provide for a strengthening of the prerogatives of individual Members, Democrats and Republicans, to have a meaningful role in the governance of the Nation.

We concede that the Chairman's mark, laid before the Subcommittee on November 16th, contained some important proposals. Many of the proposed recommendations addressed problems about which the public is deeply concerned. We acknowledge that the proposed reforms of the ethics process, the establishment of a joint Office of Compliance to develop uniform regulations for the Legislative Branch to comply with Federal statutes, a reformed fair employment practices process, and mandatory reauthorization of the congressional support agencies are all useful reforms. In and of themselves, they are worthy of serious consideration by the membership and we hope that the Congress will act expeditiously on those recommendations.

However, we hasten to point out that these proposals already have broad and considerable support in the House and that this support has little to do with the efforts of the Joint Committee. These reforms, particularly those dealing with congressional compliance and a revamped fair employment practices process, have been championed effectively by a number of Members and they may well be enacted whether or not the recommendations of the Joint Committee T3in toto T1 succeed or fail. While we do not oppose the inclusion of these recommendations in the report and would like to see many of them strengthened further, the reality is that the House would have faced these issues in any event.

Moreover, these proposals are not among the critical organizational and procedural problems that confront the Congress, and it is precisely those organizational and procedural problems that the Joint Committee was largely established to address. We regret that the initial Chairman's mark lacked a credible biennial budget process, urged no reform of the procedures governing floor consideration of legislation, and made no attempt to realign committee jurisdiction. With the exception of a solid proposal to strictly limit the committee and subcommittee assignments Members may hold and a modest reduction in the number of subcommittees permitted to each committee, no significant recommendations to reform the committee system were put before us. In addition, the Chairman's mark made no serious attempt to reduce the cost to the taxpayer of the operations of the Legislative Branch.

Through the amendment process, Republican members of the Subcommittee were able to improve upon the recommendations. Seven amendments and one en bloc amendment which we offered were approved by the Subcommittee. The most significant amendments provided for a real biennial budget process by including biennial appropriations; a requirement that the committees of the House have published, at least twice per session, the committee and subcommittee attendance and voting records of their members; a directive to the Parliamentarian to recodify the standing Rules of the House; a requirement that the Congressional Record be a substantially verbatim transcript of the proceedings of the House; and a recommendation clarifying the historic right of the minority to offer a motion to recommit with amendatory instructions.

It is noteworthy, however, that on twenty-five occasions amendments and en bloc amendments containing forty-one serious proposals for reform which we offered were defeated on a party-line vote of 6 to 6. These proposals were not partisan in nature and many have support on the other side of the aisle.

In the budget process, we sought to strengthen current rules against unauthorized appropriations; to tighten scope requirements on conference reports to accompany appropriations measures; to enhance the role of the authorizing committees in the budget process; and to make decisions on spending cuts real by requiring such cuts to be reflected in a revision of section 302 budget allocations and suballocations. We believe these proposals would significantly improve the integrity of the budget process as well as enhancing the stated position of the House on budget and appropriations matters.

To reform the committee system, we sought to realign committee jurisdiction; to reduce significantly the number of standing committees and subcommittees; and to abolish joint referral of legislation. We urged that the committees reflect the membership of the House by requiring that committee seats be allocated to reflect the overall ratio of majority party members to minority party members. To reform committee procedures, we recommended that a majority of a committee should constitute a quorum to conduct business; that committees should organize within the first two weeks of a Congress; and that committee hearings and meetings should be open to the public and the media unless national security or sensitive investigations dictate otherwise.

In addition, we proposed to reform committee staffing by seeking to ensure that no less than one-third of the funding available for committee staff is allocated to the minority, and to require the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on the Budget to be subject to the same committee staffing limits and funding process as other committees. These reforms would provide members of the minority with the resources in which to participate more effectively in the committee process and would mirror reforms undertaken over fifteen years ago by the Senate.

We also proposed three distinct reforms of the rules governing proxy voting in committee. We urged the House Subcommittee `to adopt either a complete ban; a ban on proxy voting in committee (but to permit it in subcommittee); or to prohibit the use of proxies when such votes affect the outcome of a vote taken by the Members present. All were rejected. Also rejected was our proposal to impose term limitations on committee chairmen and ranking minority party members.

It is our judgment, after a careful examination of the record, consultations with our Democratic and Republican colleagues in the House and the Senate, and our own personal experience, that the present structure of the committee system is the largest impediment to the effective functioning of the Congress. One need only consider the jurisdictional wrangling over referral of the President's health care proposal to come to the conclusion that reform is required.

In the case of health care, politics and popular expectation may dictate that a comprehensive bill will come forward. Even if one does, and assuming it is enacted, what does the current jurisdictional arrangement of the House portend for the crucial follow-on task of oversight? Our expectation is that, absent jurisdictional reform, the prospect for a coherent Federal policy in health care is problematic.

The Congress faces a similar problem whenever it attempts to deal comprehensively with, among other major policy questions, the regulation of financial institutions, environmental policy, narcotics control and rehabilitation, international economic policy, transportation, welfare reform, and energy policy. Nearly everyone quietly acknowledges that committee reform is necessary to meet contemporary problems. Sadly, the Joint Committee has ignored the critical task of committee reform, a task which nearly all Members expected this panel to address when we began our work this year. This is the single greatest failure of the Joint Committee.

The other significant problem facing the House is the prerogatives of its membership to participate effectively and with accountability in the legislative process. The committee procedural reforms we offered, particularly with regard to the publication of committee votes (which was accepted) and restrictions on proxy voting (which were rejected), were designed to improve the accountability of the membership to the people.

With regard to the role of the membership in the deliberative process, we note a broad and disturbing trend which the House Subcommittee has failed to address. In the 95th Congress, 85 percent of the rules governing the consideration of legislation by the House were open. Through the next seven congresses, that percentage had plummeted to 34 percent. In the 102d Congress, fully two-thirds of the procedures governing debate on the House were restrictive -- effectively limiting the prerogatives of Members to represent their constituents by precluding the right to offer any germane amendment to the measure under consideration.

Despite the assurances of the Speaker, as well as the Chairman of the Committee on Rules, that these restrictions would be eased, the trend has continued. In the 1st Session of the 103d Congress, 77 percent of the rules were restrictive. This trend, combined with the increasing reliance of the leadership on the suspension calendar, has led to a significant diminution of the amendatory rights of the membership.

In the House, Members, Democrats and Republicans, find their access to critical legislative information, such as committee reports, restricted by waivers of the three-day layover requirement; their ability to challenge provisions of legislation under standing points of order denuded; and their prerogatives to amend the measure before the House severely restricted. We acknowledge the desirability of a structured rule to govern consideration of a complicated tax measure or legislation such as the annual defense authorization bill. We seriously question, however, the desirability of highly restrictive rules to govern debate on measures during this session concerning family and medical leave, voter registration, appropriations for the Legislative Branch, striker replacement, appropriations for foreign operations, the elevation of the EPA to cabinet status, and campaign finance reform to name but a few examples.

We note that, for the 41 measures considered by the House in this session under restrictive rules, 674 amendments were submitted to the Committee on Rules. Only 224 (33 percent) of those amendments were made in order by the Committee. In our judgment, the Members, and the constituents they represent, have been seriously disenfranchised.

We do not seek additional rights for the minority party. We simply urge the majority leadership to adhere to the standing Rules as proposed by the majority party caucus at the outset of the Congress and approved by the House. We reject the notion advanced by some of our House Democratic colleagues that the serious problems of deliberation in the House should not be addressed until the Senate reforms the filibuster. The filibuster is an issue which only Senators can address. It seems to us that the ``filibuster problem' is a smokescreen behind which some wish to avoid dealing with the problems of the House.

We seek an effective House in which Members retain their prerogatives under the standing Rules of the House. Given the highly restrictive nature of debate, there should be little public confidence that the will of the House has truly been expressed on over three-quarters of the legislation that came before the body in this session. This is a serious challenge to representative government which must be addressed.

We offered a number of proposals designed to put the interests of the People before considerations of efficiency or expediency. We urged the adoption of super-majority requirements to waive the standing Rules of the House; the reform of the procedures under which measures may be placed on the suspension calendar; to prohibit generic waivers of points of order. None of these proposals would preclude the majority party from moving its legislative agenda. None would cause a renewal of legislative ``gridlock.'' None would prevent the majority party from amending the standing Rules of the House at any point by majority vote. These proposals would, however, restore the integrity of the Rules of the House.

Some of us voted against the final adoption of the report of the House Subcommittee. Some of us voted to report the recommendations in an effort to keep the process moving. We are in agreement, however, that these recommendations fall far short of what is required and that any legislation to implement them must be considered under an open rule.

We believe that these recommendations, in their current form, are insufficient to be considered comprehensive reform of the House. We believe the House should have the opportunity to work its will on the critical institutional questions we face and the legitimate proposals to address them. We appreciate the support of the House Co-Chairman for a generous rule under which to consider the report of the House Subcommittee on the floor. We believe this is an urgent issue which, despite the many serious flaws of this report, deserves the earliest possible consideration by the membership.

David Dreier.
Bill Emerson.
Robert S. Walker.
Wayne Allard.
Gerald B.H. Solomon.
Jennifer Dunn.