Reorganization Acts REORGANIZATION IN THE MODERN CONGRESS
The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (Public Law 79-601, 60 Stat. 812) is generally regarded as marking the inception of the ``modern Congress.'' However, the Act had a limited affect on House and Senate floor procedures because the first Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress was constrained by its enabling resolution from recommending changes in rules pertaining to floor procedures. The Act sought to give the Congress greater general control over legislative business and over the schedule of each session. Coming at a time when the congressional system was overloaded with the pressure of the wartime legislative environment, the Act minimized extraneous or peripheral legislation in the House by banning the introduction of certain types of private legislation. It also set a congressional adjournment target of July 31 except in times of national emergency or unless waived by the House and Senate.
The Act also expanded House standards on germaneness of amendments to House-Senate conference committees. It permitted conferees negotiating on a second Chamber substitute to report an alternative substitute as a conference compromise, provided it was germane to provisions in either Chamber's original position. The rules change limited the opportunity for conferees to include unrelated subjects which the House had not dealt with before.
Similarly, significant provisions of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 (Public Law 91-510, 84 Stat. 1140) primarily affected committee procedures. However, some substantial reforms were made to House Rules on aspects of the legislative process. The Act required that reports on a measure (including, in the House, conference reports) be available for 3 days before a measure was considered on the floor, to give Members an opportunity to review provisions in a bill or conference report before acting on its final disposition.
The Act also established procedures permitting recorded votes in Committee of the Whole, ultimately leading to the installation of an electronic voting system. Previously Members were not recorded by name on votes taken on amendments and other motions in Committee of the Whole. The rule authorizing recorded votes was part of several committee and floor rules changes directed at increasing the public accountability of Congress. Use of the electronic voting machine in House and Committee of the Whole votes reduced time taken by oral roll call votes, while a greater openness and public accountability caused more Members to vote routinely in Committee of the Whole.
The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 sought to provide for more equitable and more substantive debate. The Act permitted a non-debatable motion to approve the Journal, closing off an opportunity for dilatory debate on a relatively non-controversial subject. It also limited the use of quorum calls for purposes of delay. In an attempt to permit airing of important views in a bipartisan fashion, the 1970 Act required that debate time on a conference report be divided equally between Democrats and Republicans, and guaranteed ten minutes debate time equally divided on motions to recommit with instructions and amendments submitted for advance printing in the Congressional Record.
The 1970 Act also included provisions to ensure greater predictability in conference procedures, and to bring conferences under the procedural discipline required by House Rules. It provided for a point of order in the House against a conference report in which the terms of the compromise exceeded the ``scope'' of the disagreement_the bargaining parameters set by the House and Senate bills committed to conference. It further provided for a vote in the House on any conference report provision determined by the Speaker to be non-germane to the House version of the bill. If the House rejected the non-germane provision on its merits, it could send the remainder of the conference compromise to the Senate as a further amendment to the bill. The intent of both rules changes was to better ensure the integrity of House Rules, and to make Members more aware of the policy and procedural consequences of votes to suspend or waive House Rules on the consideration of conference reports.
Reform efforts in the two decades following the 1970 Act were largely focused on committees and the budget process, as discussed in other chapters of this report, and many of their recommendations were adopted only in part. In the House, the work of the 1973-1974 Select Committee on Committees, chaired by Richard Bolling (D-MO), later Chairman of the Committee on Rules, ultimately resulted in H. Res. 988 in 1974. As adopted, this resolution contained provisions affecting procedural and scheduling questions only peripherally, including 1) requiring early organization of the House in the December following an election; 2) requiring that a majority of House conferees generally support the provisions of the House-passed bill; 3) permitting delegates to serve as conferees; and 4) directing an ongoing compilation of precedents.