Here's the bill: H. Res. 5. The new House Rules package (PDF).

What's in it? Ask Steny. He'll tell you, also in PDF form.

Rules changes this year will further strengthen the integrity of the institution.  Commonsense reforms incorporated into the House Rules Package include:

• Closing the loophole that allowed ‘lame duck’ Members to negotiate employment contracts in secret to ensure full transparency in future negotiations.

• Removing reference to term limits for Committee Chairs from this package to remove political considerations
from the official Rules of the House. Term limits were originally incorporated into the House rules by Republicans in 1995, and as a result, elevated fundraising as a prerequisite for election to Chair.

• Making commonsense changes to the motion to recommit that preserve the Minority’s legitimate right to present policy alternatives while denying them the abusive practice of subverting the work of Congress by working to kill key measures that have broad, bipartisan support from the American people by raising unrelated amendments for the sole purpose of scoring political points.  

• Codifying additional budget earmark reforms adopted mid-term in the 110th Congress resulting in even further transparency and accountability in the earmark process.

• Maintaining strong PAYGO rules that will help restore fiscal discipline.

I'm particularly pleased to see the changes being made to the motion to recommit. The MTR with instructions to report back "promptly" is a stupid option to even have on the books. If you want the chance to change legislation, then vote to change it. If you want the chance to kill it, then vote against it.

A quick primer: a motion to recommit a bill to committee with instructions to report back a proposed amendment "forthwith" means the bill stays on the floor and is amended immediately, whereas instructions to report back "promptly" actually sends the bill off the floor and back to committee, where it usually dies.

The need to change this rule may be our own fault for allowing Democrats to break ranks on motions to recommit, but there was never any real utility to the "promptly" instruction except as a way to kill a bill while looking like you're not killing it. How was the public ever to guess that "promptly" really meant "never?" The "promptly" instruction is a bullshit trick, and it deserves to die.

Hoyer provides some interesting numbers on the "promptly" instruction. Republicans offered 50 such motions in the 110th Congress. Democrats offered just 36 during the entire 12-year Republican majority from 1995-2007. (Most, I would bet, were in the 109th Congress, when the Dems, then in the minority, hatched the strategy of frequent use the motion to recommit to set up election issues. Unsurprisingly, it turned out that the tactic can also be used by other people when they're in the minority.)

Another number: Dems actually voted to pass 25 "forthwith" motions in the 110th Congress, which is held out to demonstrate that they were willing to work with Republicans on "fine-tuning" legislation with this procedure. Of course, we learned recently that that's about the total number of motions to recommit that were adopted. That prior article lists the number of motions adopted at 24. I don't know where the 25th came from, but if the whole number of motions adopted was in the neighborhood of 24 or 25, and Hoyer's fact sheet says 25 "forthwith" motions were adopted, then maybe the "promptly" motions weren't a tremendous problem after all. Still, I don't really even like "forthwith" motions, because I don't like the idea of amending legislation in 10 minutes when you often haven't even seen the text until the moment it's offered. But hey, that's just me.

Anyway, here's yet another Hoyer fact sheet, this one (PDF) just on the MTR issue, if you're interested.