More on Motion to Recommit
Tue Jan 06, 2009 at 12:00:46 PM PDT
Just to follow up on Kagro's fine post on rules changes, in analyzing the distinctions between motions to recommit "forthwith" and "promptly" you must first look at what purpose each motion serves against the background of "special rules" themselves. Special rules are the rules for debate produced by the Rules Committee that govern the conduct of the floor debate. I.E. How many amendments, offered by whom, what version, for how many minutes and in what order (more important than it seems.) While there is always the option of an "open rule" that allows the offering of any germane amendment, this is not the predominant form that rules have taken in recent years. It simply takes too long and is too unpredictable to have a lot of open rules, although I believe that there should be more. The alternatives (to oversimplify) are closed rules (just what's on the list) and modified open and closed rules (a bit of freedom but still knowable in advance.)
The Rules Committee is known as the Speaker's Committee and generally does what the leadership wants. Occasionally what the leadership wants produces a fair amount of dissent even among members of the majority caucus. Neither caucus is monolithic on every issue. Rules would generally favor the amendments that the majority wants offered but the minority can get some amendments on the list as well especially if they have a significant base of support or bi-partisan co-sponsorship. However, when the Republicans dominated the House they had a very restricted view of amendments that favored closed rules in many circumstances. This meant that Democrats and those Republicans who agreed with them on specific bills had no way other than motions to recommit to get their views across. While recommitting "promptly" is the same as killing the bill, "forthwith" gives the power to change the bill as a whole package. However, it is important to note that sometimes a member(s) of the majority party really wants a different version of a bill than what comes through Rules. For example, some environmental bills during the Republican era got challenged by a "forthwith" motion and some Republicans voted for the motion either to make the bill better or create some mischief. I am sure that this will also be the case with use of the motion by Democrats who don't get what they want out of Rules. While the motion strategy seldom works there can be perfectly good reasons for using it.
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I hope to answer the questions posted for me by readers over the next few days.
