PoliticsAside Special Edition: Inside the Rules & Procedures of Congress

Congressman Porter was joined by Porter Group's Stephanie Walker and Benjamin Rosenbaum for an in-depth discussion on what goes into the rules and procedures of Congress.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to politics aside, for many of you that have been following our program over the period of months, especially through COVID.

0:09

And now we're into the new world, into the new Washington.

0:12

We appreciate you joining us one more time.

0:15

Politics aside is really designed to, have conversations, frank conversations about issues that certainly impact politics.

0:23

But I like everyone that's on the call.

0:26

everyone that is, calling in and part of the team is that I asked that you just put politics aside, sit back and relax and enjoy and hopefully we'll be able to provide you some information today.

0:38

you know, we should be calling this program subject to change because things we're gonna talk about today, you know, procedures and rules in Congress, they change all the time.

0:49

And I am like many of you, I see all these different programs and I see these different titles and I see, I hear debt ceiling and I hear Rules Committee and I hear appropriations committees and then I hear that the House is different than the Senate.

1:03

So I thought what we do today really is talk a little bit about what does all that mean?

1:07

And where are we today?

1:09

Having just passed a pretty important piece of legislation regarding our economy and that of the world.

1:16

But I want to begin by just telling you a quick story, as a member of Congress and there's a lot of rules as well for individuals that serve.

1:24

There is a protocol.

1:26

What's sad is they separate everyone as soon as you get to Washington, the Democrats go here, the Republicans go here.

1:34

But I, I like to share just a moment of one of my first experiences on Capitol Hill.

1:39

And that was as a junior member as a freshman member of Congress.

1:46

you are asked many times to chair the meetings on the house floor.

1:50

you act as speaker pro Tim because the speaker of the house is in charge of the floor.

1:56

But normally if it's, you know, business is not very complicated or very controversial, they'll have the freshman run the meeting.

2:06

So my very first meeting, I had been standing about four hours and the sergeant arm and, and, and the clerk and the parliamentarian are all there trying to help control the information to make sure you have the right data.

2:23

And again, I've been staying there about four hours and the, the parliamentarian leaned over to me and said, you know, Congressman, you can sit down and again, I, I want, I'm sure you're all watching all these meetings for hours.

2:36

Well, I said to myself, ok, I'm just gonna sit down and, and, you know, that chair is pretty big, right.

2:41

The speaker's chair, I sat down in that chair and I flew back and I hit the floor and I thought, you know, there's millions of people watching.

2:50

Well, we're here to talk about, rules and procedures.

2:54

There are those for members of congress.

2:56

I'm honored to have served.

2:57

but I also just want to share with you one of those moments in time that I'm sure no one cared about, but I think about it every time I walk into the, into the Capitol.

3:06

So with that, let's get down to business and let's put politics aside.

3:10

I am am really honored to have a part of my team, two of our key individuals with us today.

3:18

Stephanie Walker, who many of you may know, Stephanie worked for congressman for a number of years, was legislative director engaged in, in appropriation procedures, strategy, working with constituents and to today bringing that talent and knowledge, but a, a legislative director and a senior vice president of the Porter Group, Ben Rosen with us as well, had five years, well, actually worked for five years for Senator Jo Rand in, in her house in a capacity for two years and then almost nine years with Congresswoman Titus, and was like director and deputy chief, handling all issues from transportation to appropriations, you name it.

4:05

So I really wanted to share this time today with the experts that I work with every day.

4:11

So we want to talk about inside the rules and procedures of Congress.

4:15

So let's start with Rules Committee.

4:18

What is, what is the Rules Committee?

4:21

And I, I I will share that my first days in Congress.

4:25

people would say, you know, that Rules Committee is the most important committee in the house because they determine the rules.

4:30

And of course, I still am trying to learn all the rules as I think we all are.

4:34

But Ben tell us about this.

4:37

the speaker's committee, the traffic cop of Congress and that is the rules Committee.

4:42

Yeah, Congressman.

4:43

thanks for that.

4:44

I mean, it's true that it, it has gone by a lot of names, but it is one of the most important committees in the United States House of Representatives.

4:52

It's one of the first committees that was established when Congress first met back in 17 89.

4:58

just a month into that tenure to that first congress, they organized a rules committee and the idea was that we needed to have some body, some committee organization to develop rules and procedures for the house.

5:10

Now at the time, that was just ok, let's come up with the general rules, how we'll do stuff day to day on the floor and then they adjourned and kind of, you know, went about the day and two years later, they met up again and said, do we need to make any changes?

5:23

So, for the first many years of our, our congress's existence, that was kind of, their function was very small.

5:30

But over, you know, a few years in, they kind of realized that this is a, this is an organization, a, a committee that can really have a lot of power in kind of overseeing what the legislative process is when it comes to the floor, what is considered, how it is considered what the terms are for those debates.

5:47

And so leadership at that time, saw it as an opportunity to really take hold of the legislative process and to really provide a little bit more structure.

5:57

And so those kind of early Congresses in the 18 hundreds, You started to see a little bit more of a framework of a template for how Congress was going to operate.

6:08

And you know, you remarked about how this is the speaker's committee.

6:12

It is, it is very true and it was even more true in the late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds, the actual speaker of the house served as the chair of that committee and that were, that resulted in enormous power over, you know, what is considered on the floor, how it is considered whose amendments gets agreed to or, or even allowed to be debated.

6:37

You know, the, a name that we hear around here and for those who've come and visited us here in Washington, you may stop by the Cannon House office building.

6:44

It's named for Joseph Cannon, a former Speaker of the House.

6:47

And up until 1910, he was both speaker and chair of the Rules Committee.

6:51

but he faced a bit of a revolt from some of his members in the Republican conference who were a little upset that he wasn't letting their amendments and their bills come to the house floor of consideration.

7:02

So there was a bit of a revolt that resulted in some reforms and kind of a, a reformation of the rules Committee a little bit more in line with what we see today.

7:14

They do still have a lot of authority and power and influence over the process.

7:19

But it is not no longer the speaker of the house who chairs that committee, it's a little bit more separated and there is more ability for about open debate.

7:28

Even if the results may still be in the majority's favor, if you don't mind, I want to touch a little bit.

7:33

Oh, sorry Congressman, did you?

7:34

I was just gonna say, Steph, you've been involved in, in strategy and, and seen legislation that's made it all the way to the rules committee and then it dies.

7:44

So tell us how does that work?

7:45

What's happening?

7:46

Yeah.

7:46

So I want to talk about how it is the speaker's committee.

7:49

What that means, right?

7:50

It still is that he doesn't have to be the chairman for him to have control over that.

7:54

You guys will probably remember the whole scuttle button debate over choosing the speaker of the house.

8:00

Along with that came what's called a rules package, which is where they create kind of the base rules for, for the congressional session.

8:08

We were joking before we got started that really, what we should just say is the rule of Congress is there are no rules.

8:13

The House in particular sets their own rules for every single bill.

8:18

They also set their own rule for the beginning of the Congress at any time.

8:22

Technically not very practically Congress could bring forward a new rules pack and vote new rules.

8:29

The speaker is such a strategic choice for members of Congress.

8:34

not just because he's, you know, the leader, he's the voice of the party for the caucus, the conference, but because he gets a lot of say and who ends up on what committee.

8:45

So in order to get on the rules committee now, whether this is official or just sort of handshakes, right?

8:54

You have to agree to vote with the speaker to get on the rules committee or your ranking member.

9:00

And that's just a fact.

9:02

That's a fact.

9:03

So people might deny that and say like, oh no, we're a wrong man.

9:06

It's like to a point, ok?

9:09

If the speaker is neutral on something, then sure you get to be your own man.

9:12

But if they're not, they're not.

9:15

there was a lot of conversation about this around the debt ceiling with a few of the rules committee members who are more traditionally not debt ceiling guys and I'm not gonna call them out.

9:25

But there was some of that and to which I said, you're not on rules unless you committed to pass speaker bills.

9:34

This comes up a lot.

9:35

It's not just debt, debt ceiling bills, it's not just big bills that this comes up for and back when I was in congress.

9:41

One of our big pieces of frustration was actually amendments because we would have an amendment for something that was totally germane by the rule strict if you're looking strictly at the rules of the parliamentarian, right?

9:53

But the speaker has the right to come in and say something isn't germane to just say the Rules Committee won't even consider it to come to the floor or they just the Rules Committee will consider it, but it won't make it to the floor.

10:05

So we had that happen quite a few times, especially on some of the more controversial issues like the big health care reform that happened somewhere in 2014.

10:13

So that's the, the speaker has influence, not only in the bills coming through rules but on the amendments that could impact those bills.

10:22

So again, a, a rank and file member, I have followed the process.

10:27

I'm, I'm representing my constituents.

10:31

It goes to the subcommittee, it, it goes then for a vote and then it goes to the full committee goes for a vote.

10:39

Then literally that bill is taken to the Rules Committee is what you're saying and it just disappear, right?

10:47

Or yeah, or it gets time.

10:50

It depends on what's happening with it.

10:53

You're a lucky lucky member of Congress.

10:55

If you have a bill that makes it all the way to the Rules Committee, that means that is a big win.

11:00

Congratulations.

11:01

Most of the time members of Congress are dealing in amendments, which is why they have so much interaction because rules is where and I think this is a good transition for me to get into how that works.

11:10

Rules is where you get to propose amendments and some of them get to go to the floor for consideration and then some of them rules says it are not in order.

11:20

So.

11:20

Well, I think if you would like congressman, I can transition to that discussion.

11:24

Yeah, if you were the, you know, the open rule modified with all these.

11:27

So on the house side and this is unique to the house.

11:30

Well, kind of we'll, we'll get into that there's differences in the Senate.

11:33

, there are different kinds of rules for every single that you can use a different rule for everything and every bill, the rules committee decides what rule they're going to use.

11:46

I'll get into the types first and then I'll get into which bills historically fit those types.

11:50

So the first kind of rule is called an open rule.

11:52

It's the rarest, it allows for any member to offer an amendment within while it's being considered on the floor.

12:03

So you have a bill on the floor, any member can come up and offer amendments as the bill is being read is how it works and you debate it right there.

12:11

Five minutes, you decide, you vote on it right there.

12:13

That's how an open rule is supposed to work.

12:16

A modified open rule is more common, which is a lot like an open rule.

12:20

But basically what it says is that everyone submits their amendments and we're going to consider them all, but you still have to submit them in advance by a certain deadline to get that taken care of.

12:30

So there's more structure to how they're debated on the floor.

12:33

A structured rule is the most common.

12:36

members submit amendments to committee and then the rules committee considers all the amendments and they have a hearing.

12:43

So you're allowed to come and you're a member of Congress.

12:45

It's one of the most interesting committees because the people who are testifying are other members of Congress.

12:51

So they get their time slot and then they go in front of their peers on the Rules Committee and argue as to why their amendment is germane and why it should be considered on the floor.

13:01

So the committee then decides who's getting considered on the floor.

13:05

It's usually not very many and those are the ones who get debated and voted on a closed rule is also really common, which means no amendments are considered for it unless there's a unanimous consent.

13:16

That's really normal for bills that they just want to really have a tight control on which is most of them.

13:23

In this, either a structured or a closed rule is the most normal thing that you'll see for any bill being considered.

13:32

The N D A A is probably going to have some sort of monster between a structured and structured rule and a modified open rule where they, you have to submit an amendment and rules are going to consider the amendments, but there's gonna be a million.

13:45

So a lot more than usual, that's the defense bill every year.

13:49

Now, back in my day, appropriations bills had to be considered under an open rule which was wild because you had to be on the floor and they, the clerk literally has to read the bill.

14:00

There's no waving of the read, which is if you've ever watched the floor, you'll see the clerk get up with the bill and the chairman will say motion to waive the reading.

14:08

So the chair, the clerk does not literally have to read every passage of the bill under an open rule.

14:12

You don't do that, the bill gets read and you have to be standing there and at your line, what you're trying to amend, you have to be ready to say I'm offering an amendment and it's just ok, it's wild.

14:23

That's why people don't really like open rules because there's just no control over it at all for a couple of reasons.

14:28

First of all, if you're the speaker, obviously really hard to control narrative and to keep the bill clean to, to pass safely and get over to the Senate where you want to become law because not only is your own conference has their own priorities, but you got the other side who's gonna be sitting there ready to make their changes that sometimes get through because under open rule, the vote happens immediately.

14:50

So the people aren't on the floor.

14:54

The, I mean, that's, you know, be, go ahead, sorry, Steph's point.

14:58

I mean, I the these the open rules, I mean, I think the last time we saw one was 2014 on a on appropriations bill, but it is, it's very difficult for the chair and the ranking member who are representing the committees who are overseeing that bill.

15:11

You know, they're supposed to be kind of the subject matter experts who are kind of running, you know, the legislation and they have as much new, the most knowledge about what's in the legislation that's being considered.

15:21

But in that open rule process, they're reading it as the clerk's reading it, they may get it a few minutes in advance, but they're now having to look through this legislative text and make a determination.

15:32

Is this a good thing?

15:33

Is it a bad thing?

15:34

You can't just rely on the debate and the message that the, the sponsor of this amendment has because they could say like, oh, this is, you know, it's gonna fund puppies and rainbows for everyone.

15:44

And, that may not be what the text actually does or it may have other unintended consequences that the, the sponsor of the amendment don't, don't, don't really understand.

15:53

And so it is a very tough process to have that open rule process because it, it's hard for them to manage how that legislation will impact everything else in the bill.

16:02

You may have heard me say this many times that you can't just show up for the Super Bowl.

16:07

And what I mean by that, whether you're, you're lobbying for something or advocating for something on the hill, That's just one piece of the process.

16:17

You still, that's preseason, you still have the whole season to get to the Super Bowl.

16:23

So what, what the team is talking about here?

16:26

Literally, is, is how complicated this process is so step.

16:29

Please continue.

16:30

Sorry.

16:30

Yeah, so it's unlikely that we're going to see open rolls.

16:32

Come back.

16:33

Speaker mccarthy, it's actually hard for rank and file too because first of all, it's hard to know the exact line you have to be at and you're at, if you're out of order, you don't get to consider your amendment, which can be a huge blow.

16:43

But also it's hard to know what amendments to vote for.

16:45

So you're sitting on the floor, you again, like Ben said, sure.

16:48

The sponsor is saying it's great, but you had five secondss to look at it.

16:51

So it's sort of so open rules are probably not coming back.

16:55

Now, Speaker mccarthy did make promises when he was voted as speaker to bring back open rules, but it kind of feels like he needs a structured or a modified open rule.

17:04

which basically just means in good faith, amendments that are being offered are going to be considered for some bills, not all bills and all that does is that gives people 24 hours odd to look over amendments to make decisions on voting.

17:20

Now.

17:20

I, I don't want to get too far into it.

17:22

I'll, I'll pass things back over to, to Ben, to move on to the Senate.

17:24

But what, what's fun about the amendment process is people just kind of get tired eventually, especially when you're on the defense bill last year's defense bill, I think had 1400 amendments.

17:36

So they start doing this thing that is called on block voting, which is where the speakers team has reviewed and the ranking member has reviewed all the amendments and they kind of cluster the safe ones together and they were voting up and down on 100 of these.

17:55

And so you, it, it's a little crazy because it's a rank and file member.

17:59

It's like, well, if you don't agree with one, but you agree with 99 you vote for it.

18:03

You know, so it just gets to the point when you have 1400 amendments, people just don't have the stamina to go through that in the way that you're supposed to even under a modified open, even to pay attention to what's being voted on.

18:16

Is that what you're saying?

18:17

You just have to do, I know you have to just do your best.

18:19

But that's, that's why an open rule can get, actually, gosh, we're waiting into controversial territory.

18:26

That's why it's not necessarily the thing we think it is right?

18:30

Because it actually makes it harder for people to really analyze what they're voting on.

18:37

But that, so the, the block voting gets what the funny part of that is.

18:41

Even when there is a rule, there isn't a rule because Congress can just change it at any time.

18:47

Even they object to change, subject to change, change.

18:51

Before we, you know, transition to the Senate.

18:55

I, I think what I hear you saying and, and it's what we try to share with our clients is that a member of Congress deals with thousands of items and, and in the Senate as well, thousands of issues from, you know, groundwater to world peace, to highways, to highways, to health care.

19:13

And they are expected as an elected official to be an expert on everything.

19:18

It's impossible.

19:19

So you have to depend upon a lot of people and it's very humbling to be a member of Congress or the Senate because you do need to depend upon information.

19:28

And we have a number of folks that come to us and say, hey, I have to talk to that member of Congress or I have to talk to that us senator and we always advise and I guess a learning moment that if you think about what we've just been talking about, it could be 1400 amendments on one bill.

19:46

Now that it, it, that in the scope of things is a lot and, there are some that may be five or six.

19:52

This reinforces the importance of your relationships that you have with the staff of your elected official because again, having voted on thousands of items myself through the years, I am tracking logistics, my staff's tracking logistics.

20:09

We're trying to see where the bill is.

20:10

Sometimes you see the language as Steph said for about five minutes.

20:14

So get as a learning moment here, make sure you have a relationship with the staff of this elected official because they are communicating constantly with the elected official as well trying to give them information.

20:27

So again, keep in mind it's important to get to know the staff, the district staff, the, the Washington staff, the best you can.

20:35

So with that, you know, the rules in the house are such, you got 435 people.

20:40

And I always say it's the first Homeowners Association in the country.

20:44

and it's made up of a blend of different ideas and, and professions, but there are a lot of rules,, again, subject to change, but because of so many people, they do have specific times.

20:56

It's like what I mentioned, you know, during the meeting.

20:59

But with that, Ben, tell us about the Senate that, you know, the House of Lords, how much easier it is in the Senate.

21:06

Right.

21:07

Oh, of course.

21:07

Yeah.

21:07

Well, you know, we sort of, I gave a little bit of a, a history lesson on the, the origins of the House of Representatives and the rules process.

21:15

The Senate kind of started out very similarly.

21:17

They had, they do continue to have a rules committee and that committee does set kind of the out, you know, at the outset of a congress of a new two year term that they have.

21:27

Kind of, this is how we're gonna do things, this is gonna be the rules for the floor.

21:31

But, more like the origins of the House Rules Committee, that's kind of where they stop, they do administrative stuff through the year.

21:38

They're looking kind of internally, other things is sort of more about like the buildings and facilities and that type of stuff, but they don't control the senate floor the same way the House Rules Committee has influence over in the Senate.

21:51

Everything is subject to an agreement.

21:54

There's a lot of talking, a lot of negotiating a lot behind the scenes that kind of dictate how things go in the senate.

22:02

I, you know, kind of doing some, you know, we, we often look at the Senate and people refer to it as a more deliberative, a slower process.

22:10

and that dates back to its origins.

22:12

There is a story that George Washington was having breakfast with Thomas Jefferson.

22:17

Now don't hold me to this.

22:18

I, I don't, I'm not a historian, but then I was not there.

22:22

I promise.

22:23

Well, apparently George Washington was talking to Thomas Jefferson and he said, we pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.

22:32

And that sentiment has remained.

22:35

It is a anything, you know, the House has the ability to move through legislation in a very quick manner.

22:41

This rules process, the speaker themselves has a lot of ability to move a bill through.

22:46

It gets over to the Senate and we often here, oh, everything dies in the Senate.

22:49

Well, it's true because they have to have all these types of agreements in order to proceed with things.

22:54

Now, there are, there are rules and procedures that they adhere to.

22:58

Those have changed a little bit over time, but they still have this kind of process by which senators have to get together the majority and the minority and kind of work out their differences and find a path forward.

23:09

And that's all the more true in a equally divided or mostly divided senate that we have today.

23:16

you know, I think sort of looking through what their sort of, a process is similar to the House.

23:22

People file legislation, it goes through the committee process, but when it comes to the Senate floor, they don't go to the rules committee to get consideration and amendments.

23:30

They have a process where they have to reach an agreement to move forward in the 18 hundreds.

23:36

A lot of this was subject to Filibuster because you needed to have, a two thirds president voting majority in order to end debate and move forward on any piece of legislation and to get, you know, however many number of senators that was at the time based off of the number of states.

23:52

that was quite a challenge and we saw a lot of what is referred to as filibustering, you know, one member can get up and hold the Senate floor for moving forward on something.

24:02

So over time, they started to realize that this got more and more controversial, especially at the outset of the Civil War and kind of as it followed in the lead up to World War One.

24:12

We started to see this become even more of an issue as they were trying to prepare the United States military and our merchant ships for responding to, to the impacts of World War One.

24:21

And they started to develop a more present day process, known as the cloture motion cloture is a process by which a majority of members will vote to end debate and allow the bill to move forward.

24:35

That that was kind of initially situated in the beginning of the last century and then that sort of continued.

24:43

We still got to see Filibusters where there's a famous one, Strom Thurman in the 19 fifties, held the Senate floor for a little over 24 hours still, a record in the United States Senate.

24:56

But it really did slow down the legislative process.

24:59

And so in the seventies, there were some changes.

25:01

It's now just a a 3/5 majority.

25:05

So you now have to have 60 votes that magic 60 number that we often hear to hear about and talk about, that is required for the Senate to move forward, you know, right now we've got a 51 49 majority.

25:16

And so that means that in order to get the 60 votes on most measures, things that, you know, would be considered, in the senate floor, they have to work together the majority and the minority.

25:26

And we saw that most recently, with this debt ceiling agreement, I know we were talking about where that was in the Rules Committee and that the speaker wanted to see it go through.

25:34

There were some members there that had some objections, similar to the Senate side, there were people over there who had concerns about the legislation.

25:42

They wanted to see amendments to that legislation.

25:45

And so, the, the majority leader and the minority leader, Senator Schumer and Senator mcconnell got together and they worked out an agreement,, that allowed for them to take votes on a set of amendments that had been filed on the bill.

25:59

And then at the end of that, they had the vote on the, the closure motion, and they were able to move forward on final passage.

26:08

so there, there is a process but it is a lot more of the, of the relationships of the negotiating, of the talking back and forth and allowing the senators to have time to debate, to have their voices be heard.

26:21

And that is just a, it's, it's different than what the house's process is.

26:24

It allows a little bit more of an open debate process and, and if you've ever turned on C SPAN too, you're gonna see a lot of people talking for a lot longer on pieces of legislation.

26:35

Well, be, be before we leave this moment of 60 votes.

26:39

You know, a lot of people ask me, well, isn't the majority?

26:42

51 or 51%?

26:45

can you get a little more, why, why they use this 60 number?

26:51

Yeah.

26:52

I mean, they, there's always been sort of this back and forth of what are we considered a majority?

26:57

And how are we going to move forward on pieces of legislation?

27:00

The Filibuster Rules origins are dating back to some of the early days of Congress.

27:05

because they wanted to have some type of a structure that would allow for more urban and to, to have them work towards an agreement so that it wasn't just a simple majority moving legislation forward.

27:17

We would see a lot more bills pass the United States Senate for better or for worse.

27:21

if we had allowed 51 votes to win the day.

27:25

And so I think that that was a deliberate, you know, structural decision in the early days.

27:30

It's been changed slightly over time, but there remains, you know, a lot of discussion over ending the Filibuster altogether.

27:38

and we have seen in recent years, there have been some changes, you know, during the Obama administration, there were a lot of hold ups in the Senate on, on confirmation of nominees, especially for the judiciary for, judge positions in the federal courts.

27:54

And there was, a decision by, the late Senator from Nevada Harry Reid, to, to lower the threshold for non supreme court justice nomination so that we ended up seeing more progress on the approval of nominees for judiciary position, at, at that 51 threshold.

28:15

Now, you're not always the the party majority.

28:18

So you, you know, it's always a concern if we are going to talk about this idea of ending the filibuster altogether and allowing 51 votes to rule the day.

28:27

You may not be as happy with the results when you're in the minority.

28:30

So it's just something that's, that's being considered.

28:33

It, it, it comes up every few years, especially when there's some more controversial that may be taken up or a nominee.

28:39

that may be controversial.

28:41

But the idea behind it all is to try to find agreements and more bipartisanship in the United States Senate.

28:46

And that's, that's a legacy that, that continues to this day, but for you or stuff, whoever but, but, you know, with this pouring legislation into the.

28:55

So, so how, how does the Senate get anything done?

28:59

Well, first, I first, I'll say that the last time there was a super majority in the Senate was the year 2009 and it only lasted didn't even last a full year.

29:07

It was because of a special election and that is when Obamacare as it is called, was passed, whether you like that or not, obviously massive bills.

29:15

So that's kind of the, the whole notion behind 60 is like if there's a huge thing like that, we want big consensus on it.

29:23

How does the bill get passed?

29:24

Good question.

29:25

Most bills in Congress do not actually even have a rule when they're passed.

29:29

Like we said, there's always an exception to this rule structure.

29:32

The rule is there are no rules.

29:35

they call it suspension of the rules and that applies when there is what the body considers to be unanimous consent.

29:42

So in the house, what that looks like they call it suspensions.

29:44

That means there's no rule and these bills, it could, they come in the dozens.

29:48

they usually are voted on Mondays and Tuesdays, to the floor.

29:51

And so long as no one goes down to the floor and says, I want to count the vote and I objected for whatever reason they just go through with a gavel because they just assumption is we all agree to these.

30:03

most of the time these are things that are more regional, that impact kind of state by state.

30:07

So nobody's gonna get involved in state business.

30:09

But sometimes they can be big things like the violence against Women act frequently gets voted through on suspension because it's, everyone agrees with it.

30:16

Everyone's happy with it.

30:17

There it goes, actually, sometimes the,, the, the, the water infrastructure bill goes through on suspension as well.

30:24

and the Senate gets harder as always.

30:27

because it does, in order to oppose a unanimous consent bill in the Senate, you do not have to be present on the floor.

30:33

You get, it used to be actual phone call.

30:36

You got, it's called the red line and you got a phone call and then you pick up and they'd be like, do you oppose this bill?

30:41

Yes or no.

30:42

And you'd, you'd say now it's an email.

30:45

and you get, I don't know the time frame when I wanna say 24 hours to respond to the emails that it comes through your, your desk.

30:52

it's a, they do them all at the end of the Congress, they don't do them all the time on the Senate.

30:57

So you get the sort of red line window between Christmas and New Year.

31:01

I, that's kind of, the window has not always been.

31:05

but yeah, one guy, he, he says, hey, I don't know about this.

31:09

That's it.

31:10

You're done.

31:10

So it's much harder to get a red line through than to get a suspension through though.

31:14

They do buy the dozens, pass them.

31:17

So, and did I miss something on that Ben, on the suspension?

31:20

And it, it, there's, you know, to Stephanie's Point, these are usually more noncontroversial, more localized things.

31:28

A lot of resolutions honoring somewhat and somewhat, and, you know, pieces of legislation that were really worked out at, at the committee level.

31:37

and you don't have, the, you know, thoughts that you would need to amend them in any way.

31:41

so they're usually smaller measures and, and it, it does, there is a process to clear out a lot, the decks on a lot because we have thousands of bills that are filed every year.

31:50

But again, it requires some agreements.

31:54

There needs to be sort of a clearing from both sides in order to reach that pro that process where there's a unanimous consent request.

32:01

And all these bills get to go through.

32:07

Well, it, it does work and I think you both allude to that even though everything is subject to change, it does work.

32:16

I believe that there is 535 people across the street from our office trying to do the right thing for the right reasons.

32:25

But I, I was told many years ago he who knows the rules normally can win, but when the rules are a moving target, it's difficult.

32:36

So if anyone ever tells you, they are experts on this process, please just smile and say, thank you.

32:42

I appreciate that because it is changing.

32:44

We do our best to track in data points of where things are going where they likely will be.

32:51

We look at the year in its entirety.

32:54

We're looking at the whole year of 23 we start Christmas Eve basically and move back into the year where we are today in, in June.

33:05

But that's how we track legislation.

33:08

So hopefully you've enjoyed our conversation today.

33:12

There's a lot more out there, a lot more information that we're happy to provide.

33:17

We're all public servants at heart and have served the public and want to do the same in the private sector.

33:25

So appreciate you all turning in again.

33:28

Politics aside.

33:30

My rules are such that I wanna make sure we can share with you as much information as possible and I want you to go back in time and find that clip on C span where I almost fell out of the speaker's chair into the back wall.

33:48

So anyway, thank you for joining.

33:49

Look forward to seeing you again.

33:51

Please give us a call if we can help in any way.

33:52

Thank you, Stephanie and thank you, Mr Rosenbaum.

33:56

Appreciate it.

33:57

Bye.