Adopting the Rules of the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, I come to talk today about getting back to the basics. This place has, in fact, been broken, and a number of the rules that we worked on were to bring authority back and bring us back to the principles of Jefferson's parliamentary practice and procedure, his manual on that.

I would say to the ladies and gentlemen that we should look at that document for what its principles stand for. What it stands for is--and it says right in the preamble, Jefferson writes: ``For some of the most familiar and experienced members,''--referencing they are members of parliament because that is what he based it on--``that nothing tended more to throw power into the hands of administration, and those who acted with the majority of the House of Commons, than a neglect of, or departure from, the rules of proceeding; that these forms, as instituted by our ancestors, operated as a check and control on the actions of the majority, and that they were, in many instances, a shelter and protection to the minority against the attempts of power.''

So when I go out there, Mr. Speaker, and ask that we change these rules to make sure that we have rules that help protect all Members, including the minority Members, you can imagine my surprise and shock today when I hear that they are opposed to rules that do some very basic things--things that the American people are going to be shocked that we don't already do--such as a single purpose rule, that you cannot introduce a bill that doesn't have a single purpose or theme to that bill. That can be complicated, but it has to have an overarching theme, something that this bill is attempting to do right from the get- go. The sole purpose rule.

Mr. Speaker, then there is the germaneness, coming up with a stricter germaneness interpretation. As we know, that also helps so that you don't end up having happen what we had happen last summer where somebody introduces a bill to mint a commemorative coin and it turns into the Inflation Reduction Act. That is absolutely ridiculous. Hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of pages came out of a one- paragraph bill. No. That is wrong.

Mr. Speaker, this allows us more power to say ``no'' on the floor by the individual Members.

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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the additional time that the gentleman yielded to me. As you can tell, I get fired up about these issues.

The bottom line is that this rules package is the best rules package of either party in a number of years because instead of worrying about what might happen next week, this rules package worries about the future of the United States Congress. It is a good package, and I wholeheartedly support it.

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