In order to get business done and to operate as fairly as possible, each house of Congress has established rules of procedure. The Constitution (Article 1, Section 4) allows the House and Senate to establish their own separate rules. In the 1st Congress, both houses appointed special committees to propose rules. From the beginning, the rules of the House favored majority rule, while the rules of the Senate protected the rights of the minority. The difference between the two has acted as an additional check and balance on the powers of the federal government.
The first rules of the House dealt with the Speaker's powers, the proper behavior of members, the procedures of debate, the handling of bills, and the operations of the House as a committee of the whole (a device to enable the whole House to act as a committee, in order to limit debate and speed its procedures). Two hundred years later, despite periodic revision, the basic rules of the House still address these issues. House Speaker Thomas B. Reed argued that the rules of the House were designed to promote order and prevent “pandemonium.” Although the smaller Senate had the luxury of allowing every member to have a say, the larger House needed tighter rules to get things accomplished. Beginning in the 1840s, the House adopted rules limiting how much time members could speak on any issue—to prevent filibustering (talking a bill to death) or other obstructive tactics by the minority. Regardless of which party has held the majority, its members have promoted rules to give the majority power to act.
From the beginning, Senate rules differed from House rules. For instance, the Senate does not operate as a committee of the whole, and it had no other means of limiting debate until it adopted its first cloture rule in 1917. Although various revisions of the rules have strengthened the majority's ability to act, the Senate has remained a body of equals. Even the most junior member of the minority may speak at length on any Senate bill and therefore has a chance to affect the bill's final shape.
The rules of both the House and Senate remain few in number. A few outmoded rules have been dropped, and a few new rules added. But whenever either body applies or interprets a rule, it establishes a precedent, or model, and the precedents are so numerous that they fill thick volumes. These accumulating precedents have enabled Congress to function and to meet the ever-changing needs of the nation without having to constantly change its rules.
See also Checks and balances; Cloture; Committee of the whole; Filibuster; Precedents, congressional; Rules committees
Sources
- Robert C. Byrd, “Rules”,” in The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate,
vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991). - Neil McNeil, Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives (New York: David McKay, 1963)
