Empower hard-liners

The Ryan Revolution

The new speaker is moving to empower hard-liners and relinquish some of his powers. But there are real risks it could backfire.

By Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer

On Thursday morning, before the House gavels out for the week, Republicans will do something they haven’t done much over the past five years. All 246 of them will gather in one room to plot out a game plan for a looming spending fight — five weeks before a deadline.

Speaker Paul Ryan told Republicans on Tuesday during an upbeat meeting at the Capitol Hill Club that they should expect to dig into policy debates a lot more frequently, perhaps weekly.

Congress is a bulky and slow institution. It’s difficult to change, and it resists reform. Ryan certainly isn’t going to solve the riddle overnight, but since he was elected last week, a new feeling has settled over the House of Representatives: things are changing.

Of course, it might not last. John Boehner was the consensus choice for speaker in 2011, and like Ryan he allowed the institution to run freely in the early days. But over time he clamped down, angering many rank-and-file Republicans and eventually sparking a backlash that prompted him to resign midterm.

But there’s a sense across the Republican Conference that Ryan is serious. And, at least for now, people seem to trust him.

“I think we are making progress across the board,” said Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, who voted against Ryan for speaker last week. Brat added that he’s upbeat the procedural reforms Ryan is moving toward will give conservatives the say in fiscal matters they felt they were denied during much of Boehner’s tenure.

Ryan is also relinquishing some of the speaker’s power and moving toward tweaking many facets of the institution in ways that have surprised many on Capitol Hill.

He’s in the midst of creating an advisory counsel that, as it is envisioned now, would include two representatives from each of the three major House Republican caucuses: the moderate Tuesday Group, the conservative Republican Study Committee and the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republicans focused on enforcing the institution’s rules. The idea is to to stave off an insurgency before it begins and give firebrands some skin in the game.

And while most speakers stacked the powerful steering committee with allies, Ryan has vowed to overhaul its membership to include more junior members and figures from the troublemaking rank and file. The panel decides committee assignments and advises on policy, among other duties.

Ryan is already in discussions about reworking the “motion to vacate,” the legislative procedure that allows any member to force a vote on ousting the speaker and presaged Boehner’s fall. Several ideas have been discussed, including allowing the entire body of Republican lawmakers to decide whether a speaker should be removed, stripping the power from any one individual.

The Ryan era is also bringing a new legislative style. One early example: He is allowing for a wide-open floor procedure as the House considers pending highway legislation. Scores of amendments will be considered on the floor, which is expected to keep the chamber in until close to midnight all week.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have submitted roughly 200 amendments, and members might find themselves voting on language that would prevent the Export-Import Bank from doing business with companies that work with Iran, or companies that don’t recognize Israel. Democrats have submitted amendments reflecting some of their policy preferences, such as raising the gas tax.

The House Republican leadership team is now talking like it has been pining for these changes for years.

“The House of Representatives, by design, is the body that is closest to the people, that is most accountable to the people and must be most transparent, and that’s why we must rethink government from the top down, restore representative power to Congress,” said Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, a member of elected leadership since 2013, standing next to Ryan at a news conference.

Of course, not everything has changed. Ryan has picked up some of Boehner’s habits, such as not stopping in the hallways to chat up reporters. Asked whom he supports in a fight between Reps. Pat Tiberi of Ohio and Kevin Brady of Texas for the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, Ryan demurred, as Boehner often did when controversial topics came up.

Ryan’s new approach could also backfire. An open amendment process can easily force lawmakers into votes they don’t want to take. The more freewheeling setup could also end up ceding the floor to Democrats, or worse, reigniting the civil war among House Republicans.

Ryan has several battles in the coming weeks that will test him and his way of doing business. In December, Congress has to craft an omnibus spending bill that sets spending priorities for the next year. It is sure to spark some familiar battles: Republicans want to cut off government funding of Planned Parenthood, which is a nonstarter with the Senate and President Barack Obama.

And Wednesday, he’ll face his first test of internal politics when the steering panel huddles to select the next chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. While he has stayed quiet about his preference, members of the committee will likely follow his lead if he gives any indication of which lawmaker he would prefer to fill the position.

Overall, though, Republicans and Democrats seem pleased with what they’ve seen so far.

“We are going to go through a process that is a little more uncontrolled, but it is the way the House should work,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee. “It would be good by me because I have some ideas.”

Others are a bit more skeptical.

“We can’t make any snap judgments here until we see how it works.” said Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee. “It’s very important to me that both sides of the aisle get involved in legislation. We’ve railed about that for a long time. But we’re not interested in voting 60 or 70 times on health care or special committees.”