The House is a chamber characterized by rules that favor decision making. The rules, practices, and traditions of the House also favor the majority, which is normally the majority party, and allow the majority to employ procedures to bring the House relatively expeditiously to a decision on a motion, including a motion to amend; passage of a measure; or another question. For the past 130 years, the House has regularly reinforced its rules to favor the majority, decision making, and efficiency. Through a number of amendments to its rules, for example, the House has given a chair discretion to postpone and cluster votes on both the House floor and in committee, and the authority to reduce the time of floor votes to 5 minutes after a 15-minute vote. In the past 35 years, the House through its rules has also regularly increased the openness of its proceedings and operations to public view. Committees, for example, may close a meeting to the public only for four specified reasons and only after a vote in public to close the meeting. An example of openness in operations is the annual financial audit of the House. House practices also change over time. They often reinforce majority control, decision making, and efficiency, but sometimes favor Member participation. Use of structured rules is an example of the former; use of amendment rosters in some committees' markups is an example of the latter. Members and leaders of both parties have questioned whether practices, while consistent with House rules, have gotten out of balance, with too much deliberation sacrificed to efficiency or electioneering. They have made speeches, introduced resolutions, and, when in the minority, issued critiques of the House's legislative management. Practices targeted have included waivers of layover rules, use of structured and closed special rules, and waivers of committee assignment limitations. The purpose of this report is to provide Members with an analysis of House legislative rules and practices, and committee organization and procedures, that could be changed in the 112 th Congress. Some analyses respond to bipartisan Member concerns over the House's legislative management, others to the needs of leaders in managing such a large body. Ideas presented in this report originated from many sources, including Members' resolutions to change rules, experts' and media critiques, and the authors' analysis of the House's lawmaking environment. The first part of this report examines generally how rules changes can be effected, what forms of rules exist, and some of the implications of choices for change. The second part examines committee organization and procedures, analyzing considerations underlying potential changes. The third part examines House floor procedures and agreement between the chambers, again analyzing considerations underlying potential changes. A reader might wish to select specific topics for study, after the first part, rather than read this report from beginning to end. The authors sought to address numerous rules and practices that have been the subject of discussion in recent years, which makes a cover-to-cover reading challenging. The authors' colleagues at the Congressional Research Service are available to committees, Members, and staff to analyze potential changes to budget procedures, administrative operations, congressional ethics, constitutional authorities, continuity, and other institutional issues. Change to legislative procedures and to committee organization in the House of Representatives can be achieved in a number of ways. The majority often includes changes in the opening-day rules resolution, but the majority leadership may bring freestanding resolutions to the House floor throughout a two-year Congress. The House, Senate, or both might also exercise its rulemaking authority in statute. The Speaker's announced policies, House practices, and party rules can also be used to effect change in the House, but, not being a House rule, these approaches are not enforceable by a point of order. The House adopts its rules on the day of convening of each Congress. Normally, in its "rules resolution," the House adopts the rules of the preceding Congress with specific amendments. Changes to floor procedures, the committee system, and committee procedures are frequently included in rules resolutions, as are changes in the administration of the House, ethics rules, and the budget process. Upon adoption, the rules immediately take effect. Development of a rules resolution for a new Congress often begins during the second session of the previous Congress. The Rules Committee might solicit ideas from Members and might hold one or more hearings on these ideas. The Rules Committee and the majority leadership might also or instead take a less formal route in identifying possible rules changes. Rules changes might be discussed in the Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference, especially in early organization meetings, and the caucus and conference on occasion have voted on rules changes. A party might even set up a task force or, when there is a majority-party change, a transition team. The House on occasion at times other than the day it convenes for a new Congress adopts simple resolutions to change rules—another route for change. A rules resolution often contains a separate section of "standing orders," which spells out procedures and practices related to rules, authorities in law where Congress or the House exercised its rulemaking authority, or non-rules matters. On opening day, the House might also separately adopt other standing orders, such as those related to the daily time of the House's meeting. The House on occasion adopts standing orders at times other than the day it convenes for a new Congress. On the day the House convenes or within the first few days of convening, it has become the custom for the Speaker to announce policies on a number of matters. In 2009 and in preceding years, these policies concerned privileges of the floor, the introduction of bills and resolutions, unanimous consent requests for the consideration of legislation, recognition for one-minute speeches, decorum in debate, the conduct of votes by electronic device, use of handouts on the House floor, and use of electronic equipment on the House floor. These policies might operationalize one or more House rules (such as those on floor privileges), permit or regulate a matter not covered by House rules (such as one-minute speeches), or in another way exercise discretion that resides in the Speaker (such as unanimous consent requests to consider legislation). The Speaker on occasion has announced new policies or changes to policies at times other than the convening of a new Congress. At least some items included in the Speaker's announced policies could alternately be effected as rules or standing orders, but the Speaker's announced policies are neither rules nor standing orders and therefore do not give rise to points of order. The Speaker and other occupants of the chair, normally with the advice of the parliamentarian, make rulings on points of order throughout a two-year Congress. Such rulings are grounded in any applicable precedent established by earlier rulings and create new precedent. A chair's ruling may ordinarily be appealed, although that is not a regular occurrence, and a ruling is normally sustained on appeal. The Speaker and other occupants of the chair also respond to parliamentary inquiries concerning House rules, procedures, and precedents relevant to pending proceedings. While the chairs' responses might inform precedent, they do not establish precedent, and they may not be appealed. The House on occasion has adopted resolutions, which have the duration of only the Congress in which they were adopted, to deal with some matter. Select committees, for example, have been created in this manner. In the Congress following the one when a resolution was first agreed to, the subject of the resolution might not be renewed; or it might be renewed for another Congress, with the adoption of a new simple resolution; or the temporary change might incorporated into House rules. The House, for example, on three occasions in the 108 th Congress agreed to resolutions that eventually allowed motions to suspend the rules to be considered on Wednesdays throughout that Congress; this temporary change was incorporated into the rules resolution for the 109 th Congress. Such resolutions might be adopted at the beginning of a Congress or at any time during a Congress. The House, or both the House and Senate, might adopt rules changes in statute, through the exercise of congressional rulemaking authority. Such an exercise often relates to specific types or pieces of legislation, such as trade agreements, but it might also pertain to the congressional component of a larger statutory scheme, such as the changes affecting Congress included in the lobbying and ethics law passed in the 110 th Congress. Changes to the committee system, the administration of the House, congressional ethics, and other matters affecting the House have also been accomplished through statute. As with any rule, the House might change or circumvent rules made by statute through special rules, other simple resolutions, or other mechanisms. The Rules Committee, the House Administration Committee, and the Appropriations Committee play special roles within the House. The Rules Committee may report simple resolutions changing House rules or simple resolutions known as special rules that establish a specific set of procedures for one piece of legislation, several pieces of legislation, one time period, or for a piece of legislation related to some anticipated action or event. (See " III. 1. Rules Committee ," below.) The House Administration Committee, known as the House's housekeeping committee because of its broad discretion to consider and adopt policies on the House's administration, may in many areas act on its own initiative or on its own authority to make changes to the administration of the House, without further House action. Two examples of where this committee exercises its authority is in policies on Members' spending from the Member Representational Allowances (MRAs) and on committees' spending of funds authorized by committee funding resolutions. The Appropriations Committee, in the annual legislative branch appropriations bill or another appropriations bill or a report covering such a bill, might make changes to House or congressional processes or include resolutions previously approved by the House Administration Committee, at that committee's request, to be enacted into permanent law. For example, statutory changes to the franking law have been made through appropriations bills. In addition, the Budget Committee often includes changes to budget procedures in the annual budget resolutions that it reports. As a concurrent resolution, such changes might be drafted to affect only the House or both the House and Senate.