Curb the Rules Committee

Fifteen years ago a liberal House of Representatives decided to do something once and for all about its Rules Committee, which had been delaying important administration bills and refusing to let the House act on others.

The Congress' solution was the 21-day rule, a measure that permitted the chairman of any legislative committee to call up for floor action any bill that his committee had passed, if the Rules Committee failed to act on it within 21 days. Even measures that had been defeated by the Rules Committee could be called up under the rule.

The 21-day rule had a short but fruitful life. Under it, an anti-poll tax bill, housing and minimum wage acts, the bill establishing the National Science Foundation, Alaska and Hawaii statehood measures, and several other bills were called to the floor. The threat of the rule forced the committee to act by itself on other occasions. But the rule s success was its downfall; when the Republican-Southern Democratic coalition came back into power in 1951, the 21-day rule was repealed immediately.

The Democratic landslide brought liberals back into power in 1958, and they made an attempt to revive the rule. They were bought off by Speaker Rayburn's promise that no important bills would be held up by Rules; Rayburn admitted his own failure when he packed the committee two years later.

Even the packing did not curb the Rules Committee. It refused to let the House act on President Kennedy's omnibus education bill and refused to send another such bill to conference after both houses had passed it. Mass transit, youth conservation corps, and other administration bills were stuck in the committee for months.

Packing a committee is a stopgap measure; the House ought to revise the 21-day rule immediately. And while they are at it, the legislators ought to strip the Rules Committee of the power to keep a bill from going to conference after both Houses have approved it.