Boehner: Here is how I would run the House

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday laid out a
detailed blueprint for how he would run the House if Republicans win
back control this fall.

In a speech notably free of attacks against Democrats or President Obama, Boehner outlined his wish-list of reforms for the chamber, which he said is “broken,” “dysfunctional” and unable to solve problems.

{mosads}“The mission of the United States Congress is to serve the American people — and today, due in part to institutional barriers that have been in place for decades, that mission goes unfulfilled,” Boehner said.

Boehner said the current session of Congress is “not so much concluding as it is collapsing” and argued that the House failed the American people by failing to hold a vote on the expiring tax cuts.

“The dysfunction [in the House] has now reached a tipping point — a point at which none of us can credibly deny that it is having a negative impact on the people we serve,” Boehner said.

The Ohio Republican, who is widely expected to run for the Speakership next year if the GOP wins control of the House, presented his vision for an effective chamber during a 45-minute address at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Boehner prepared for his speech at AEI by speaking to other members of the leadership team about what he planned to say, according to a GOP leadership aide. The source also said that the speech was vetted in advance at the staff level with the ranking members who would be affected by the proposed reforms.

 In the address, Boehner said Congress should do away with the 12 appropriations bills used to fund the federal government.

“Members shouldn’t have to vote for a big increase at the Commerce Department just because they support NASA,” Boehner said. “Each department and agency should justify itself each year to the full House and Senate, and be judged on its own merit.”

He also said Congress should reform the way committees authorize new spending.

“Authorizing committees should be held to the same standard as the Appropriations Committee: authorize what we can afford, and hold agencies to account for results,” he said.

 Boehner’s plan to “reform the People’s House” expanded on ideas that were included in the broader House GOP “Pledge to America” that was released last week. The pledge focused on a number of policy areas Republicans would change, but Thursday’s speech centered on how the House would operate if Boehner had the gavel.

Earlier this year, Boehner forced his conference to vote on a self-imposed earmark moratorium. He called on the House to extend such a moratorium in his remarks but added that it would be a “collective decision, made by our members,” whether to continue it.

Eleven television cameras on tripods adorned the back of the room where Boehner gave his third major address since this summer, as he attempted to bolster his profile weeks before voters go to the polls to decide the fate of the 112th Congress.

 With a political environment roiled by economic uncertainty, Republicans are poised to win the 39 additional seats needed to regain control of the chamber that they lost just four years ago to Democrats.

Facing potentially massive losses on Nov. 2, Democrats are desperately trying to convince voters that a Republican-controlled Congress would result in a return to the economic policies of former President George W. Bush — policies they say led to the current economic malaise.

“It’s going to take a great leap of faith for the American people to believe that one of the people who is the architect of all those Republican policies is now somehow going to reform them,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) said at a press conference.

{mosads}But Boehner said both parties deserve blame for the congressional gridlock. He argued that the only way to move past the partisan impasse is to adopt reforms that may lead to longer days for all members of Congress.

“Leaders overreach because the rules allow them to. Legislators duck their responsibilities because the rules help them to. And when the rules don’t suit the majority’s purposes, they are just ignored,” he said.

A former committee chairman, Boehner painted a picture of a chamber where lawmakers spend time writing legislation in their respective committees, as opposed to voting on items written by leaders and called up on the House floor for a vote.

Boehner’s reformed chamber would also give members the opportunity to offer amendments to those bills on the House floor.

 Republicans argue that landmark legislation approved in the House this year was produced out of the Speaker’s office, while all other lawmakers simply showed up to vote instead of offering amendments in committee.

 Boehner was careful to note that the House doesn’t need bipartisanship per se to function, but rather a sense of fairness.

“The ultimate measure of whether we have a functioning House is not bipartisanship. Our focus shouldn’t be on working across party lines for its own sake. The true test is whether our ideas, policies and values are able to stand the test of a fair debate and a fair vote,” Boehner said.