When it comes to the rules, for House GOP, knowledge is power

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) received a phone call several months ago from someone inquiring as to why the lawmaker was carrying a Bible on the House floor.

 Gohmert, a former judge, might live his life according to the Good Book, but he was actually carrying another book, Thomas Jefferson’s A Manual of Parliamentary Practice, to help him succeed in Congress. The House has long used the manual to govern what has always been an unwieldy, chaotic institution.

 {mosads}“As an attorney and as a judge, I familiarized myself with the rules of every courtroom I entered,” Gohmert said. “And here I was in the most important legislative body in the world, and I was worried about the laws and not the rules [of the House].”

 While Gohmert’s endeavor to learn the House rules on floor procedures is impressive, it is not a solo effort.
Gohmert is part of the Floor Action Team, or the “FAT team,” which is a sub-group of the Republican Study Committee. Hoping to stop the Democratic majority in its procedural tracks, this band of 16 lawmakers is committed to learning parliamentary procedure inside and out.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) founded the FAT team based on his experience in the Georgia state legislature, where he learned how the minority could use obscure rules to make life difficult for the majority party.

“We have gone over parliamentary procedures, the rules of the House, debate, amendments, second-degree amendments … points of order, all those technical things,” he said. “Because if you don’t learn those, I don’t think you can be an effective legislator.”

Using the rules to hinder the majority is nothing new. Former Reps. Bob Walker (R-Pa.) and Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), with the help of former GOP aide Billy Pitts, used House rules to thwart the Democrats when they commanded huge majorities in the 1980s.

 Walker, who now serves as the chairman of the lobbying firm Wexler and Walker, told The Hill that he has been contacted by individual members seeking advice about floor tactics. He also spoke on the issue at the January GOP retreat.

 “What I’ve advised, largely, is that while the rules are designed to allow the majority to work its will, the fact is that they also protect the minority,” Walker said. “Some of those protections are what the minority can use to have an impact and influence inside the process.”

In a somewhat ironic twist, conservative Republicans have looked to their liberal Democratic counterparts, Reps. David Obey (Wis.) and Barney Frank (Mass.), for inspiration in the form of their finely tuned knowledge of House rules.

 Frank said that while he was not paying particular attention to the new GOP thirst for procedural expertise, every member should know House rules.

 “If everyone knew the rules, the rules would be neutral, the rules [wouldn’t be] a weapon,” he said. “They make sense and help keep order.”

 Becoming freelance parliamentarians is only the beginning of the commitment for lawmakers on the FAT team.

 On Tuesday afternoons, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) has a standing appointment to be on or near the floor, watching debate and taking in the nuances of parliamentary procedure, waiting for an opening for rabble-rousing that may never come.

 On Wednesday mornings, freshman Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) sits on the House floor trying to absorb as much information as she can in between meetings.

 “It has been a very good experience,” Bachmann said. “It makes sure that I get down here where I can observe how the process works … it’s good to have it always in the schedule.”

 Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), who described himself as a “foot soldier” in the group, said conflicts such as attending committee meetings or needing more time to go over an amendment can make the effort challenging. But the end result is worth the hectic scheduling.

 When the group began meeting shortly after the new Congress convened, they did not simply hand out manuals and hit the books.

 “We did mock debates where somebody would be the speaker and someone would be the parliamentarian,” Westmoreland said. “We divided up the floor time [into] hour or two-hours [shifts].”

In one case, Republican protest over a proposed Democratic earmark reform brought floor action to a virtual standstill.

All of the work has paid off, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said, citing the role that group members had during that week.

“We shut down the House for nearly a week, forcing the Democrats to make public earmarks in the appropriation bills,” McHenry said. “This was an enormous success.”

Walker said the earmark fight was not something he was intimately involved with, but said the protest was in line with what he had told members throughout the winter and spring.

“In the end, there are a lot of procedural votes you can get that can tie up the process [and] allow you to make your points by assuring that the majority cannot move things as quickly as they would like to,” Walker said. “In the end, if the majority wants to wait you out, they are going to be successful. But that can have a huge impact in their ability to keep a legislative schedule on track.”

 Since the initial training sessions, team members meet regularly to discuss and review procedures.

 “We tend to brush up when something comes up that we were unfamiliar with,” Campbell said. “This stuff is just so complicated … it takes some time to learn what works.”

 Westmoreland added: “This is a learning process. You can’t come into a body this big, with so many different rules and precedents and historical things, [and not] learn something everyday.”