comment: >
  
  ...that's it, then.
  I'd say it's been an honor, but it really hasn't.
context: "Limit bills to a single subject" - Sounds great in principle, but there's only so many days in a legislative session and it's a big country with a lot that needs to be addressed. Splitting each subject into its own bill to go through the whole sausage factory would grind the process to a crawl.
  "Make it harder to waive the germaneness rule for amendments" - I like this one, though I imagine if waiving this rule is commonplace then it likely has to do with my first point that sometimes they need to squeeze something extra into a bill without going through the whole nine yards. Plus, who gets to be the arbiter of what's "germane"?
  "Expand the time between a bill’s introduction and its floor debate" - The giant bills everyone whines about get that size through endless haggling by the leadership, and probably don't contain nearly as many surprises as an opponent would have you believe. Even the 72 hour window they're asking for isn't going to be enough to read the phonebooks they'll generate, let alone parse its minutiae for legal implications, and in the end you're gonna vote the way the whip tells you to.
  "Eliminate proxy voting" - Yeah, this one ain't going anywhere, particularly when even the ones who whined about it find it incredibly useful. I like the idea of representatives having to physically be there to cast votes as a symbol of democracy, but in an age of instant communications there's really no need unless you plan on posturing for CSPAN.
  Something you'll notice about all of these points is that they slow down the legislative process considerably, forcing additional debate and procedure and other various time-wasting processes to take place before anything can get done. These aren't being proposed because their proponents believe in a more transparent and principled governance, but because they want to grind the process of government itself to a complete halt any time they feel like it. Making the government sclerotic and unable to respond to crises feeds their agenda and strengthens their argument that the federal government is a bureaucratic nightmare designed to turn taxpayer dollars into sludge and uselessness. And so of course we should de-fund it and give all the money to that nimble private sector and its invisible hand, which of course only has our best interests at heart.
  Take anything the Freedom Caucus proposes with a giant grain of salt and the worse possible interpretation, because that's what they're going to do with it. >
  
  The freedom caucus real agenda is the freedom to do nothing and the freedom to spread chaos across the country and pretend it’s not their fault >
  
  You know there are people who genuinely believe that the federal government should have less power and more decision making should be left up to the states? It's not some cynical take as you suggest. >
  
  Yeah, and that’s a terrible idea which has been proven to be terrible time and again throughout all of our country’s history. >
  
  Ummm...no? Ceding more power to the states is a good thing. This country is very diverse politically. I don't see why Texas can't be a libertarian / conservative bastion while California is a rad prog lefty state - and not try to impose each other's will on each other at a federal level. I don't want a leftist agenda forced on me, just as I wouldn't want to force my center-right views on people who don't want them. Let states do what they want, and see what works and doesn't work from that. >
  
  Maybe because most states are socially regressive and it’s good public policy to oppose that on a federal level
  Republicans primarily win through gerrymandering. Even in conservative states they don’t win as hard as people think they do. Fuck this tyranny of the minority shit. >
  
  
  Maybe because most states are socially regressive and it’s good public policy to oppose that on a federal level
  
  Okay, even if you're right, why do you feel the need to impose your will on an electorate that doesn't want it? Let Texas be Texas and let California be California. There should be no ideological, partisan political stance forced at the federal level.
  
  Republicans primarily win through gerrymandering. Even in conservative states they don’t win as hard as people think they do. Fuck this tyranny of the minority shit.
  
  Democrats gerrymander just as much too. And also, this simply isn't true. There are plenty of red states whereby the Republicans win both electorally / by district and by absolute numbers as well. >
  
  Because when one political party’s entire platform has become various measures to take away rights from groups they don’t like, that’s not just something you can agree to disagree on. It’s not like there aren’t 20 million+ non conservatives in Texas that don’t want to lose their rights, right? >
  
  "Limit bills to a single subject"
  This would make the legislature work MUCH more poorly.  It's precisely all the horse trading that goes into these omnibus type bills which makes them work.  I'm not saying it's pretty. it's not it's the sausage.  A post office name here,  a special grant mechanism for a highway there and BOOM you have some new laws. >
  
  You mean some extra money that isn't needed in this district, and some kick backs over there and boom, we allow the NSA to tap phones in the Gay Marriage act of 2023 >
  
  They already can thanks to the Patriot Act, worry not. >
  
  The Patriot Act expired some time ago. >
  
  
  The Patriot Act expired some time ago.
  
  That's funny. You're funny.
  The patriot act was largely restricted to wire communications.
  Subpoenas on content providers, site managers and other similar providers have been upheld for a decade now, outside of whatsapp and a few other e2e encrypted systems there's not much they have to worry about. >
  
  The patriot act was relevant when we communicated primarily by phone. 
  We now communicate through 3rd parties, who can be much more easily subpoenaed. >
  
  
  Limit bills to a single subject
  
  While that SOUNDS good, in practice it would lead to no one ever eating their vegetables. Bundling items is necessary for unpopular but needed things to pass.
  
  Eliminate proxy voting
  
  Proxy voting should stay forever. No longer is a district deprived of their vote because the member is in the hospital or has to go to their kid's wedding. >
  
  So we should want to keep in place a system that forces through things the voting public doesn't want?
  Please defend this position that its a good thing politicians can quietly push through things the voting public doesn't want >
  
  Having every single tiny thing have to go through committee and maybe be brought up for a vote is a great way for nothing to get done, ever. Even the stuff the government does a great job with, like food safety or tracking the weather. >
  
  Nothing passed in the 118th House will even reach the Senate floor let alone the President's desk. Doesn't matter if "nothing" gets done.
  But also I'm tired of hearing about Congressional terms that "do nothing" from people who don't read the Congressional Record. They've always done far more than people claim. >
  
  That's simply false. A debt ceiling bill will pass. A government funding bill will pass. Etc. >
  
  Perhaps they will, but I knew someone would shout me down by pointing out the few obvious exceptions.
  But we're dealing with a faction that just might deliberately push the federal reserve to insolvency by suspending interest payments on bonds. They very well might halt funding to the nonessential functions of government. They've certainly done it before.
  Bigger question is whether they will pass a fiscal budget. And they will. And there will be daily mundane HR's recorded in the Congressional Record and the non-controversial stuff will pass. But the right wing agenda of the Q and MAGA factions? None of that stuff is going anywhere. >
  
  Yes, I really hope they don't suspend payments. And allowing the bundling of items makes it more likely the government will be funded. >
  
  Single subject bills mean no budget bills get passed. It’s a pipedream but it does reflect a massive problem/challenge of legislation by rider. >
  
  Why wouldn't we see this as disingenuous as all the other Republican proposals? >
  
  These rules will get scrapped the instant Republicans get the White House and Senate.
  It's just veiled obstruction. >
  
  I think they just want to obstruct everything, these rulles make that easier. >
  
  Yep, the real purpose of these rules is to grind the government to a halt and enable these folks to obstruct the function of government more than they do already. >
  
  I'm not really a fan of changes that make it harder for Congress to actually legislate. Nearly every problem in the US' federal government can be tracked back to a legislature that simply doesn't work. >
  
  Part of that not working is the turn away from regular order. >
  
  Do you know why regular order exists and what its purpose is? It's to make conducting business fair, quick/efficient, and standardized.
  Most of these proposals don't enhance regular order. They are a perversion of the intent of enforcing regular order.
  The reason why Congress can't legislate is that people, and by people I mean mostly conservatives, abuse regular order to have the opposite effect of what regular order is supposed to provide. The reason why regular order is bypassed is because of the same reasons why these proposals will hurt the United States not help it.
  These are basically standard conservative tactics in the US, make proposals that sound good, but pervert all of the meaning and reasoning behind a proposal so it has the opposite effect. It's so tiring dealing with dishonest people like American conservatives. >
  
  None sense.   At no time when dems had the house did they propose and vote on separate appropriations bills.   Either did republicans.   Both have been failing the public and shirking their duty. >
  
  You are not understanding what regular order is. It's not just "vote on all proposed bills".
  Have you ever run a meeting under anything considered "regular order". >
  
  The single subject one would grind legislative proceedings to a halt and make passing anything unbelievably time-consuming and cause a major backlog. >
  
  How exactly does limiting legislation to a single subject slow legislation?  That is, unless politicians don't want their support for narrow issues made explicit.  In all other areas of life, focus helps clarity and progress.  It seems we should seek opacity in legislation.  Apparently these big bills aren't even read by those voting in support anymore. >
  
  Isn't it obvious? Instead of one bill that does 10 things, you now need up to 10 bills, each of which will have to run the full gamut of committee consideration, floor deliberation, rewrites, and final voting.
  
  Apparently these big bills aren't even read by those voting in support anymore.
  
  The "congresspeople don't read the bills" bit is a red herring. Their staffers do the reading and advising. More to the point, how could they read anything if you're multiplying the number of bills to read? The end result is expanding the docket to the point where things won't fit into a legislative session. >
  
  Great points and I'm not sure the Senate is on board with receiving hundreds of piecemeal single issue bills >
  
  Yes, and the Congressional ping-pong of editing bills and sending them back is only going to compound the issue.
  This also just occurred to me: what about bills that originate in the Senate? Will those be chopped up to accommodate House rules? If "pass this Senate bill" counts as a single issue, then you end up with a loophole to originate everything possible in the Senate. >
  
  How is voting on single issues a problem, in principle?  The voters will see who supports what, and the back room deals will be less relevant.  More voter responsiveness will be the result.  Also, more cooperation on uncontroversial things, so that it's clear that some things are common ground.  This will make bipartisanship in some areas clearer. >
  
  Ask yourself this. Why didn't MAGA do any of this when Trump was in office and they had both chambers of Congress? >
  
  Each one of the proposals you listed  sounds ok at the surface level, but would actually be very bad if implemented. 
  It’s hard enough getting the small number of bills passed we have now- imagine that process if we needed to pass 3000 bills just to have a functional budget. This also applies to the germaneness rule- splitting up bills into hundreds of smaller bills does nothing but slow the entire process down. 
  Expanding time between introduction and floor debate slows the process down, and there is still no guarantee congresspeople would read the legislation. Their staff are the ones reading the legislation currently, not the reps themselves, and that wouldn’t change just because we gave the interns a couple more days to read bills. In theory it could allow time to catch problematic provisions or sentences, but I don’t see that happening. It’ll just slow the process down for no benefit. 
  Proxy voting should never be eliminated, and should be encouraged if the representative isn’t present for whatever reason. >
  
  The crux of the "Freedom Caucus" movement, and conservatism at large, is reducing complex topics into bumper sticker slogans and then act surprised when things capsize. >
  
  Given that these are proposals from the group that wants to tear down the government entirely, it doesn't seem likely for any of their proposals to be good nor support governance.
  What, for example, does "a single subject" mean? Is "responding to a pandemic" a single subject? Is "the federal budget" a single subject? Would "a war" be? Who decides? >
  
  It means that if there are too many words for it to fit through Boebert's tiny brain, they can't vote on it.