Press Releases

Today, Congressman Glenn Grothman (WI-06) released the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives again did not adhere to regular order and did not hold a single committee hearing before holding a vote on and passing sweeping, partisan legislation.

“So far in the 117^th Congress, committee hearings on major legislation are the latest victim of the cancel culture,” said Grothman. “Under normal circumstances, House committees hold hearings to examine legislation and markups to amend it, so members of the committee are familiar with the full impact of the legislation before it is brought to the House floor for a vote. That isn’t happening.

“People sometimes ask me how Congress differs from the Wisconsin State Legislature. In the state legislature, virtually every bill has a committee hearing before the legislature votes for it. This gives lawmakers more time to analyze the bill and introduce amendments.

“This session, under the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we are not required to have committee hearings on bills being voted on before April 1. This includes the so-called For the People Act, the so-called Equality Act, the PRO Act, two anti-Second Amendment bills, and the amnesty bill that passed this week. All these high-profile bills were brought to the floor without having the committee spend time analyzing them.

“While this is not a particularly hot topic, this is not the way a well-run legislature should act. Every one of these major bills should have had a hearing in which we can listen to experts in favor of the bill and opposed to the bill and a hearing in which dozens of amendments could be offered.

“I think one of the reasons why so many inflammatory bills are being voted on prior to April 1 is that Members of Congress have not had a chance to really analyze what they were voting on.

“I believe that if committee hearings were held, some amendments would have passed and these bills could have been improved.

“I realize this is not normally the type of issue that causes politicians to win or lose elections, but I send out this message as a way of explaining why so many outlandish bills have passed in the first three weeks.”

Background
Regular order happens when a bill is introduced to the House and referred to the committee(s) of jurisdiction, where members of that committee find ways to improve the bill and many times include bipartisan initiatives. This is done by holding hearings on key provisions of the bill to find out how they will affect Americans and holding markups to amend the bill.

To this point, 16 of the 19 rule bills that the House has passed have not gone through regular order. That means these bills have been introduced by Democratic House leadership and put on the House calendar for a vote before consulting with Republican members of Congress, which is nearly half of House Members.

-30-

U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Glenbeulah) is serving his fourth term representing Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.