The Significance Of The House Rules Committee

The House Rules committee plays a big role in the House of Representatives. This committee is very significant because many of its responsibilities show the power of the majority party, the committee members ability to bring up legislation to the floor, and their ability to influence the content and outcomes of the bill early in the legislative process through rules.
One of the significances of the Rules Committee is that it represents the power of the majority party in the House of Representatives, especially the Speaker of the House. This is due to the fact House rules grant the Speaker, in cooperation with other leaders of the party, a large amount of jurisdiction over appointments to committees, including the Rules Committee (Smith, Roberts,
912) as I will go into detail later. It is in this way that the
Members of the committee usually assign one of three restrictive rules to a bill, those of which include a modified open rules, modified closed rules, and closed rules. Under modified open rules, amendments to a bill are allowed except for a specific or certain section of the bill. Modified closed rules do not allow for amendments except for a specific title or section of a bill. Lastly, no amendments are allowed under closed rules (Smith, Roberts, Wielen 2015, pg.233). The type of rule that is issued issued by the committee is important because it determines the extent to which members can influence legislation on the floor. For example, if there is a closed rule, the rule prohibits members ability to make changes to the current form of legislation that was brought up to the floor for a vote or add amendments to it. Usually, this is affects the minority party the most because, as mentioned above, a majority of the members of the Rules Committee are affiliated with the majority party in the chamber. The fact that this occurs, does not allow minority party members to amend the