The big news out of the House is that, yes, the Democratic Party has formally nominated Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. There were a bunch of no votes in the caucus, and in principle, they could still try to block her when it gets to the "real" vote on the floor of the House, but that looks unlikely. Pelosi picked off her major opposition, one by one, and like I said, she did it by offering them whatever they needed. Pelosi is the one person in the Democratic caucus who knows what she's doing. Strange to say, but few Democrats in D.C. seem overly concerned that the Minority Leader in the Senate is a useless idiot. Chuck Schumer can't find his ass with both hands and a flashlight, but Pelosi is the one who faces opposition as party leader... Twits.
Anyway, Pelosi still has some work to do here, but the big thing to understand is that part of the deal she may cut to get the Speaker's gavel is really weird, stupid for the Democratic Party to allow, and demonstrative of how blinkered the Problem Creators caucus really is. Yes, I'm just calling them that. You don't get the "Solvers" moniker if all you do is create problems.
Here's how Congress traditionally works. When a bill is introduced, if you want to have a say re-writing the bill, you either have to be on a committee with jurisdiction so that you can participate in "mark-up," which is the amending process when it happens in committee, or you have to convince the Rules Committee to let your amendment get a floor vote. The Rules Committee is arguably the most important committee in the House of Representatives. They determine which amendments get a vote, the order of votes, and all that technical shit. They run the show. The Speaker, via the party's steering committee, determines who sits on the Rules Committee, effectively. And the Speaker can just block legislation from getting a floor vote altogether. So, the Speaker and the Rules Committee, in combination with each other, have a fuckload of power to stop whatever you want from getting a vote.
Why? The short version is that a lot of stupid shit gets introduced into Congress by the posturing dipshits who get elected to Congress. There needs to be some mechanism to prevent everything from getting clogged like a toilet on Thanksgiving. This is it.
That's the short, and scatological version. Congress 101: An Unmutual Primer.
The result, though, is that the majority party has a lot of power. The minority party can't really get any legislation, or even amendments through for a vote. And here's where the rule change proposals come in. Seth Moulton and the other anti-Pelosi Democrats don't want the majority party to have this kind of power. Why not? Uh...
Anyway, the big, new rule changes are mostly about forcing floor votes over a potential speaker's objection. The Problem Creators want to be able to force a floor vote for bills with more than 290 cosponsors, and force votes for amendments with at least 20 Democratic and 20 Republican cosponsors. There's more, but this gives you an idea of what these people want.
First, how big would these concessions be? Let's go through them. In order for the 290 threshold issue to matter, you'd need there to be a bill supported, and indeed, cosponsored by 290 Representatives and opposed by Nancy Pelosi. Finding a bill cosponsored by 290 is hard. Finding a substantively important bill with 290 cosponsors is really, really hard. Why? Because the parties are very, very polarized. If you have a bill with 290 cosponsors, that doesn't mean you have a bill that's "good, common sense, blah, fucking, blah, whatthefuckever…" It means you have a yay-for-symbolic-bullshit bill. Let's all say nice shit about Bush 41 'cuz the motherfucker's dead, or something like that. And Pelosi wouldn't care. This provision gives up power, yes, but how much? In a polarized era? Not much. That 290 threshold is high. The threshold for a discharge petition is 218. Do the math. Discharge petitions never work, and the threshold for that is 218. Moulton and his band of fuckwits want a provision to force a floor vote with 290 cosponsors? OK, buddy. Good luck with that. Pelosi will still kick your worthless, little ass, pound you into the dirt, stomp on your face, and laugh at your tears without breaking a sweat.
Then, there's the amendment stuff. 20 and 20. Here's the thing about amendments. You can play endless games with amendments. I've got an amendment to counter your amendment. You know who decides the order of votes? The Rules Committee. Or, cancel the fucking bill if the amendments are looking ugly for the majority party. This one is worse for the majority party because the threshold is lower, but it puts pressure on the Rules Committee to find work-arounds. This is going to depend a lot on contextual factors, how the agreement itself is written, the badassery of whoever chairs the Rules Committee to figure out the work-arounds... It is hard to comment at this point, but I see a lot of potential shenanigans here.
And of course, none of this matters right now. The House can't pass any legislation. Control of Congress is split. I suppose Moulton and his nincompoop caucus could attempt to use some of these rule changes to cave completely to the GOP as they fulfill their lifelong dreams of wearing Republican gimp suits while Zed and Maynard whip them, but the GOP can't get their shit together to write any legislation either, so none of this really matters. Nothing is going to happen. This is all for show and stupidity.
And here's the kicker. Does anyone seriously believe that Speaker Kevin McCarthy, or Steve Scalise, or Louis Gohmert or Sean Hannity*, or whoever would make any attempt to preserve these rule changes allowing Democrats to affect the legislative agenda once the GOP retakes the House? Remember that the basic geographic contours of the country bias the House towards the GOP. Democrats cluster in cities, and Republicans are more spread out. That's a natural partisan gerrymander. In order to undo that, Democrats have to get crazy and creative with their lines, and it takes a partisan tide to give the House to the Democrats. They just won the House in November because the President is remarkably unpopular. That won't last. The last time the Democrats got the House, they held it for four years. Since 1994, the Democrats have only held the House for four years. They took the House in the 2006 election when Dubya was at a low point in popularity because of the Iraq War, and kept it in 2008 as the economy was tanking. That's what it takes for the Democrats to win the House. Otherwise, the GOP wins the House.
Do you think they're going to let the Democrats have any say on the legislative agenda? If so, I've got a bridge to sell you. Also, I'd like to offer you my services handling your patents. Really! I'm not a phony, like the acting Attorney General! I shall make you wealthy by giving you a worldwide patent! It's the bestest deal ever! Gimme your money if you actually trust the GOP to keep these rules, you fucking moulton moron! What am I saying?! I'm a real, authentic professor! I should start a University! A real one! Not like Trump University! It'll be totally legit! Gimme, gimme, gimme! I'm, like, totally not a scam artist!
What happens now? Nancy Pelosi gets the gavel. Legislatively? Nothing. They have revealed their "agenda," such as it is. Mostly, some goo-goo type stuff. It won't matter because they can't pass it through the Senate, and Trump won't sign anything. They want to force the release of presidential tax returns, force disclosure of "dark money" sources, and stuff like that. As anti-goo-goo as I am, even I'm on board with disclosure, and since I'm on record here, all I'll say is... they might as well demand unicorns too. This ain't happenin'. What will happen? The GOP will try to use whatever new rules are still being negotiated to embarrass the Democrats, and Pelosi in particular. But, Pelosi is smarter than everyone else in the House put together, so they'll probably fail. With a less-skilled Speaker, they might succeed. These rule changes won't lead to policy changes because of polarization and split control, and they won't survive a change to Republican control of the House.
The Problem Creators caucus? They are just fools.
*The Constitution doesn't actually require the Speaker to be a sitting member of the House, so why not? Is it actually any crazier than anything else happening these days?