Politics

MAJORITY LEADER STEVE SCALISE: Here’s How The 118th Congress Will Be Different

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Republicans know that Washington is broken. Over the past two years, Washington Democrats took advantage of their majorities in the House and Senate to usher in trillions of dollars of new taxes and spending at the expense of the American people.

As a direct result, inflation skyrocketed to its highest level in decades, gas is over 30% more expensive than it was two years ago, millions of people have unlawfully entered our country and crime is surging.

Democrats do not seem to care.

In November, more than 54 million people gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives to serve as a check against the left’s extremism.

Since Republicans have won the majority, we have been working to follow through on the plan we ran on in our “Commitment to America” so we can finally get our country back on track.

At the beginning of every Congress, representatives come together to elect a speaker of the House and pass a Rules Package that establishes the governing procedure for the next two years.

The Rules Package for the 118th Congress will make the House of Representatives more accountable and accessible to the American people. One of the biggest changes we made was to end proxy voting.

If hardworking Americans have to show up to their job each day, members of Congress should be expected to do the same.

All Americans should have the opportunity to visit our nation’s capital, explore the halls of Congress, meet with their representative and see their government at work. Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi locked down the “People’s House” at the beginning of 2020.

Republicans have done what Democrats have refused to do for nearly three years: Re-open the House of Representatives to the public so people can once again see their government work in person.

While Pelosi ignored the rank-and-file members in her party, Republicans want more involvement from our members, not less. That’s why we committed to giving lawmakers more time to read legislation before bills come to the House Floor for a vote.

Under Pelosi’s leadership, thousand-page bills and spending trillions of dollars could be introduced in the dark of night with unrelated policy provisions snuck into the text, and members of Congress would have little time to read the legislation before a vote would be called.

We want our committees of jurisdiction to have a say in what legislation comes to the House Floor for a vote. House and Senate Democrats are both guilty of circumventing committees and putting massive leadership-drafted bills up for a vote, bypassing critical committee hearings and transparency to vet legislation.

Republicans want to empower our committee chairs to take back control of the legislative process and make it easier for our rank-and-file members to offer amendments. That way, all lawmakers can better represent the people who elected them to solve the massive problems facing hardworking families.

In our first legislative accomplishment of 2023, the Republican-led House passed the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, which would defund the Biden administration’s plan to hire 87,000 new IRS agents. But we didn’t stop there.

We created a select committee to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s malicious agenda and established a select subcommittee that will investigate the weaponization of federal agencies and how they have abused their power by targeting Americans based on their political beliefs.

The House of Representatives voted to condemn violence against churches and other groups that promote life and passed legislation that would protect babies who survived an abortion. Additionally, Republicans and Democrats joined together to stop President Biden from raiding our Strategic Petroleum Reserve and selling our emergency oil reserves to the Chinese Communist Party.

We’ve had a strong start to this new majority, but we have much more work to do for families who are struggling under the weight of President Biden’s extreme agenda.

As the Majority Leader, I’m looking forward to bringing bills to the House Floor that focus on lowering inflation, reducing energy costs, securing America’s border, giving law enforcement the tools they need to keep our communities safe and getting parents more involved in their kids’ education.

But that’s not all. We need to hold the Biden administration accountable for its many failures. The American people deserve a government that is transparent and accountable.

If the last two years have shown us anything, it is that Congress is broken and needs to change. The American people are deeply frustrated about how our government works. Republicans are taking critical steps to make our legislative process more transparent and make Congress work again.

Ending Speaker Pelosi’s heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all approach to government will help get our country back on the right track.

Steve Scalise serves as House Majority Leader for the 118th Congress. 

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.