Seriously, why am I supposed to care?
The damage was done by the outgoing Senate Republicans who could have blocked the Omnibus spending bill which cannot be repealed as the Senate would have to concur and Biden would have to sign it, and he won't. Therefore the House has no power of the purse until October 1st. As far as I'm concerned I care not if they accomplish nothing until that day, and that's because they already gave away their own power -- so there is no productive purpose to them being there at all with their so-called "majority" until that bill expires.
That is September 30th.
The only reason to support them convening the House and conducting business is if that is absolutely resolved and cannot happen again. Therefore the following has to be the set of conditions under which you vote for a Speaker:
- There are no more omnibus bills or CRs; they are against House Rules. The budget has to go through regular order and if its not done on time the government shuts down and can spend nothing whatsoever until it is done. That's the job of the House since all spending bills must originate there. Either do it or resign.
- The House Rules are changed so that one business day must pass for each 100 pages of legislative text before a bill may be called for a vote after it is introduced, and the same applies to all amendments. No exceptions. If you want to bring a 4,000 page monstrosity to the floor that's fine -- you can't vote on it for 40 business days.
- All proxy voting and appearance is void; the people's representatives must be present in person. If you're not there then you can't participate, period, and you also can't count toward a quorum. You were hired to do a job. Show up and do it. This was the rule prior to the pandemic; put it back.
- Any single member of the majority party may motion for the vacancy of the Speaker's chair. Yep, one person. You're a leader, not a king. Act like one or suffer having to survive votes to vacate. BTW this was the rule in the House prior to Pelosi's "last stand" so this is in no way "radical."
- The Speaker commits that it shall be introduced and passed, and no other bill will be considered until this is both passed by the House and Senate, and signed or overridden if vetoed, that all declared "emergencies" from the Executive may extend no more than 72 hours beyond the House and Senate being able to be called into session. If the emergency is real then it can obtain legislative support via formal law within that time. If not then it is by definition illegitimate and void. No more OSHA jab mandates, CDC rent moratoriums and the EPA deciding to declare CO2 a "pollutant" without authorization by actual statute. Never again.
I think we can debate a few more, but those ought to be five without which I'm perfectly fine without a functional House of Representatives until October 1st.
The nation would be better off if they couldn't do a thing for the next nine months if they won't agree to this.