Adopting the Rules of the House of Representatives for the One Hundred Nineteenth Congress, and for other purposes.
Key claim: The House adopted 119th Congress rules that tighten the motion to vacate the speakership, limit suspension days, ban germaneness waivers, bar measures with excessive long-term CBO budget impact, eliminate the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and certain House-employee collective-bargaining rights, and reauthorize the CCP strategic-competition select committee and related commissions.
Abstract
(HRES5 · 119th Congress) This resolution establishes rules for the House of Representatives for the 119th Congress. The resolution adopts the rules from the 118th Congress with specified changes, including providing that a resolution vacating the Office of Speaker is only privileged (takes precedence over all matters other than motions to adjourn) if it is offered by a sponsor of the majority party joined by eight cosponsors from the majority party; providing that the Speaker may only entertain a motion to suspend the rules on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays; prohibiting waiver (by rule or by order) of the germaneness rule (which requires amendments to be of the same subject matter as the measure under consideration); and prohibiting consideration of measures that exceed a specified long-term budget impact according to the Congressional Budget Office. Additional changes include authorizing the use of electronic voting within a committee; authorizing remote appearances by non-executive branch witnesses and their counsel in committee proceedings; eliminating the House Office of Diversity and Inclusion; eliminating certain collective bargaining rights for employees of the House of Representatives; reauthorizing the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party; reauthorizing the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission; and reauthorizing the House Democracy Assistance Commission (an entity that advises democratic parliaments in other countries) and renaming it the House Democracy Partnership. The resolution provides for the consideration of H.R. 21, H.R. 22, H.R. 23, H.R. 26, H.R. 27, H.R. 28, H.R. 29, H.R. 30, H.R. 31, H.R. 32, H.R. 33, and H.R. 35. Latest action (2025-01-03): Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.
Why this matters
House organizing resolutions set the internal machinery through which civil-rights-related oversight, employee protections, and human-rights advocacy operate for two years. This package simultaneously eliminates the chamber’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and restricts House-employee collective bargaining while renewing the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and the CCP select committee, showing how procedural rules directly shape the institutional footprint for equity, workplace, and human-rights work inside Congress.