Key Vote Alert: Support H.R. 115, The Midnight Rules Relief Act
Dear Representative,
On behalf of Americans for Prosperity, the nation’s largest grassroots organization, we urge you to support H.R. 115, the Midnight Rules Relief Act introduced in the House by Representative Andy Biggs.
The Midnight Rules Relief Act would strengthen and streamline use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to bring increased oversight to agency rulemaking. Currently, the CRA enables Congress to overturn recently issued rules through majority vote on a joint resolution of disapproval, signed by the President. The CRA was used to great effect at the beginning of President-elect Trump’s first term, when the new 115th Congress used joint resolutions to void sixteen Obama-era regulations. This first scaled-use of the CRA circumvented career officials and frequent-flyer litigants who would have obstructed the process of repealing these harmful rules.
Unfortunately, the CRA’s restrictions hinder Congress’s Article I authority to make laws. The availability of CRA procedures to check the growth of regulations should be the rule, not the exception. Passage and enactment of H.R. 115 would bring this reality one step closer.
Currently, the CRA requires a separate resolution for each rule, and, in practice, limits the rules that can be fast-tracked for repeal to those issued in the prior few months. These cumbersome procedures needlessly consume floor time while subjecting the lawmaking branch of government to an unreasonable shot-clock. This limits Congress’s capacity to serve as a real-time check on lawmaking by the administrative state.
By allowing multiple resolutions of disapproval to be considered at once and expanding the retrospective review window to capture all resolutions issued in the past 12 months, H.R. 115 bolsters President-elect Trump’s ability, in coordination with the incoming 119th Congress, to repair the damage inflicted by Biden agencies and keeps Congress one step ahead of bureaucratic bids to regain lost influence in the wake of Loper Bright v. Raimondo.
With reconciliation anticipated early in the next Congress, the House and Senate cannot allow urgent work on multiple fronts to be snarled in the same red tape that’s strangled our economy. Passage and enactment of the expanded procedures of the Midnight Rules Relief Act would allow the incoming administration and Congress to make good on their promises to address the country’s fiscal crisis, continue reining in an out-of-control administrative state, repair the damage of the past four years, and get America’s economy moving again. A swift return to Government by the People demands no less. It is for these reasons we urge you to support H.R. 115, the Midnight Rules Relief Act.
This vote will be recorded in our legislative scorecard. To see what other votes have been included, please visit AFP’s scorecard online at: AFPscorecard.org.
Sincerely,
Brent Gardner
Chief Government Affairs Officer
Americans for Prosperity
