Volume Two of House Precedents Now Available
Congress nerds, rejoice!
On January 7th, the Office of the Parliamentarian of the House of Representatives published the second volume of updated precedents as part of its 2017 series. The volume contains updated precedents in two general areas: The House Rules, House Journal, and the Congressional Record (Chapter 5) and Officers, Officials, and Employees (Chapter 6).
The 2017 series will publish updates to all 27 volumes of the House precedents. Volume one, the first update of the series, was published in 2018.
Why are precedents important?
Among its many duties, the Parliamentarian of the House is tasked with reviewing and notating all congressional floor decisions that appear within the Congressional Record. Using these notations, the Parliamentarian keeps a record of the “substance of the decision and its legal rationale in suitably narrow terms.” Over a period of years, such records are reviewed, analyzed, and compiled into formal volumes of precedents. Over decades, the precedents are updated with more-recent congressional decisions, and thus, precedents. The current 2017 series is the fourth such update in the House’s history.
Similar to judicial precedent in case law, procedural precedents establish a principle or rule that the chamber may apply when deciding procedural issues given a similar set of facts or issues. They create, in essence, the House’s ground rules based on previous decisions regarding questions of parliamentary procedure as the chamber has evolved. Precedents, then, help establish consistency and transparency in parliamentary proceedings by making clear past rulings and reasonings.
In the words of current House Parliamentarian Thomas Whickham, Jr. “the goal of this series is to preserve a foundation for future parliamentary decision-making in the body closest to the people in our Federal government.”
Each chapter headnote (or principle of parliamentary procedure) contains a relevant Congressional Record transcript regarding the procedure, as well as insights and cross-references to applicable precedents and explanations.