Congress’s committee-centered “regular order” has eroded, leaving lawmakers increasingly unable to shape bills brought to the floor; in 2025, the Rules Committee barred amendments to 84% of measures sent to the House floor.

Reforms that began in the 1970s aimed to curb senior committee chairs and give rank-and-file lawmakers more power, but instead helped concentrate authority in party leadership.

The shift accelerated across party lines after Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Republican Revolution, as House speakers and Senate majority leaders gained more control over legislative agendas and negotiations with presidents.

Congressional conference committees, once used to reconcile House and Senate bills, have nearly vanished: 38 bills went through them in the 106th Congress, compared with three in the 116th, none in the 117th, one in the 118th and none in the current Congress.

With lawmaking increasingly centralized, legislators can look like presidential “rubber stamps,” even when they have little opportunity to shape or amend legislation.

Voting records can also obscure how lawmakers compare with their colleagues: Brian Fitzpatrick voted with Trump 67% of the time in 2025, while Rand Paul did so 89.4% of the time.

The column argues that Congress, intended by the framers to check the presidency, has increasingly become an extension of it, while campaign ads focused on individual lawmakers’ votes overlook the institutional constraints shaping those votes.