One of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s primary goals, having regained leadership of the House, must be to reinstate the institutional integrity that was honored only in the breach over and over again by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Long-standing fundamental House rules and protocols repeatedly were violated under Pelosi, for the single purpose of pursuing a partisan political agenda at the expense of historically honored principles. The formation of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol and its indisputable perversion of important House rules highlight the issue. The rules that were violated allowed the committee to abuse the subpoena process and deny subpoenaed witnesses basic protections the rules were intended to provide. This must be corrected immediately.
There is one mechanism readily available to the speaker to restore order and respect for the rules. It is called the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (“BLAG”).
The BLAG was created in 1993 by a Democrat-controlled House, over the objection of a majority of Republicans in the House. It is a body comprised of five members of the House leadership, three majority party members and two minority party members, that speaks for the House in directing litigation in which the BLAG perceives the House to have a direct interest.
Republicans who opposed the formation of BLAG argued that the entire House should vote before a legal position that purports to speak for the House is adopted. The Democrats prevailed, and now by House rule, once BLAG members vote to direct
