On this day in 1970, President Richard Nixon signed into law major changes in the way Congress would conduct its business. The reforms paved the way for the installation of electronic voting machines in the House chamber. When introduced on Jan. 23, 1973, they revolutionized the congressional voting procedures.
The reforms also made House and Senate processes more transparent. Thereafter, all committee hearings were to be held in public, except for national security matters or appropriations.
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The initiative for the legislative overhaul, the first in a generation, came from the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. The House passed the bill on Sept. 18, 1970, with Senate approval following quickly.
The first vote taken by the new $1 million electronic system was a 15-minute roll call vote of members. Prior to the installation of the electronic system, this procedure took 30 to 45 minutes.
While some Old Guard members have opposed changes of any kind, some reformers over the years have argued that Congress has since not gone nearly far enough. David Mason, while a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in 1992 that “limits are a major answer to Congress’s problems.”
Mason, who had previously managed the Pentagon’s relations with the House and served as staff director to then-Republican Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.), said such limits should cover a gamut of issues, including “limits on terms, sessions, staff, committees, spending and pork. In addition, Congress must obey the laws it passes, reform its schedule, [further] open up congressional procedures and junk the casework scam.”
While Mason, who went on to serve on the Federal Election Commission until April 2009, argued that this “ambitious program ... can be achieved through continuing public pressure,” Congress, under both Democratic and Republican leadership, has proved reluctant to institute further wide-ranging reforms.
Source: Historian, Clerk of the U.S. House