(Source: MIRS.news, Published 01/31/2025) Rep. Bill G. Schuette (R-Midland), the incoming chair of the House Rules Committee, said on Friday his committee will take up bills that change administrative rule promulgation authority and bills that need extra work, with the intent of avoiding major changes from being made in floor substitutes in the future. 

Schuette said he didn’t want to tie himself to a specific number of bills that might go through his committee.  

“The purpose of this is not to be a choke hold on bills, but rather to make sure we’re keeping the administrative state and bureaucratic reach of the rule-making process in check,” Schuette said. “It’s not about being a vise grip on what bills get to the floor.” 

For bills that need extra attention because they create or revise administrative rule promulgation authority, Schuette said the committee testimony would not focus on what policy topic the bill pertains to, but instead on the rule-making authority.  

Schuette said his committee also will help avoid a situation where bills would be reported with recommendation to the floor, where it would then be substituted several times and changed from what the committee recommended.  

Schuette said if a bill sits on the floor for two weeks and the powers that be decide the policy needs more work, it will be sent to his Rules Committee. The idea is to create a more transparent process from what has been the operating procedure, in which a bill is substituted on the floor without debate or discussion. 

An effect of the Rules Committee structure will be to give leadership a place to send bills they don’t want to vote on. Think of last term, when former Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) said he didn’t put up the tipped wages and sick time bills because they didn’t have the votes, just for them to both pass by over 60 votes only a month later. 

Or bills from the BRITE Act that led to this line of questioning: Is the governor the reason these bills aren’t moving on the floor? 

Another example from the previous term’s House Ethics Committee was Proposal 1 of 2022 implementation bills that were reported to the floor, gutted by substitutes and voted on in the middle of the night. 

The belief from leadership is that bills like these ought to be anomalies rather than everyday occurrences. 

Schuette said the purpose of the committee isn’t to take the blame off of the Speaker when he doesn’t want bills put up. Instead, the objective is to make sure the substance and policy of the bills are done right. 

Chairing the House Rules Committee and the House Select Committee on Protecting Employees and Small Business can be seen as signs of leadership's trust in Schuette.  

Schuette said he appreciates the trust that has been put in him, and his goal for the committee is to rein in the administrative state, keep government in check and put policies forward which advance his caucus’ mission for Michigan. 

In a post on X, he used a screenshot of lyrics from Dua Lipa’s song New Rules that goes “I got new rules, I count ‘em.” 

“The (Michigan House Republicans)? We’ve got New Rules,” he joked.