The Globe's major findings

March 29, 2005

October 3, 2004

The Boston Globe investigation into back-room deals on Capitol Hill

found that under the Republican-controlled Congress, longstanding

rules and practices are ignored, and committees more often meet in

secret. Members are less able to make changes to legislation on the

House floor. Bills come up for votes so quickly that elected officials

frequently don't know what's in them. And there is less time to

discuss proposed laws before they come up for a vote.

Among the Globe's findings:

# The House Rules Committee, which is meant to tweak the language in

bills that come out of committee, sometimes rewrites key passages of

legislation approved by other committees, then forbids members from

changing the bills on the floor.

# The Rules Committee commonly holds sessions late at night or in the

wee hours of the morning, earning the nickname " the Dracula Congress "

by critical Democrats and keeping some lawmakers quite literally in

the dark about the legislation put before them.

# Congressional conference committees added a record 3,407 " pork

barrel " projects to appropriations bills for this year's federal

budget, items that were never debated or voted on beforehand by the

House and Senate and whose congressional patrons are kept secret.

# Bills are increasingly crafted behind closed doors, and on two major

pieces of legislation -- the Medicare and energy bills -- few

Democrats were allowed into the critical conference committee

meetings, sessions that historically have been bipartisan.

# The amount of time spent openly debating bills has dropped

dramatically, and lawmakers are further hamstrung by an abbreviated

schedule that gives them little time to fully examine a bill before

voting on it.

# The dearth of debate and open dealing in the House has given a

crucial advantage to a select group of industry lobbyists who are

personally close to decision-makers in Congress.

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