“Regular order” is a parliamentary term getting bandied around plenty these days. Mostly it’s being invoked wistfully by lawmakers convinced they’d be able to triumph over legislative stalemate and partisan discord if only Congress would play by the formal and informal rules of the good old days. The concept is getting cited by frustrated Senate backbenchers every time there’s another balky interlude in the immigration debate. In the House, leaders in each party are blaming the farm bill’s defeat on the other side’s failure to abide by the principle. But no single lawmaker has pledged fealty to the phrase more forcefully than Barbara A. Mikulski, who’s made “a return to regular order” her motto and her professed goal since taking the gavel of the Senate Appropriations Committee this year. (more…)
