On Jan. 5, the House approved new rules covering civility, legislative process and fiscal responsibility, the second of two rules packages in as many days that the Democrats passed since taking over the chamber. The new rules should help restore some transparency, fiscal responsibility and fairness to the legislative process in the House and represent an important first step in restoring faith in the congressional process. But further reforms are still warranted. In a 280-152 vote, the House passed the "fiscal responsibility" section of the rules package (Title IV), concerning legislation that relates to the federal budget. The package included the return of pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting rules to the House, where legislation had not been subject to any form of PAYGO since 2002. The new PAYGO rule will require that any new mandatory spending or tax breaks are offset by mandatory spending cuts or tax increases. The House vote also extended and strengthened an earmark disclosure rule that the last Congress had adopted. The new rule requires that appropriations, authorizations, and tax bills identify the sponsors of earmarks they contain. Earmark sponsors now must also provide a justification for the earmark they have requested, and must publicly certify that neither they nor their spouses will benefit financially from the earmark. The rule adopted by the last Congress had only applied to appropriations bills, and did not require justification of the earmark or certification of who might benefit from it. The earmark disclosure lists will be available to the public electronically through committee publications or in the Congressional Record. It is unlikely that the information will be in any type of searchable database or if the lists will be available online before the bill in question is voted on. Additionally, according to the rules, any request for an earmark that makes it into a bill is to be subject to "public inspection." It remains unclear how the public inspection process will work. Another important provision in the budget package bans "reconciliation" bills, which are not subject to Senate filibuster, that increase the deficit. Congress had used the fast-track reconciliation process to pass a deficit-increasing tax bill in 2006 — a practice that runs contrary to the original purpose of reconciliation rules. Unless there are enough votes to waive this provision, it will end the use of reconciliation as a vehicle for passing tax cuts unless they are paid for with other tax hikes or entitlement cuts. The House also adopted, in a 430-0 vote, the "civility" section of the package (Title III). This section made changes to legislative procedures, particularly regarding conference committees, where delegates from each chamber work out differences in a bill. The new rules require that members receive 48 hours notice of conference committee meetings, and that all information about these meetings is made available to all conferees. It also bars any changes to conference reports after conferees have signed the report. Unfortunately, the provision does not address public access to the conference committee process or any information or decisions made during those meetings. Other rules in the "civility" title concern debate and amendment procedures. Notably, one rule prohibits the Speaker of the House from holding a vote open longer than fifteen minutes, a technique used to pressure members to change their votes. Though promising, these rules are lacking somewhat in force and scope. The rules package is not a law and because of that, it will apply only to the House and will lapse in two years, at the end of this legislative session. Each rule is enforced by a point of order that can be overruled by special rules or orders of the House. Finally, there are additional disclosure and transparency changes that could be made to House rules that would open up legislative and budgetary processes to the public, such as opening conference committees to the public. The Senate will consider separate legislation this week that would adopt similar reforms, including banning gifts, meals, and travel from registered lobbyists, but as legislation, instead of rules changes, the Senate proposals would need to be passed in the House and signed by the president.