The House Rules hearing at 3am. Photo: Victoria Knight / Axios
The House Rules Committee room was a busy place even in the wee hours.
Why it matters: The Rules Committee is usually an under-the-radar panel, but Wednesday morning at 1, it was prime-time viewing as members, staff and reporters alike awaited the manager's amendment that would alter the reconciliation bill.
State of play: Although no manager's amendment appeared over the long night and into the daylight hours, the committee did make it through three panels made up of committee chairs and ranking members asking and answering questions about the specific effects of the bills.
- The third panel, which included Energy and Commerce leaders, ended around 10:30am ET.
- Democrats then started offering their amendments to the reconciliation package. More than 500 have been filed, and staff said it seemed likely the meeting would continue into Wednesday afternoon.
Inside the room: At the top of the Rules hearing a little after 1am, Speaker Mike Johnson came by to talk to committee members.
- He told reporters then that the manager's amendment would be out "soon." (About 12 hours later, we were still waiting.) But he didn't answer a question on how many Celsius he had consumed so far.
- Two hardliner holdouts, Reps. Ralph Norman and Chip Roy, kept going in and out of the back rooms of the Rules Committee.
- Various Democratic members who aren't even on the Rules panel also filed through to sit in the hearing room in the early hours.
- Reporters, crammed into the back row of the small committee room, tried to avoid showing up on the C-SPAN cameras with their own Celsius cans.
The bottom line: Watching the sun rise over the Capitol dome seems to be an initiation ritual for any Hill reporter, staffer or lawmaker going through the reconciliation process. And this may not be the last!
