Congress can vote to block multiple last-minute rules at once.
S. 164 — Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2025 · Filed by Ron Johnson (R-WI) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 21, 2025 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill changes how Congress stops rules made in a president's final year. Right now, Congress must vote on each rule separately. The bill lets Congress vote on many rules together in one vote.
Who it affects
Congress members can vote faster on rules they want to stop. People who rely on safety, environment, or work rules may be affected.
One thing to notice
Voting on many rules together means each rule gets less debate time. Rules that might have passed alone could get blocked as part of a group.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
6 cosponsors: 6 Republicans.
- Jan 21, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 21, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs”
- Aug 6, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Ordered to be reported without amendment favorably”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- rules — Orders made by the president that people and companies must follow.
- final year — The last twelve months of a president's term in office.
- vote — A formal choice by Congress members to approve or reject something.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,368 characters) on Aug 20, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-11-01.
“Congress can vote to block multiple last-minute rules at once.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s164/simple Report an error
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