Speaker Johnson has won some protections for himself in the new House rules package, even as his fellow Republicans are thinking about denying him another term in his job. Mr. Johnson has also unveiled the first 12 legislative items the House will take up once new members are sworn in, including a federal recognition of just two genders, funding cuts to sanctuary cities and states, and issuing sanctions for the International Criminal Court. 

Mr. Johnson and Republican leaders rolled out the legislation as part of their bi-annual rules package, which is renegotiated after every congressional election. In his new rules bill, Mr. Johnson got conservatives to agree to raise the motion to vacate threshold to nine members from the current requirement of just one. Members of the minority party will not be allowed to sign on to the motion to vacate proposal, meaning that Mr. Johnson will not face that procedure of removal so long as no more than eight fellow Republicans sign on to a measure. 

At the end of the rules text is a list of legislative items that will be brought up for a vote swiftly, possibly even before President Trump is inaugurated on January 20. The 12 bills listed in the rules package are not yet numbered, but the order in which they appear is notable because it gives insight into what is most important to Republicans starting this year. 

The first item listed is a bill that would officially recognize only two genders, male and female, which are immutable in the government’s eyes. The legislation would “amend the Education Amendments of 1972 to provide that for purposes of determining compliance with title IX of such Act in athletics, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

Trump promised several times on the 2024 campaign trail that he would make it official federal policy that just two genders exist. He has also promised to ban biological men from competing in girls’ and women’s sports. 

Of the 12 proposed bills in the rules package, six of them deal with immigration enforcement and border security reforms. Some of the legislative items include making assault on a law enforcement officer a deportable offense and making fleeing an officer a deportable office. The SAVE Act — which would require all Americans to provide proof of citizenship before registering to vote — is also included in the rules package. Another proposed bill would restrict federal funds from so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal deportation operations or immigration enforcement. 

The eighth proposal in the rules package would “impose sanctions with respect to the International Criminal Court engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies.” The House passed an ICC sanctions bill in 2024, though the Democratic Senate never touched the legislation. 

The top Democrat on the Rules Committee, Congressman Jim McGovern, blasted the Republicans’ rule plans in a statement on Wednesday, saying that keeping the minority party from signing on to the motion to vacate resolution would damage the power of the speakership.  

“Republicans are totally destroying the role of Speaker of the House by injecting partisan extremism into the rules,” Mr. McGovern wrote. “Their proposed changes would, for the first time in American history, shield the Speaker from accountability to the entire chamber by making it so that only Republicans can move to oust the speaker. This makes it clear that they have no intention of working together to find common ground.”

He further said that the first 12 bills being put on the floor by the GOP majority do nothing to help the American people. “Nothing to help workers. Nothing to bring down grocery prices. Nothing to lower rent or make housing more affordable,” Mr. McGovern wrote of the legislation.