Rank-and-file lawmakers have a surprising amount of bipartisan overlap when it comes to ideas about how to make Congress work even just a little bit better.

Take Reps. Chrissy Houlahan and Randy Fine, a Pennsylvania Democrat and Florida Republican who rarely agree on anything. On Wednesday, they were among the dozen lawmakers offering input at the House Rules Committee "member day" hearing. It's a biennial event that resembles an open-mic night - anyone can offer up ideas they think will make the House function more efficiently.

Houlahan, an Air Force veteran serving on the House Intelligence Committee, proposed mandatory training for all lawmakers on how to handle classified information. She considers the current lack of training a glaring oversight given how many lawmakers come to Washington with no background in national security.

Next up, Fine interrupted his introduction to second Houlahan's idea. A former casino, tech and health industry executive, Fine sheepishly admitted that he assumed security officials forgot to give him his training on sensitive material because of the unusual circumstances of his arrival.

"I thought I didn't get any training on classified information because I came in in a special election," said Fine, who was sworn in in April 2025.

This proposal gained a third vote of confidence later from Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans, a former Navy helicopter pilot who represents thousands of military workers in Virginia's shipyard-heavy Hampton Roads region.

Many constituents undergo more training and have mandatory updates for handling intelligence, Kiggans said. "We have none of that here in Congress!"

It was one of more than a couple dozen proposals that came from the lawmakers testifying before the panel tasked with crafting a package of rules at the start of each new Congress.

Member day doesn't get much attention because it's so much inside baseball about the machinations of Congress, but the ideas put forth demonstrate how much lawmakers recognize the broken nature of their end of the Capitol.

Even with these modest proposals, the lawmakers were sending a message that they want to shift more power away from the leadership suites in the Capitol and across the street to the House office buildings, where the rank-and-file toil away on their committee work.

Houlahan came into office with the majority-making class of 2018 Democrats, who really believed they could change Congress. Almost eight years later, she's run up against resistance from both Democratic and Republican majorities. Seemingly easy fixes like changing the voting and committee hearing calendars for more debate and member participation have languished.

And that's left the average lawmaker feeling as if they're chasing their own tails every day.

"The reason why I think it hasn't been done before is it doesn't benefit leadership. It benefits the organization and not the leadership. It helps them to scramble us all the time, and it helps them to throw us chaotic curveballs," Houlahan told NOTUS.

Even if her party wins the majority in November, Houlahan has set her expectations quite low.

"Regardless of who's in charge, I'm sad to think or believe that it probably won't be a heck of a lot better, which is why most people at this point are trying to just try to make it incrementally better," she told NOTUS.

Some proposals dealt with making the House more ethical and transparent to constituents, several of which have already received media attention:

• Several Republicans and Democrats called for a ban on lawmakers trading individual stocks, an issue that various House speakers have stumbled over in recent years.

• Several lawmakers called for formal bans against members and staff placing wagers on prediction markets like Kalshi, behavior that has led to insider-trading investigations.

• Several lawmakers requested rules that would allow expectant and new parents to cast their votes by proxy to be a more family-friendly House, a proposal that House Speaker Mike Johnson has blocked.

• Republicans and Democrats requested a new provision that would allow bill introductions to have multiple lead sponsors, instead of the current practice of just one.

• Rep. Kevin Kiley, the only House independent, asked to change the rules to allow members who are elected as independents to receive committee assignments without caucusing with either party.

• These modest proposals often serve as attempts to more broadly shift the operations of the House, with younger Democrats highlighting how hard it is for a young woman to run for Congress if she wants to raise a family.

"Honestly, this place doesn't really work for younger people," said Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs, 37, who talked about freezing her eggs to try to time when she gets pregnant.

Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen, 44, explained how she repeatedly had to fly from Denver to Washington last year with her newborn, Samuel, during very close-margin votes on major legislation.

Before he turned 6 months old, Samuel had been on 24 flights.

"This place doesn't have to work this way," Pettersen said.

The congressional calendar drew the most ire from both sides of the aisle.

Rank-and-file lawmakers complain that they spend way too much time on airplanes darting back and forth from their districts to Washington, leaving little time to be in the Capitol debating and shaping actual legislation.

For more than 15 years, the model month in the House has been three weeks in session and one week at home. Each week in Washington usually starts Monday evening and ends Thursday morning. That's just two full days a week in session and two days a week traveling through airports or train stations.

Fine told Reps. Virginia Foxx and Jim McGovern, the Republican and Democratic committee leaders who have more than 50 years of combined congressional experience, that he might have a magical formula.

Commit to a full week or two in a row in Washington, creating at least four full days a week in committees and voting, followed by a corresponding number of weeks in their districts, he suggested.

"I've done the math on this," Fine, the newest member to testify, said. "If we actually did this - a week here and a week home - we would actually spend more time working in Washington, we would spend more time working in our districts, and we would spend less time sitting on airplanes."

Foxx responded to the schedule and travel complaints by recalling what her mentor told her when she won her first House race in 2004: "The worst part of this job is the travel."

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver served as the lead Democratic co-sponsor on a prominent housing bill that was signed into law earlier this year, with Republican Rep. Mike Flood officially labeled the lead sponsor. Cleaver, an 11-term member, thinks younger lawmakers would benefit if multiple bill sponsors could be listed, which could encourage more bipartisan efforts.

"So it will automatically create alliances that don't exist now," Cleaver told NOTUS after his testimony.

Some lawmakers talked about truly transformational changes, such as implementing stricter controls on the revolving door that sends many members to lobbying firms upon retirement and banning gerrymandering to create politically safe districts.

But, for now, most lawmakers would settle for some basic changes like real training for dealing with classified information.

"I was shocked and have been shocked for four years now," Kiggans told the committee.

Houlahan, who also serves on the Armed Services Committee and other informal groups dealing with national security, said she would settle for a balanced schedule that allowed her to attend and participate in these meetings.

"We're not stupid. We can figure this out. We just don't even try," she told NOTUS.