I never understood the ban on wireless devices on the floor. As long as the member isn’t having a loud conversation on his phone, who cares if he’s answering an email or updating his Twitter account in between votes and debates? It actually helps provide more direct access to our representatives on a more regular basis. Good on House Republicans for at least loosening the rules.

In this last Congress, the 111th, the House operated under a rule [pdf] that dictated that no one shall “smoke or use a wireless telephone or personal computer on the floor of the House.” But, according to copy of the proposed rules just posted to the website of the Committee on Rules, that section has been tweaked for the 112th congress to give the Speaker of the House wide discretion in dictating what sort of mobile technologies members and staffers can bring to and use on the floor of the House.

“A person on the floor of the House,” read the new proposed rules, “may not smoke or use a mobile or electronic device that impairs decorum,” italics added. (Raising the possibility, of course, that a good game of Angry Birds might help folks in the House ignore their nicotine cravings.)

Of course, it all hinges on what a decorum-impairing device constitutes. But a spokesperson for the GOP transition team confirms that the rules are intended to allow members of Congress and others in the House to use devices like iPads and BlackBerrys, as long as they use them in the House in the same way they’d use them in an Amtrak quiet car.

That’s actually quite a conservative perspective. Instead of having some authority ban something it doesn’t like, allow the usage on a “don’t be a douche” basis. I like it.

Exit question: Which political Twitter star will be the first to Tweet from the floor?