WASHINGTON—In a procedural move described by aides as largely administrative, the House Rules Committee confirmed Wednesday that the death of American democracy has been quietly added to the calendar for a late-afternoon markup session next Tuesday, sandwiched between a resolution recognizing National Dairy Month and a routine reauthorization of Federal Aviation Administration funding.

“The chairman felt the collapse of representative government was better handled through regular order,” said committee spokesperson Martin Kleinfeld, explaining that the dissolution of free and fair elections had been assigned docket number HR-8742 and would almost certainly pass on a party-line voice vote after roughly eight minutes of desultory debate. “There’s a quorum at 4:15, they’ll dispense with the dairy thing by 4:25, and then we’ve got a solid six minutes to gut universal suffrage before the members need to clear out for a fundraiser at the Hay-Adams.”

Kleinfeld noted that a draft of the rule governing debate would permit exactly one amendment from the minority, which had been preemptively filed to rename a post office in Lansing, Michigan, and would be ruled non-germane by the parliamentarian within forty-five seconds of being read aloud.

Witnesses confirmed that, as is customary for structurally significant business, roughly eleven members would be present in the chamber at any given time, most of them scrolling through their phones while the ranking member reads a prepared statement denouncing the process as “a deeply troubling normalization of the end of the Republic” before glancing at his watch and voting yes to preserve his slot on the subcommittee on public lands.

The markup is expected to conclude without recorded objection, at which point the death of democracy will proceed to the full floor calendar, where it will be bundled into an omnibus appropriations package and passed by unanimous consent on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.