At what point did the delegates become involved in rules approvals? Has it always been that way?
Given the attempted elimination of many of the tried and true rules used for decades by
USCF in some hope of needless conformity with a misguided fIDE, I would hope not. This
should be a field left up to the tournament professionals, it committees of players and
certified tournament directors. For example, rules concerning insufficient losing chances,
permissible to touch either the rook or king first, etc, will be sorely missed. Fortunately,
rules still exist that prior to the tournament start, and with the publication of the tournament,
proper alternatives keeping these rules can be announced. And, along with no delay, or
increment, by golly, I plan to keep the faith and do so. Many simply regard such changes
as nothing more than an increasingly intrusive USCF meddling into affairs that are really
should have been left alone to fit some puritans vision of what chess should be.
Rob Jones
There were debates about the rules at the first Delegates Meeting I attended, in New Jersey in 1986. The procedures are more formal now that the Delegates are no longer the USCF’s Board of Directors.
There is also a super-majority requirement for rules changes now.
While the rules weren’t as precisely codified–and were shorter–in 1986, I think the Delegates have probably haggled over the rules for as long as we’ve had Delegates Meetings.
The USCF Articles of Incorporation specifically provide for the Delegates to oversee the rules, in addition to select other matters.
Accordingly, this allocation of power is also noted in the USCF bylaws.
The second sentence is a little incoherent; did you typo “it committees”, meaning perhaps “not committees”? If you are going to argue “tournament professionals” should make the decisions, you will need to define that term.
Every rule change proposal is discussed at length by the rules committee prior to the meeting (OK, I’m not on the committee so I’m taking that on faith based on what I observed at the rules committee workshop). They are then vetted at the rules committee workshop thoroughly and straw polls taken. The results of those workshop votes are then discussed at the delegates meeting, where it is voted on by a board of delegates, virtually all of whom are either players or certified tournament directors or both. I think the people who make the decisions are about as “tournament professional” as we can get, unless you mean GMs only, which would be a horrible idea.
That must have been dreary and long. 
Rob Jones
Well, I guess Allen answers any question about whether or not a discussion is necessary, since the Articles provide for delegate oversight.
Rob, I can’t determine your position on the matter. Your post seems to go both ways 
As for the premise of my question, I would have liked to see rules changes done by the Rules Committee, without delegate meddling. Of course, delegates should be able to make suggestions, but that is as far as I think it should go; the delegates shouldn’t have this much power.
The requirement of a super-majority for rules passage should mean that any rules change, regardless of whether it came from or was vetted by the rules committee prior to the Delegates Meeting, has pretty broad support.
There have been Delegates Meetings at which rules changes came up and were passed late in the meeting that might not have passed earlier in the meeting, but I think the super-majority requirement makes that less likely.
The Rules workshop this year added the tournament option (with advance notice) allowing the rook to be touched first when castling. The Rules committee had not previously included that option and was going with king only in all cases.
The workshops are still valuable for rules changes.
Terry, I attended at delegates meeting once, and have attended many state chapter meetings
as well. And sometimes they do drag on. I really think that rules and changes are best
done after careful thought, by rules committees, approved by the EB. However, that said,
I do think that as we are currently able, that we preserve the right for local organizers
to 'bend" according to their whims and local demands.
Rob Jones
And I believe that the practice in recent years has been to take things that are brought up late in the process and refer them to the rules committee to be considered for the next year.
Most of the rules changes are in ADMs which a published in the delegates call and on the web site in advance of the meeting. Many of those ADMs get debated in these forums since they are announced well in advance of the meeting. Some authors post proposed ADMs for input before they are even submitted for the delegate’s call.
Some changes are prompted by changes in the FIDE laws of chess. My observation is that those conforming changes have generally been good ones to make. I just haven’t seen many changes made just for conformity’s sake.
The rules committee may make some of those ADMs as well as other delegates. If you pay attention to the process you will note that a large majority of the rules changes tend to be proposed from a small number of active, high level TDs, usually as a result of issues that have come up in tournament administration. The rules committee goes through all of those, plus the ones referred to the committee from the prior year. The committee holds a workshop at the delegates meeting to go over what they think and to solicit comments from others. The rules committee workshop is generally pretty well attended, and the audience tends to be pretty heavily weighted toward active TDs and active players. The workshop may lead to a change in a motion, and sometimes the committee thinks something is good or bad and the workshop takes the opposite view. All of that information is presented to the delegates - and of course a significant minority of the delegates were in the workshop.
I just haven’t seen much in the way to "surprise " rules changes that were made on the floor of the delegates meeting and not thought through pretty carefully.
Of course, if one doesn’t pay attention to the process, then one might be surprised by the result.