An early partisan skirmish is likely in the House next week, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to move a rules package that would curb the GOP’s ability to derail legislation through a parliamentary maneuver it has used over the past two years.

Democrats may also end the current three-term limit for committee chairmen — a limit adopted by Republicans when they took over the House in 1995 and retained in the House rules adopted by Democrats when they regained the majority in the 110th Congress.

A senior House Democratic aide said Pelosi was expected to discuss the two proposed rules changes with Democrats on Monday and had not made a final decision on moving them.

Still, Democratic leaders are taking a hard look at preventing the minority party from scoring easy political points with motions to recommit a bill to committee with instructions to make contentious language changes and then report it back to the House “promptly.” In the outgoing Congress, “promptly’’ has meant an indefinite hold, because committees were not willing to adopt poison-pill amendments sponsored by the minority.

Most motions to recommit require instead that an amended bill be returned to the floor “forthwith,” which means within minutes.

GOP aides complain that the possible limit motions to recommit would take away the minority’s ability to attack tax increases in must-pass bills. That’s because the pay-as-you-go budget rule, which is likely to be renewed, does not allow amendments or motions to recommit forthwith that would remove any of the offsets it requires in legislation.

The pay-as-you-go rule requires that all new entitlement spending or new tax cuts be offset with equivalent spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere.

Democratic aides said the proposed change was not intended to protect tax increases from attack, but rather to prevent the GOP from tying up bills with motions that do not state their true intent — to kill popular legislation. In any case, they said Republicans would retain the right to offer two other motions to recommit — either without instructions for policy changes, or with instructions to make changes forthwith, or immediately, as the bill stays on the floor and moves to passage with revisions.

“Republicans will still get a chance to make motions to recommit. But they would not be allowed to just kill bills in a way that was never intended,” said one Democratic aide.

Democrats have been infuriated by the GOP’s use of motions to recommit to promote unrelated legislation, while stalling popular bills in the 110th Congress. For example, Democrats were forced to pull back a reauthorization of the AmeriCorps volunteer program (HR 2857) last March after several floor fights over GOP procedural motions.

Democrats succeeded in having ruled out of order as non-germane a GOP motion to recommit the bill to the Education and Labor Committee for the immediate insertion of the GOP version of the electronic surveillance overhaul (HR 3773). But Democrats then abandoned the bill after John R. “Randy” Kuhl, R-N.Y., offered a second motion to recommit and report the bill promptly with language requiring criminal background checks on prospective volunteers in the programs. Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller , D-Calif., offered to accept Kuhl’s motion to recommit if he agreed to change the word “promptly” to “forthwith,” allowing his language on background checks to be added, and sending the bill to House passage. But Kuhl declined a deal unless a vote was allowed on the GOP’s electronic surveillance proposal.

Dingell Ouster Cited

Democratic aides said the three-term limit on committee chairmen is no longer needed because the recent ouster of Energy and Commerce Chairmen John D. Dingell , D-Mich., made clear that gavels can be lost at any time, if chairmen lose support from the leadership and rank-and-file members. Dingell will be succeeded by a staunch Pelosi ally, Henry A. Waxman , D-Calif., in the new Congress.