H.R. 1 House Rules Resolution - Amendments to House Rules: transcript

Thank you, Mr. Chairman Committee. I'm excited to be part of the first standing committee, uh, on HR one. I'm just gonna walk through it. If you go to line 59, uh, this adds that when the house can convene or the house shall convene and it adds that when the speaker convenes the house into an extraordinary session, we're adding that as a time that we can meet on line 54. Backing up a little bit defines the minority leaders of the house, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna wait and get to that, uh, in a moment. Okay. If you'll go to line 96, currently your committee, when you are meeting as a sifting committee, not a standing committee, you take minutes. It's not required by grandma or the open public meeting. Next, you just do it. So you hire a secretary part-time just to come and take your minutes. When you meet as a standing committee or as a sifting committee, when you meet as a standing committee, which you are today, minutes are taken and we're subject to the Open Public Meetings Act, you have to notice it up. So you're just like any other standing committee, you are unique in that you're the only committee that meets as a sifting committee. The Senate for some time has not kept minutes of a sifting committee. So what the house has been doing, when you meet as a sifting committee, you've hired a secretary, they take the minutes, they put it in the drawer, nothing happens to it, nothing. But we're hire, we're hiring a part-time person to do nothing with it. And so what this does on line 56, it just says, or 96, it says that you don't have to keep minutes. Now it's still a, an open meeting. People can come, they can observe, and you have your agenda or you, basically, your agenda is a list of bills. That's what you have to consider. They can come, they, they don't get off for public comment. But basically this eliminates the requirements of minutes when you are a sifting committee. Do you want me to go through or take questions as you go

That correct? Thank you. I I should know that, but, uh, I am speaking to the first substitute. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah,

Okay, so I think that's everything on that, and then let's go over to the definition on line 1 38. Majority minority leader, minority party. So for most of the time, all the time I've been here, we had two parties. Now we have more than two. So who is the minority party? And what this rule does, it, it really refers to, uh, the joint rule, which we're gonna get in a minute. But, so on the joint rule, it says the minority party means the political party in the legislature with the second most members. So if there are more than two parties, which we have today, the minority party will be the one with the second most members. And so the minority leader is then going to in line 1 41, um, and 1 1 39, 1 41. The minority leader is the leader of the one, the Minority Party. The minority party is the one with the second most members. And the next piece is found on line 1 63. So I'm gonna walk you through how it goes currently, let's use this committee as example. I present my bill, I represent Peterson. Move to recommend Favorably. Our current protocol is you come back to me to get my thoughts on it. Then you go to the committee for the discussion, then you come back to me for summation, and then you go back to Representative Peter for some. Well, most of the time when you come to me for my thoughts on move to recommend favorably, what am I gonna say? Oh, I hate that motion. You know, I want a different motion. So basically I'm summing I'm saying, oh, I like it. And for all these reasons, have the committee debate comes back to me for a second sum, then goes back to Ripon Peterson. So the proposed change in this is if the motion is to recommend favorably, you don't go back to the bill sponsor, you just go direct to the committee. You have your debate, then you come back to the bill sponsor for some, and then you go back to the maker of the motion for some if, but that's only if the motion is to recommend favorably and pretty people are kumbaya. If any other motion, motion to hold to table to next item on the agenda to whatever, to amend to substitute, then it's gonna go back to the bill sponsor to see how they feel about that. So it's redundant what the way we're doing now is redundant. It, it does, but, but there is a, a possibility that as the debate's going on, you may think that the motion to recommend favorably is not going to pass. But some, they, I have a friend on the committee and they go ahead and make that motion anyway. Well, in circumstances like that, you may want to go back and let the bill sponsor respond to some of this stuff or just have some, uh, some additional comments. So on line 1 78, it at the chair's discretion, if they want, they can go back to the bill sponsor. Even though the motion is to recommend favorably. We hope, I hope that the norm of it is recommend favorably. Great. You know, it's gonna pass out. You, you don't go back to Bill sponsor until some, however, the chair might say, you know, we need to get some clarification or whatever. So we'll allow the bill sponsor to address the motion to recommend favorably. And so that's a proposed chair. It's just trying to reduce two sums on a bill that most people are in agreement on. And Mr. Chair, that's it.

Um, so my question is about this last part that we were just discussing. So we've all, um, had the opportunity of sitting in the seat you're in, and then we take public comment. And there are some things said maybe in public comment that as a sponsor of the bill, we would like to clarify or we would like to, you know, maybe respond to. But you can't, during public comment, you're just kind of sitting there through all the public comment. Your first chance to really respond to that is when the committee makes a motion and then comes to you. So I guess I'm not sure that I, I am okay with not having a, a, an opportunity to respond after public comment until the whole debate has taken place. You're just so can you maybe respond to that concern? Well, during the debate, the committee could certainly ask the sponsor questions. There's nothing that prohibits, right? I see some committees that kind of don't allow that. But there's nothing that prohibits after public debate, a member of the committee saying, I'd like to clarify. Could you respond to so and so's comment? And the public? And you can do that. Okay. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So to clarify just that comment there, uh, does it have to come from the committee to have a clarifying response to a public comment or, 'cause I think one thing that Representative Peterson's asking is that we, as, let's say you're sponsoring the bill, you want to clarify something that was said in the public, but can that only be instigated by someone on the committee?

Well, for sure, and I'm gonna go to Megan this for this, but, so the, the presenter's not gonna say, but is there anything that prohibits the chair from saying, would you like to, you know, a public comment, let's say it's over, or even during public comment, they could always go to the chair. Is that true or not? I mean, to the presenter, that's correct. There, there's, I, we kinda have this thing that during public comment, we have to sit on our hands or close our mouth. But maybe somebody has a question. It's really up to the chair. The chair. And somebody I could, representative Peter can say, you know, I have a question for this witness. Ask the question and then give the wi the presenter. There's nothing that prohibits the, the presenter from responding to a question right? From the committee? No. So we're in public comment, representative Peter, your concern is somebody comes up and says, I hate that bill for this and this and this, and then they don't get a chance to respond till the sum. And maybe it's too late, maybe not. So you could ask the chair to let the bill presenter to respond to public comment. Is that true? Yes. Okay. Uh, chair's gonna be wise. How they do that. You, you don't want to get, get a tit for tat going here, you know, back and forth. But you can, you can ask and clarify. You don't have to wait till summation

Um, introduce yourself to the committee. Let us know if you're representing any group, and then go ahead and, uh, share your comments. Just pull that mic down pretty close. Alright. Uh, so my name is Seth Stewart. I am representing myself and the people of Utah who are concerned about this. Uh, my number one concern with this resolution is that the constitution of the state of Utah does not grant political parties any role in the lawmaking process. And by codifying that into the roles of, of the, the house rules, um, that is stepping outside the bounds of any enumerated powers. Um, and I've heard some people argue that, uh, well, we've already gotten used to these kinds of things. It's a custom, right? Uh, but precedent doesn't equal constitutionality. Unfortunately. We find ourselves in a position where, uh, we're converging on an Orwellian type of a system. Here, the founding fathers warned us that the, the spirit of party is a frightful despotism. And that, uh, it tends over time to converge on a more formal and permanent despotism. And whenever, whenever we give the parties a, a role in the lawmaking process, we're embodying that. And so I invite the, the committee members and, and the house representatives considering this bill to, uh, put themselves in the shoes of a representative who might not be affiliated with one of those two, uh, major parties. Uh, you'll see by engaging in that thought experiment, that the rights of minorities are not truly protected. That, uh, the window of majority tends to shift over time as party platforms shift. And individual politicians don't even hold themselves accountable to all the planks in their party platforms, which means that the rights of individuals end up being trampled upon. Uh, originally the, uh, federal constitution had prescribed different election methods for the different houses of the legislature, and that was what guaranteed a structural check and balance against overreach. And so the very notion of having a partisan majority across both houses is frankly repugnant to the ethic of the founding fathers and the protections of freedom, uh, against tyranny, whether of the majority of or of a minority. And, uh, so I, I would urge you to, uh, consider the words of the founding Fathers consult your own conscience in the matter. Um, the misrepresentations of parties are one of the things that George Washington warned us against in the strongest of terms in his farewell address. And I would remind the, uh, representatives that you're here to represent the, uh, the interests of your constituents and protect them against tyranny and not to represent a party. And by, uh, pushing forward legislation that codifies this two party system that falls under the category that, uh, James Madison warned about in, um, Federalist Number 47, where he said that if any, uh, group or interest begins to control, that constitutes the very definition of tyranny. And it doesn't matter whether it's a single party or a, or a two party duopoly. And so I would urge you to, uh, um, humbly withdraw this resolution on those grounds.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I make a motion that we favorably recommend the house resolution one.

Go ahead. Representative Burton, they Restate, uh, we favorably recommend first substitute house resolution one.

Alright, thank you. Make the motion to favorably recommend that first substitute house resolution one.

Thanks. I, I'm gonna support the motion today, but I just wanted to make two comments really quick. The first is, I think we need to make sure our chairs are trained that way, um, so that someone isn't just sitting there and feeling like there was a lot of misinformation. Now they're debating my bill and, and I don't have an opportunity to respond. So I, I think there's a piece of that that comes to training and making sure that the chair knows they can go back to the sponsor, or the sponsor can give some comment before the summation of the bill. And then the second, um, to the comment of redu, uh, introducing partisan and political parties into our rules. I, I'm just glancing through our rules. And all throughout our rules, we define majority and minority party, and we don't ever define it by a political party, right? We just define it, um, as a majority of a political party, not knowing which political party that could be. It could be a whole myriad of political parties, but there are lots of places where we protect the voice of the minority party throughout our rules to make sure that just the majority doesn't have a voice. Um, and so I think that's actually really important and I, I think this is a good clarification. Um, so that we continue to protect the voices of, of people in our state, uh, from any political party throughout our role. So thank you.

I, I want to just reiterate, thank you that Peterson, that you can question a witness in the public, but the chair needs to use discretion. You probably don't wanna go back tit for tat to every public. You, you may keep a list and then go back to the bill sponsor and some, a member of the committee say, may I ask this bill sponsor question? Sure. But you probably don't wanna do that after every witness, and it'll just bog down. But you do have access and the bill sponsor does have access to respond absent this bill, as you said, political party. And we have a majority leader and a minority leader. It's all ingrained in our rules.

Representative Ryan Wilcox. I represent Northern Weaver County, The legislature.

Representative Trevor Lee represent District 16, which is East Leighton, a sliver of South Weber in Clearfield.

Representative Kel Roberts represent mostly Draper, and then a little piece of Bluffdale.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. First steps two. HR one modifies amends the house rules. I'm just gonna walk through the changes on line 59. Uh, currently the speaker can call the house into session for certain. On certain occasions we're added to that an occasion to an or extraordinary session. So we're just saying he can also do an extraordinary session. He can call us into session. Then the next change is found on, on and around line 96. So currently the House Rules Committee meets as two different types of committees. One is a standing committee and that's the committee that met today. They consider bills and resolutions and then debate and vote on them just like you do in a standing committee. When they meet as a standing committee, it's open to the, to grandma to the Public Open Meeting Act and they take minutes and that's fine just like every other standing committee. But they also meet as a separate type of committee. It's called a sifting committee. And that's when the speaker excuses the rules committee. They go and they meet as a sifting committee and that's when they prioritize and send recommend bills to go out to certain committees. So currently on a sifting committee, they keep minutes. They hire a part-time secretary just for the session. They keep minutes of what happens in that and then they put that in a drawer and it just stays there. Nobody ever does anything with it and nobody ever asked for it. 'cause those meetings, the rules committee meetings sift as a sifting committee are open public's welcome to attend. And so what this says is they don't have to keep minutes. They're not required to by grandma or by the Open Public Meetings Act. Uh, this mirrors what the Senate has done for some years. They, they don't keep minutes. They do keep minutes as a standing committee, not as a SIF committee. They go in, they have their list, they can move it around and then they adjourn. So that's what that does. It just eliminates the house having to hire a part-time staffer just to keep minutes that nobody ever does anything with. And then another item this does is it changes a little bit of the flow in a standing committee. Currently, after a bill sponsor presents a bill, they have clarifying questions, public comment, then it comes back to the committee for action. And a committee member will say, I move to favorably recommend currently after favorable recommendation, recommend made you go to the bill sponsor. How do you feel about that? Of course, the bill sponsor's gonna say that's a great idea, is to pass out the bill and then it goes to debate among the committee, and then it goes back to the bill sponsor again for a summation. How do you feel about that? I still feel it's a great idea. So what this does is if the motion is to favorably recommend, you're not required to go back to the bill sponsor. You still have a debate amongst the committee, you still go to the bill sponsor for summation. But basically what we're getting in cases where the bill's gonna be approved by the committee is the bill sponsor sums twice and as enjoyable. That as that is, we're removing that. And however, if the chairman of the committee thinks that because of public comment or some other reason, it may be beneficial to go back to the bill sponsor after a motion to favorable recommend the chair. The chair may do that. So they still have discretion of the chair. Now, for any other motion other than favorable lyric remand, you will still be required to go back to the bill sponsor. Somebody moves to hold or to amend or to, uh, table. You still go back to the bill sponsor. The only change this makes sense, if it's a motion to favorably recommend, you're not gonna have the bill sponsor some twice, although the committee chair could, if they once. And just by way of information, there's nothing that in our rules that prohibit after public comment, a member of the committee saying, Mr. Chairman or Madam Chairman, uh, could we ask the bill sponsor to respond to this item or this item? You probably don't want him to go and respond to every single item that comes up in the public comment, but I just don't want you to feel like the summation is the only opportunity that the bill sponsor has to respond to public comment. Okay, moving on to Lang 1 39 and one 40, we have in our rules the Minority leader, the majority leader, the Minority Party, the majority party. Now, you may be aware we have a third party at the Capitol. So how does that all fit in? So this just says that the minority party is the political party in the legislature with the second most members. Okay, we're just defining what is the minority party. It's a party with the second most members. And that's also, uh, in a proposed joint rule that will be coming before you. I should mention that back to the prior when I talked about going back to bill sponsor. It's, it is the same process if it's a substitute motion. The same thing I already outlined. And with that Mr. Speaker, I'm open to questions.