Page 8 - Flathead Beacon // 1.14.15

8 | JANUARY 14, 2015 NEWS
FLATHEADBEACON.COM
State Reps. Steve Lavin, right, and Keith Regier are seen on the floor of the House
with their fellow legislatures during last year’s 63rd Legislative Assembly in Helena.
BEACON FILE PHOTO
Legislators Reach Deal on House Rules
Just
Sayin’...
“I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.”
Stephane Charbonnier, editor of the French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo after it was threatened by Islamic extremists in 2012 for publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. Charbonnier was one of the 12 people shot and killed last week in a terrorist attack at the paper’s Paris office.
“Everybody in here can go tell your friends that I’m considering a run.”
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, telling supporters last week that he was considering another run for president in 2016.
“Absent agreement from Glencore and the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company to accept responsibility for their role in the cleanup efforts, I encourage the Environmental Protection Agency to proceed with a national priority listing under national Superfund laws.
Sen. Jon Tester in a letter to the EPA urging the agency to list the CFAC plant as a Superfund site.
Controversial procedural debates dominate first week of Legislature
By TRISTAN SCOTT of the Beacon
A proposed change to state legislative rules overshadowed the first week of the 64th Montana Legislature, with Demo- crats accusing the GOP leadership of try- ing to hijack control of the session by al- lowing the House Speaker to kill measures at will.
The proposed rule changes emerged in the weeks leading up to the 2015 session, and would have made it easier for House Speaker Austin Knudsen to kill legislation by burying it in the House Appropriations committee, where measures are some- times punted at the behest of majority leadership to quietly wither away without seeing debate on the House floor.
But Democrats complained that the changes proposed by the GOP leadership were designed to give the party an un- precedented amount of power, calling the changes undemocratic.
The major point of contention centered on a rule that would have given Knudsen the power to effectively kill a bill by refer- ring it to the House Appropriations com-
mittee when it came to the House floor for final debate. The change would have re- quired 60 votes – known as a super major- ity – to overturn his decision. The old rule, on the other hand, required 51 votes, or a simple majority.
The change was thrown out in the House Rules Committee before the mea- sure made it to the floor after the parties worked out a deal that allowed each caucus six “silver bullets” to save their bills from dying in committee, which Democrats will need if they hope to get bills like Medicaid expansion to the House floor for debate.
Minority Leader Chuck Hunter also called for an amendment allowing a sim- ple majority on a “blast” motion, which can rescue a dead bill from committee and “blast” it back to the floor. However, the amendment failed in committee.
Knudsen and Hunter cut a deal be- fore the proposed rule change was sched- uled for a floor session. Knudsen said they worked out a deal because he and his par- ty wouldn’t be able to obstruct certain amendments after moderate Republicans pledged to support them alongside Demo- crats.
A faction of conservative Republicans voted against the deal, saying the Demo- crats would use the exceptions to the rule to force their agenda through the Legisla- ture.
Rep. Art Wittich, R-Bozeman, accused a group of self-named “Responsible Re- publicans” of splitting with the party and forcing Kundsen to accept the deal.
Last session, a group of moderate Re- publicans joined with Democrats to pass major legislation, such as a school funding bill, pension reform and a state employee pay plan.
The vote on the proposed rules change is evidence that the division still exists.
Rep. Tom Woods, D-Bozeman, serves on the Houser Rules Committee, and called the GOP’s proposed rules “undemo- cratic.”
“Under current rules, a speaker can re- direct practically any bill that comes out of a committee to the Appropriations Com- mittee. Some speakers tried to use this as a weapon, referring bills they did not like to this committee for quiet disposal, but as a check to this power, the legislature could override the speaker with a simple majori- ty vote,” Woods said. “The GOP leadership faction is trying to change the override re- quirement to a super majority (60 votes). This will allow the speaker to kill bills he doesn’t like regardless of majority opin- ion. That’s undemocratic in that it negates a basic principle of our legislature – that the majority of members decide an issue.”
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