The Utah House and Senate may well operate their Rules committees differently come the 1995 session, with both bodies claiming their alternatives to "sifting" bills as the more open, fair and responsible way.
The Utah Legislature is the only legislature in the nation, according to its own researchers, which holds closed, secret meetings to decide which bills go to which committees or die quiet deaths. Under current rules, Rules Committee members in the House and Senate are prohibited from talking about what goes on behind the closed doors, and no minutes of what went on or who voted which way are kept.In the 1995 Legislature, the Senate will follow the wishes of newly elected Senate President Lane Beattie, R-West Bountiful. Beattie will have legislative staffers suggest, based on subject matter, which Senate standing committees will review each bill. It's his goal to assign every Senate bill to a standing committee. If the committee approves of the bill, it will go to the floor calendar for action. If there's not enough time at the end of the session to debate and vote on all the bills - and there certainly won't be - the Senate majority leader, in consultation with the minority leader, will "sift" bills by making motions to move bills to the top of the calendar for consideration.
Senate Democrats appear to agree with that plan, saying Beattie's plan has informally been how the Senate operated last year and there weren't many problems.
In the Senate, then, the Rules Committee would lose its power to "sift" bills and would take up less important matters like internal parliamentary procedures and other special assignments.
Senators of both parties may like Beattie's idea, but some House Republicans and all House Democrats hate it.
In a meeting this week between newly elected House GOP leaders and some selected House Republicans, it was decided that House GOP leaders will recommend to the whole GOP House caucus next week that Beattie's plan not be followed in the House.
Instead, leaders will suggest that the current secret House Rules Committee just be opened to the public but keep its sifting responsibilities. "The idea is that (House) Rules will operate like a conference committee," said one Republican who attended the meeting. That is, House Rules can meet at any time without 24-hour notice; the public can attend but can't speak; motions from committee members can be made at any time and a majority vote rules. The Rules chairman will try to keep the merits of individual bills from being debated, since that debate will take place in a standing committee or on the House floor.
House Democrats are peeved at their Senate party colleagues for going along with Beattie's plan. "We've been told (by Republican leaders) that (Beattie's plan) would mean more power for minority leadership, and I agree with that," says House Minority Whip Kelly Atkinson, D-West Jordan. "It would give us (Democratic leaders) more power because we'd be deciding with (the majority Republican leaders) which bills are debated." But, says Atkinson, the public isn't concerned about giving more power to one group of legislators; it wants open meetings so public business can be discussed publicly.
Under Beattie's proposal, says Atkinson, leaders will secretly decide among themselves which bills make it to debate the final days of each session. "And that's just wrong."
Beattie and his supporters argue that nothing will be done in secret. Each member of the Senate or House can rise at any time and make a motion to lift a bill from a committee or move it from the bottom of the floor calendar to the top for immediate debate and voting. A public debate over that motion ensues and public votes taken whether to consider that bill, says Beattie. In fact, Beattie believes his plan is more open, since he argues an open Rules Committee will just routinely vote out long lists of bills with little or no debate - nothing for the public to see, no public input.
But Atkinson and some House Democrats and Republicans say the Beattie plan has great opportunity for back-room deals. The Senate president or House speaker could keep a controversial bill bottled up; the potential is too great for abuse of power by a few individuals, they argue.
If the House GOP caucus next week agrees with its leaders' suggestion on opening its Rules Committee, then there will two sifting operations in the 1995 session. After the session ends, both bodies will debate how bill sifting was handled and, leaders hope, come 1996 the House and Senate will operate the same way.
That worries House Democrats. "We worry the majority Republicans will force Beattie's plan on us," leaving citizens wondering why a bill was never heard and lobbyists free to push their special interest agendas in private, says Atkinson.