This will be our 5th piece on a proposed NH House Rule Change (over just three days). The change, as explained to us, would allow committees to table any bill, meaning no public hearing. Save time and streamline. Eliminate redundancy. That was the plan, and everyone I’ve since heard was on board. It had bi-partisan leadership support. Both sides.
Any committee with a 3/4 majority vote could table a bill they agreed was a waste of time with no hope of passing. Here’s what we received.
Amend House Rule 44 by adding a phrase and new paragraph (f) as follows:
44. Hearings and notices. A hearing shall be held on each bill referred to a committee, unless as provided for below. Notice of committee action shall be posted as follows: (f) A committee may forego a public hearing on a bill with a motion of Refer to Table if 3/4 of the committee votes in favor thereof.
Reinforced in and expanded upon in Op-Ed by Rep McGuire here.
Any committee could table any bill, but any Representative could revive it and get it back onto the long, winding road by asking the full house to save it with just a majority vote.
Most of the commentary on this to date has been about the need to protect the right of every citizen to testify on any bill, for every bill – no matter how ridiculous. CNHT, Cornerstone, Rebuild, a group Named NH Family Justice, and our own contributors weighed in as well.
Protecting public hearings is not a bad thing to want, but I have other thoughts that throw shade on this proposed amendment.
First, I assume the House does not expect to have its calendar sullied with scores of these requests to revive zombie bills because it would – to some degree – waste time on session day floor votes (whose result might be to then “waste” the committee’s time [anyway] on a bill it had already kicked to the curb).
While every bill out of committee gets a floor vote, even if it’s just on consent, this might be offshoring alleged time saved, if you get my meaning.
Next, there are always bad bills, and the 75% threshold to table seems like a high enough bar to protect all but the worst proposed legislation. Not many bills would likely be killed this way in committee, but I’m unclear when that process will happen. Do they schedule a hearing, and citizens show up, and then the committee tables it? They’ve wasted their time – some getting out of work, skipping work, leaving their business, and/or driving great distances to testify on that piece of legislation the committee just effectively shit-canned.
Might that eventually dissuade public testimony under the threat that a bill might get tabled regardless of their sacrifice to show up and speak in favor?
There is also the matter Shannon McGinley brought up this morning. Committees stacked with reps in the majority who oppose issues that might typically pass on the floor (of a Republican lead legislature) can kill bills with 3/4 of a committee before they get a hearing. Doris Hohensee added that the rule “can be used to shut down what leadership considers “extremist” positions within their own party.”
Yes, it could, and I’m sure some people believe they’d never do that, but then I bet they could believe if they thought enough about it.
But, as noted above – taking a distinguished State Rep’s explanation of the rule as Gospel– these can be brought back by any Rep and resuscitated by the added time-consuming simple majority floor vote.
Question. Would floor debate be required to save zombie bills in search of resurrection, and how much time would be allowed for that, if allowed? The rule doesn’t say.
If saved, the committee would then have to hear testimony, but again – are citizens expected to take another day off and travel back to Concord?
If that were true, inadvertent or not, the scheme could favor testimony from lobbyists, bureaucrats in Concord, and people who are more or less continuously in or near the State House “campus.” Entrenched interests could find themselves with a potential monopoly on the “public” testimony.
There may be other hidden side effects, but I’ve just learned that all this noise will likely result in the amendment being tabled first thing tomorrow morning. How Ironic, if true.
May I make a suggestion not that leadership ever runs anything by us or takes our advice? In the future, if you want to mess with public hearings, issue a press release with your understanding of how you think you meant this to work. It will still get picked apart, but given what happened this time, perhaps you can write it to address these concerns before anyone takes you to the woodshed.
Or not.
