House battle over roll call votes ends
NASHVILLE (AP) — A spat between House Republicans and Democrats over voting procedures that stalled action on dozens of bills ended Wednesday.
House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh announced at the start of the afternoon session that both parties agreed to a compromise that would make lawmakers accountable for their subcommittee votes, allow the public to access them and let the Legislature get back to business.
The partisan fight began Monday when Republican Leader Tre Hargett proposed a change in House rules requiring roll call votes on all matters. The Republicans were aiming for roll call votes only on substantive action on bills, but the Democratic speaker agreed to give them exactly what they asked for — as a weeklong experiment.
That meant the roll was called on each and every vote, no matter how procedural — lengthening the time it took to handle bills and causing dozens to get stuck in committees that ran out of time to consider them. For example, it took two roll calls by the House Education K-12 Subcommittee to hear testimony from an Education Department employee Tuesday.
“This procedure, no matter the intentions behind it, is bulky, it’s cumbersome, unnecessarily slows down the process and in the end will extend our session with unnecessary expenses,” Naifeh said. He said each day that lawmakers are in session costs taxpayers $24,474.
Legislators are trying to finish up their business by mid-May, largely because it’s an election year and they want to be able to spend time in their districts raising money and campaigning.
The compromise allows a return to “voice” votes but requires them to be recorded and kept with the bills as they travel through the House. Before, subcommittee could vote to kill bills but no member was held accountable on the issue.
The procedure will be similar to one now in full committees where all members are recorded as voting for a measure that passes unless they specifically seek to be noted as opposing it.
Hargett said the new policy “furthers the cause of open government.
“There’s still a ways to go and I look forward to providing the citizens of this state with increasing levels of access to our public officials, but we have accomplished much this week.”
The compromise also would provide members with a grievance process if they feel slighted by a chairman’s action.
Last week, domestic relations subcommittee chairman Sherry Jones, D-Nashville, deferred Republican Rep. Chris Clem’s bill prohibiting gay civil unions without taking a vote on it and then gaveled the meeting out of session. The bill was killed on a 5-4 vote Wednesday.
Naifeh said he likes Republican Rep. Bob McKee’s suggestion that any member who feels slighted by a subcommittee chairman appeal to the chairman of the full committee. If unsatisfied with the result, that member could confer with the speaker and House Republican and Democratic leaders.
“We may or may not do it that way, but we’re going to put something in place,” Naifeh said.
———
Tennessee General Assembly: http://www.legislature.state.tn.us