Arkansas House votes today on rules to select panel members

Speaker would select committee members; seniority out

House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, is shown in this file photo.
House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, is shown in this file photo.

The House will vote today on a collection of rules that upend how representatives are placed on legislative committees.




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Under past rules, lawmakers have chosen their committees on the basis of seniority. Under the proposed change, the House speaker would appoint committee members.

The changes are aimed at "better outcomes on our committees, to align skill sets, experiences, passions and constituent issues that each of us have," House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, told the House Rules Committee on Tuesday. The committee approved the proposal without dissent.

But Minority Leader Michael John Gray, D-Augusta, said there was bipartisan concern about giving the speaker -- rather than individual representatives -- control over the committee selection process.

"I think this may be a move too far to try to alleviate some of the stress during the committee selection," he said in an interview.

Bills initially are assigned to House or Senate committees for consideration. Those committees determine what bills move to the full House or Senate for votes. If a bill stalls in a committee, two-thirds of lawmakers can vote to extract it, although that power is rarely used.

In November, Democrats -- who at that point had 26 members in the 100-member body -- secured a majority on the House Revenue and Taxation Committee, which reviews tax-related policy.

Democrats now have 24 House members because two representatives switched parties. One of those was Rep. Joe Jett, R-Success. His switch left the Revenue and Taxation Committee with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.

Jett was named chairman on Monday.

"Obviously it's not coincidental," Gray said of the proposed rule change. "Obviously you can tie it to that."

However, Gillam said the rule change had nothing to do with the Revenue and Taxation Committee.

"We started working on this before that even happened," he said.

Forty-six other states make legislative committee appointments "by speaker or some slight deviation of that," he said. "What I'm advocating is what the bulk of the nation does."

Of the 46, Gillam said about a dozen states involve the minority leader in the decision-making process.

"The component that allows that to happen is that there is a set parameter on the partisan makeup of those committees so that it guarantees that is proportional," he said.

He said he didn't include that provision in his proposed rules because he did not want to limit the makeup of committee members by party.

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"What I felt like is that each body is different and so you might need potentially, say, six Democrats on a committee based on their skill sets, the experiences they have," he said.

Asked why a speaker wouldn't assign members of the minority party to less consequential committees, Gillam said there are checks and balances in the process and the speaker has to win an election in the House.

"You have to still function as a body," he said. "None of the speakers that I've served under were punitive."

But Gray said it's impossible to say how future speakers will act.

"This body elected Speaker Gillam, but going into the next General Assembly no one knows who the next majority/minority leader will be -- or the speaker of the house will be," he said.

"So, we are instilling more power in a way that could be wielded punitively. It could absolutely be wielded punitively to opponents, new members who beat an incumbent, members of the other party, members of your own party that didn't acquiesce.

"The nature of the rules committee is that a lot of times once things come to rules the decision has been discussed and frankly sometimes has been made," Gray said.

"There's a real reticence my members of either party on the rules to make waves."

Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin tweeted in November that the Democratic takeover of the Revenue and Taxation Committee was "an affront to voters and outrageous. Unacceptable."

He said Tuesday that "I have my preferences" on how members are selected. He spoke of Democrats and Republicans caucusing to choose committee members.

"My focus has been on composition," he said. "I just don't believe that it is respectful of Arkansas voters to give power back to the minority party when the voters just gave it to you. It just doesn't make any sense to me."

Griffin added that he believed the majority party should chair all committees, but that "does not mean I agree with the decision to place new converts in charge of the flock, so to speak."

One lawmaker mulling a run for House speaker in the future, Rep. Michelle Gray, R-Melbourne, said she had initial reservations about the rule change, but they were cleared during discussions with Gillam. The future speaker, she said, would be concerned with placing the right candidates with experience onto appropriate committees.

A Section on 01/11/2017

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