Press "Enter" to skip to content

House oversees rules changes 

Yesterday morning the House voted on HR 7 which is the House rules for the 103rd legislative session. While voting on House rules in prior years has tended to be a rather dull affair, this year some noticeable changes will be made which could have some interesting effects on how the House operates going forward.

Removal of Committee Slot Limits

A new change this session is the removal of the Committee Slot Limit, a rule that was established in the prior General Assembly. The Slot Limit only allowed committees to choose two bills to be voted out of committee. This in theory forced committees to choose which two bills were likely to pass through the Senate and possibly be signed by the Governor.

Removing this could be a possible tactical error on the House’s part as the Senate could be even more inclined to disregard a higher quantity of House bills that touch on every subject. After all, as Scott Faughn pointed out on his Midweek Update, the Senate did end up passing the House’s budget last session.

Whether this is due to the tactical thinking of former Speaker Dean Plocher or the condition which the Senate was in during the 2024 session, only time will tell.

Elimination of the Current Bill Count

In another move to increase the number of bills the House could pass, we will see an elimination of the bill cap. House members, in the past, were only able to only sponsor 20 pieces of legislation, with this rule change members could theoretically sponsor as many as they wanted.

 Removal of Spontaneous Amendments and Forcing Bills to Remain Germane to Underlying Bills

Another major rule change is one which would require amendments to the amendment and substitute amendments to be distributed prior to speaking on a bill or inquiring on a bill or an underlying amendment. Floor Leader Alex Riley argued on the House floor that this would ensure more time for members to be able to analyze amendments prior to voting on them.

Another change would see that amendments would need to be germane to the underlying bill. The question of who decides whether or not an amendment is germane would, I suspect, be down to the Speaker himself.

Cutting Third Read Bill Debate Times from 10 Minutes to 5 

The final major change is that the time to speak on a bill during Third Read will be 5 minutes rather than the usual 10. An amendment sponsored by Democratic Rep. Keri Ingle was offered that would have kept the 10 minutes. The amendment was voted down 103-51.

All but one Democrat supported Ingle’s amendment and three Republicans voted for it.

The vote total for HR7 was 106-54 with Republican Representatives Michael Davis, Sparks, Durnell, Wolfin, Titus and Christensen voting No.