State Legislative Process Episode 6

>>Welcome to State Legislative Process. I am Rick Griffin, and today’s episode is the committee system. Our lesson points are:
>>[graphic]
>>We begin with the historical development and importance of committees. Since the beginning of our nation, committees have played an important role in the American legislative process. Legislative historian, Pev Squire, notes that committees were used as far back as colonial times. Colonial assemblies first formed ad hoc committees for a specific purpose or bill. Over time, Standing Committees were established to meet particular needs of the colonial assemblies and States Legislatures,. The rise of committees was one indicator of how local government in American was differing from government back in England. During the colonial era, committees lost prominence in England, while in America they continued to develop and to play an important part in the legislative process. Committees, for example, played a role in the American Revolution. In 1776, the Second Continental Congress used a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. The committee consisted of the principle author, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, John Adams of Massachusetts, Robert Livingston of New York, and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. From its collaborations and the gifted pen of Jefferson, the committee produced much more than a simple pronouncement of independence, The Declaration outlined the natural and positive rights of the colonists, including the right of revolution. It indicted the king under both natural law and English law, argued for the legitimacy of the new nation, and proclaimed on a world stage the idea that all men were created equal. It was truly, as Jefferson would later put it, and expression of the American mind. Another prominent example of committees occurred in 1787, when the Philadelphia Convention used committees to assist them in their gigantic task of framing a new, and in several ways unique, constitution. The framers of the Constitution used committees to outline proposals, work out differences in proposals, and to prepare and draft the text of the Constitution. To learn more about the historical development and importance of committees, we turn to President Sederburg and Dr. Pev Squire.
>>We are talking today with Dr. Pev Squire, who is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa, where it is currently eight degrees as we do this on a February day. Dr. Squire is coeditor of Legislative Studies Quarterly, and is one of the leading scholars on the state legislatures. What we would like to talk about is committees. And let’s start with a little bit of the history of state legislative committees. I know you have talked before about Standing Committees as opposed to ad hoc committees. When did we have the first legislative committees, and how did they evolve over time? 
>>Well, you can find Standing Committees very early in state legislative histories. You find then in the period between 1776 and 1789. They sort of grew out of the experience in the colonial era where there were Standing Committees in many of the colonial assemblies. And they were established to deal with routine matters that the Legislature had to deal with every session, and where it made sense to simple devote the energies of some of the members to mastering that material, rather than asking all the members to spend their time on these activities. And so early on in state legislatures you find Standing Committees, usually having to deal with routine budgeting issues, how the state is going to raise money, and how the state is going to spend money.
>>And how did the activity of the Appropriations Committee come about? Instead of just having two different Standing Committees, we have the Appropriations Committee, which is quite a different animal.
>>Well, typically Appropriations Committees came out of Ways and Means Committees, which is this archaic term for tax committees, revenue committees. And there would be one committee that would oversee the entire budgeting process. And when that became too overwhelming, and perhaps some people were concerned, too much power was invested in the hands of too few members on that committee, they tended to split it up, so that one committee focused on how the government raised money, and a separate committee focused on how it went about spending that money.
>>Ok. So the Appropriations Committees in most State Legislatures are the appropriating bodies that decide how money is going to be spent, not the taxation body?
>>Right. Usually you have a Finance Committee, as it is called at the state level, dealing with how the taxes will be raised, and then an Appropriations Committee, with the all-important question of how that money will be spent across government programs.
>>And when did subcommittees come into practice in the country?
>>Well, you find subcommittees, again, even in a few cases, in the colonial era. And as the work load again has continued to increase over time, you find more State Legislatures turning, not just to committees, but to subcommittees within those committees to further divide up the work load and allow the Legislature to attack that work load a little bit more efficiently. 
>>Other committees that are in the State Legislatures are Select Committees, which, I presume, means that they are selected for a specific issue or topic. Is that an increasing phenomenon? 
>>Well, it has been a phenomenon that we have seen over time. I am not sure whether it is increasing any longer. But it is usually targeted to some issue that is particularly current and controversial, and which may not fit very well into the existing committee structure. And it is a way for legislative leaders to show that they are addressing an issue of interest to the public, and also to allow legislators who are interested in that topic to have a vehicle to use to pursue those interests.
>>Would Select Committees typically be able to report legislation out, or would the legislation have to be referred to a Standing Committee?
>>Usually they are intended to help develop legislative proposals, and then those proposals will be funneled through the existing committee structure. 
>>Today committees continue to play an important role in the American legislative process. Congress, State Legislatures, and local governments all use committees to facilitate the law-making process. Speaking of the importance of committees, political scientists William Keefe and Morris Ogul state:
>>[graphic]
>>This brings us to lesson point number two: types of committees. Similar to Congress, State Legislatures have the power to establish committees. Keefe and Ogul remind us that over the years, a few common types of legislative committees have developed. One common type is Select Committees. Select Committees are usually temporary and are established for a particular purpose. Often these committees are used by Legislature to investigate or study a particular issue or problem, and are rarely allowed to initiate legislation. Although Select Committees can be renewed for a longer period of time, they are usually disbanded after the committee’s findings and recommendations are reported to the Legislature. On occasion, however, a Select Committee may be transformed into a Standing Committee. Standing Committees are another common type of committee found in State Legislatures. I fact, they are the most common type of committee, and are the workhorses of the Legislature. Standing Committees are permanent committees established in the rules of the chamber. Standing Committees have jurisdiction over particular kinds of legislation and play a major role in the processing of bills. These committees address such important topics as transportation, taxation, law enforcement, health and human services, business and labor, and appropriations. The Utah House of Representatives currently has fifteen Standing Committees, and the Utah Senate has eleven. To learn more about the importance of Standing Committees in today’s State Legislatures, we turn to Dr. Alan Rosenthal of Rutgers University.
>>Well I think the Standing Committees are the most important work units in a Legislature. Perhaps they used to be more important. I am not sure. But it is the Standing Committee that really crafts a bill, crafts policy. It is where a bill is introduces and it is referred to a Standing Committee, and it is the responsibility of the Standing Committee to review it, to modify it, to rewrite it, to bury it. So it is really the most important place for kind of working on the substance of legislation. And the people on Standing Committees, particularly in states without term limits where people are not rotated in and out, generally acquire some expertise. So on every committee, the Education Committee, the Environmental Committee, the Judiciary Committee, you usually will find one or several members, the Chair and other members, who have been on that committee for a while and know the issues. And these are complicated issues. But the issues aren’t new every session. They tend to continue. The same kinds of issues tend to continue. So some of these people are very skillful and very knowledgeable. Well, in that committee is where the deliberation takes place, the study takes place, where arguments for and against take place, and where members try to build consensus and work out the initial set of compromises. I think that in a really good Legislature, a bill that comes out of committee is a bill that will be supported by members and will have no trouble passing in that particular house. It may be a different bill that came out of the committee in the other house. So committees are enormously important, and committees are organized by the majority party. That is to say, the majority party appoints the Chairs of committees, and the majority party usually has the majority of members on the committee. But committees are less partisan than other aspects of the legislative process. A committee is a place where a minority party member in a very competitive two-party Legislature can have influence. A minority party member may not get credit for a bill in a committee, but a minority party member can help to shape that bill. So the committees are the most bipartisan places in the Legislature. And they are the places that deal mostly with substance—also with politics. By the time a bill comes out of committee and perhaps goes to the caucus, the majority party caucus, then in a majority party caucus of Democrats or Republicans, whichever is the majority, then you have got more political decisions taking place. But the committee is really the major work institution of the Legislature. And I think the important thing is never to weaken committees. You want strong committees that command the respect and even the deference of members who are not on the committee.
>>Another common type of legislative committee is the subcommittee. These committees are established to allow for further specialized review of complex legislation and to provide additional leadership opportunities for members of the Legislature. In theory, subcommittees are extensions of their parent Standing Committees. However, some subcommittees can become quite independent and powerful in their own right, depending upon the leadership style of party leaders and the rules of the particular chamber. Speaking of subcommittees’ increasing independence at the Congressional level, Keefe and Ogul state:
>>[graphic]
>>Last month, in connection with a bill to grant university status to Utah Valley State College, Commissioner Richard Kendall of the Utah System of Higher Education and President Bill Sederburg of UVSC answered questions and presented information to the Utah State Legislature’s Higher Education Appropriation Subcommittee.
>>There is the business that refers to the highest degree possible in your field. So for example, I am a terminal degree political scientist. And it is terminal. And it affects you entire life, and you finally die from it. If you are in performing arts, it is the Master of Fine Arts Degree. And there are different levels. And so one of the majors of the universities is how highly educated are you faculty. And we have gone to about fifty-two percent of our faculty that have terminal degrees. And that is just one of the majors that one uses.
>>Thank you.
>>The Commissioner and other experts have looked at it and predicted the growth of around thirty to thirty-five thousand students within about fifteen years, something like that. I say I don’t know how honest you want me to be, because that is one thing about Utah. I cannot figure out how to predict enrollment here in the state. I am totally at a loss. Our enrollment is up a thousand students this semester, and we were predicting a flat enrollment, that we would have basically the same enrollment as we had last year—maybe a slight increase. But we are up a thousand students, and I think it is because I am doing such a fine job as President, [laughter] but I don’t know that everybody agrees with that. So we are having a little bit of a challenge predicting things. But there is no doubt as the county moves towards a million people in population, that is a large metropolitan area, and most large metropolitan areas like that are serviced by three or four universities, combined private and public universities. So the demand is just going to keep growing. I do think there is going to be an increased interest from out-of-state and international students, because the word university does mean a lot more to those students from outside the state as they look at going to a different state. And certainly that is true of international students. We think this is a natural evolution. It is a small step. The adding of a master’s degree or two is not huge step for college campuses. Over half of our faculty in English, and in Business, and in Nursing already have taught graduate level classes at other institutions. And so it is in one sense a big thing, and on another level it is not that huge of a step as we transition into institution.
>>I would anticipate a graduate enrollment of around a thousand students. I would anticipate that you could pretty easily get three hundred students in a Master of Education degree program. I don’t think it would be too difficult—likewise in Business. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see something like a thousand students attaining a graduate level in three or four high-quality programs. Developing growth will still be at two-year associate degree level and the Bachelor’s degree level. And they are now offering enough Bachelor’s degrees that there is just a real solid core there. They have five or six more that I think they want to add. And I think they are doing it the right way. They are adding a few at a time. They are building their full-time faculty. I support the idea of adjuncts, it is just how many fill-time and how many adjunct, and getting that ratio a little better. So a combination of the two-year degrees, the four-year degrees, and they still have certificates programs which are very vital. It is going to be a multipurpose, multilevel kind institution, just like Weber State is in the Ogden-Weber area.
>>We have every interest in maintaining that community college role, very similar to how Weber State does it currently. I think that would be the clearest model that we would have in the state. We will maintain that commitment to the community college role. For one reason, as the Commissioner pointed out, it is our bread and butter. It is by far the largest percentage of students that we have currently. It is changing a little bit, but we cannot afford, nor do we want to abandon that mission. A trickier question is related to the Trades and to the Applied Technology College. We have a good, strong relationship with Mountainland Applied Technology College. We are evolving those non-credit programs away from us and shifting those to the ATC. We want to maintain the credit programs and we also, while we do that, want to make sure there are college level credits that are given. So there will be a change over time to a little bit more sophisticated technology programs, and that will be demanded by an increasingly sophisticated technological economy. And so it is not going to be static. We are not going to have exactly the same programs every year, but our commitment is to the broader community and to the state, and that community and state is going to require us to maintain technology programs, those trades programs where credits are involved with it, as well as a whole set of applied degrees.
>>Thank you, President Sederburg and Commissioner Kendall. We will check back later to observe the progress of the UVSC bill as it moves through the legislative process. The next common type of committee is Joint Committees. As the name suggests, these committees consist of members of both chambers who serve jointly on the same committee. Joint Committees are designed to build cooperation between the two chambers of the Legislature. They can be either temporary Select Committees or permanent Standing Committees. Often Joint Committees take the form of a conference committee established to smooth out differences in versions of a bill after it has made its way through both chambers. Joint Committees are more common at the congressional level than the state level. However, Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts use Joint Committees as their predominant committee organization. In addition,. Several other states use Joint Committees in varying degrees, including Utah. To learn more about Joint Committees in the Utah State Legislature, we join Jeff Alexander, a former Chair of the powerful Utah Executive Appropriations Committee.
>> Let’s start with your role as Appropriations Chair, responsible for putting together the whole budget. How do you go about doing that in a leadership spot?
>>Well, the way we have always done it is having a budget chair from the House and the Senate who work together.
>>Are they different? Appropriations Chair? When you say Budget Chair, is that different than the Appropriations Chair?
>>No, it is the same thing.
>>The same thing.
>>I am referring to the same thing. So it is really the Chair of the Executive Appropriations in Utah. And the Executive Appropriations is made up of leadership, minority and majority, from both Houses. So we will work with the Senate Appropriations Chair and our staff, the Fiscal Analyst’s Office, to put together the budget. Because we are a part-time Legislature, we use our staff a lot in these situations. We don’t have time to really put together the budget ourselves.
>>But you have to understand the budget.
>>You have to understand the budget. You have to understand every department of the budget, and how revenues come in, and of course, types of expenses.
>>Now you were doing that during some tough times, right?
>>We did that through the toughest time just after 2001, 9-11, when we had to begin to cut budgets.
>>So how do you decide that? Do you say, “Well, I represent Provo, so we certainly don’t want to cut anything in Provo. We are going to take it all out of Ogden.” Or how do you go about making those kinds of decisions?
>>You know, when you are Appropriations Chair, you might have something that you would like to see funded, but it doesn’t become really regional issues in that situation. What we did…
>>Now what keeps it from being a regional issue?
>>Well, at that point you are trying to construct a budget that you can go to full Legislature and get a consensus on. 
>>Everybody weights in.
>>Now if we were in a regular legislative session and putting together the budget, sure you are going to have some projects that come in, whether it is from capitol facilities, or maybe it is transportation, you know, these types of things that might become more regional. But on the overall budget, when we were trying balance it, we were looking at on-going funding. So really, it didn’t include buildings.
>>Help me understand. You have to cut the budget, in those days, maybe eight percent, something like that. How would you go about deciding who got axed?
>>Well the first thing we did is we went in and asked our staff over each department to go ahead and tell us what their priorities would be for cutting funding. Then we…
>>So some states would have negative appropriations, which always hit me as kind of interesting, because appropriations are to give something, but in this case, a negative appropriation.
>>Well, it really was. We were in a certain budget year, and we were having to go back in and change that budget before we went into our regular session. The next step was to meet with the Governor to find out what his priorities were, and to try to come together. And of course, as usual, in any budget type of situation, the Governor had different ideas than we did. 
>>Who is more powerful, the Appropriations Committee or the Governor?
>>Well, it depends on the…
>>You can be honest, there. I mean, you are leaving, so…
>>Well, it really does depend on the issue. In some situations the Governor may not care if we want to fund this, or we want to cut back on this. And that is fine. He may have other things that are really important to him, and he doesn’t want you messing with those at all.
>>So when you go into that budget deliberation, either cutting the budget or adding to the budget, you are fully aware of the Governor’s top two or three priorities, then?
>>Oh, yes.
>>And do you ever hold him hostage in any way?
>>Well, I think that when you are negotiating, and you get close to the end of the session, that is when those things really become hot priorities.
>>You know, the first year I was here, Governor Walker wanted reading. And it wasn’t very clear—you folks in the house weren’t too excited about the Governor’s reading initiative. Didn’t she call you into her office at one time and kind of give you grief about it?
>>Well, she might have done that to the Speaker and the President of the Senate, but not…
>>Not everybody.
>>No. Not at that point. And our big question at that point that we had was how is this really going to benefit education? Wouldn’t we be better off just letting the districts decide on their own? Giving them the funding, and letting them decide.
>>Ultimately, you gave the money to the Governor?
>>Part of it came from the legislature. The other part came from districts. If they wanted to get the funding from the State, they had to go ahead and put a levy to tax more.
>>When you were chairing the Appropriations Committee, what was the hardest single decision that you had you make? I mean, were there one or two that really stand out in your mind?
>>I can’t think of a single decision, but probably that year when we had to go in and redo budgets, that was the hardest process we went through. And that not only lasted—well, and part of our problem that year was Governor Leavitt didn’t want to call us back in, because he didn’t want us to dig into that budget too early, and so we put it off.
>>Until right at the very end, and the clock was running down on forty-five days?
>>Well, it was even before our general session. We finally had to call a special session right before we went into the general session, just to deal with that budget, because the economy had changed so drastically within those four months. But he had put it off as long as he could.
>>When you are in that situation, is everybody calling you, and everybody wanting a piece of you in trying to convince you not to cut their budget?
>>Oh, yes.
>>And how do you deal with that?
>>It is the same thing as when you go into a session. They are calling because they want more money.
>>So everything is the same, it is just a matter of whether it is positive or negative?
>>The nice thing about that time and for the next year or two after this, people realized we didn’t have any money. And so we had fewer calls. And then as the economy improved, it got worse, because everybody thought there was just endless money.
>>It always seems like the expectations are important. Now like this year, there seems to be the expectation that there is lots of money. So everybody has a big laundry list of wants, and they come and then you say, “No,” almost always. And when you don’t have any money, nobody expects that, anyway.
>>It seems like in the Legislature, the ideal situation is where nobody is totally happy.
>>Pretty much.
>>Is that a fair summary of that?
>>I think that is very good. Two years ago, we had a situation where the House pretty much got what they wanted. And the people who weren’t happy…
>>Well, the Senate says that happens every year, that the House tends to get what they want.
>>Well, ok.
>>Who is to argue?  
>>But this time, especially, we took our positions early, and we improved those positions along the way. We didn’t moderate, and because the Senate didn’t take positions, they just had no place to go.
>>So staking out an early position and sticking to it was extremely powerful.
>>We always believe that the person who takes the position first wins.
>>That is kind of interesting. And the Senate doesn’t agree with that.
>>Apparently not. They don’t take positions.
>>Last topic. In Utah, there are hardly any Democrats, but there are a number of Democrats, the minority party. What is your approach to the minority party? Are they just totally excluded from the heart of the decisions that are made?
>>We like to work with the minority party as much as we can. There are times when they get leadership in there that want to really push their issue, want to make it, whether it is with the media—mostly the media—just cause trouble for the majority party…
>>And draw some distinctions for the next election.
>>We are not as willing to work with them as somebody who is willing to step up give and take. It is just like even negotiating within our own caucus. And so you can either…You know, there are two ways to look at it. Some of them don’t feel like they are successful if the are not causing trouble. Others have found success in getting things done for their caucus members by working closely with the majority leadership.
>>Has there ever been a circumstance in which you had to go to the Democrats to get the vote that you needed to do something?
>>I am sure there have been.
>>But you don’t recall them? It is not a very common…
>>No, I can’t think of a specific case.
>>It will be interesting to watch what happens at the federal level now.
>>That is part of our challenge, though, because if a certain number of our caucus wanted to get an issue that the minority party was interested in, they could easily go over and work together. And so that is part of the challenge of leadership, to make sure that you are holding people together. And so it forces you at times to moderate.
>>I know one of the frustrations of the Democrats is that often their good ideas might be just absorbed by the majority caucus and enacted, and nobody would know for sure whether they were Democratic or Republican ideas.
>>You know, the thing that I was told a long time ago, and this was very good advice. The majority party has to balance the budget. Now if the Republicans were in the minority, we could go out and we could talk all the crazy things we wanted to, because we don’t have to balance the budget.
>>No responsibility.
>>Sometimes that is what it appears with the minority party, because they can go out, and they can play to the press, they can play to the people, and then blame the majority party because they didn’t fund this, or they didn’t pas that.
>>So you will be watching what goes on at the federal level with great interest.
>>It will be very interesting.
>>Because suddenly a lot of responsibility falls on their shoulders.
>>Except they don’t have to balance the budget.
>>That is true, in Washington they don’t have to.
>>That is the biggest difference.
>>Do we have a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget?
>>We do.
>>Do we have a line item veto for the governor here?
>>He does have a line item.
>>Has that line item been used a lot?
>>Yes.
>>Has it. You are leaving as majority leader. You are going to join the Huntsman team and be part of the economic development initiatives. What advice would you give a college student about running for the Legislature at some time? Should they? How would they do it if you suggest they do it, and they should get involved?
>>Obviously, they need to get involved in the issues. They need to learn the issues. They need to start to develop their own opinions, their own ideals. I think that is the most important thing before somebody runs for office, because if you get somebody who hasn’t really established how they believe in themselves, and they run for a position and get elected, most of the time those people are all over the map. You don’t know what they really believe in.
>>Are those the kind of people that whoever talked to them last, has the power?
>>Sometimes.
>>There are certain legislators that is seems like if you just get  to them right before the vote you have got a good chance of getting their vote. If you are too early…
>>The people who will find the most success are those who really know how they believe. I don’t care if it is conservative, liberal—it doesn’t matter. They need to know how they believe.
>>Do you ever see yourself running again?
>>No, I haven’t even thought about running again. 
>You haven’t thought about that.
>>No.
>>Well, we hope you do sometime. Representative Alexander, thank you for your service to the State and thanks for participating in this.
>>It is great to be here. Thanks.
>>This now brings us to lesson point number 3:
>>[graphic]
>>Speaking of the important functions of committees in the legislative process, Dr. Alan Rosenthal states:
>>[graphic]
>>Dr. Rosenthal’s quote highlights several important functions of committees. Committees process the bills referred to them, provide a division of labor in the Legislature, promote representation, enable specialization on a variety of subjects, form a basic block of members for voting purposes on the floor, and allocate benefits to legislators, groups, and the public in general. When it comes to performing its functions, Rosenthal notes that some committees are more successful than others, and that the strength of a committee can be assessed by its ability to perform its functions. Dr. Rosenthal articulates four dimensions by which to assess committee performance. The first dimension of performance addresses how well committees exercise their jurisdiction over legislation. This dimension involves the extent to which a committee is referred bills under its particular jurisdiction: health, labor, education, law enforcement, etc. To effectively exercise its jurisdiction, a committee must be respected and be perceived to possess a certain amount of expertise in their given area. Otherwise leaders and other legislators may not value the recommendations of the committee or follow the voting cues of the committee’s members. In addition, if leadership does not respect the committee, they may even reassign its bills to another committee. The second dimension of performance involves how effective the committee is at screening legislation. This has to do with how well a committee hears a bill, evaluates it, and acts upon it. Because a Legislature may handle thousands of pieces of proposed legislation, it is important that a committee uses its power to sort out flawed, tainted, and otherwise problematic bills, and to advance bills that are sufficiently prepared for debate on the floor. This brings us to the third dimension of performance, which has to do with how effective committees are at modifying legislation. In addition to rejecting a bill or reporting it out favorably, strong committees can in subtle and not so subtle way put their stamp on a bill. Strong committees shape and modify bills, thus perfecting and further preparing them for passage on the floor, the goal of the committee being to have a bill pass with few to no amendments on the floor. The fourth dimension of committee performance is directing. This dimension involves the extent to which committee recommendations are followed. A strong committee will have most of its bills that are  reported out of committee pass in both chambers with little opposition. The actions of a strong committee and its Chair can increase the odds of a bill passing. To learn more about the four dimensions of committee performance, we turn to Dr. Rosenthal and President Sederburg. 
>>We are chatting with Dr. Alan Rosenthal, who is the national expert on state legislatures. For twenty years he was the head of the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers University. Since then he has continued to be a scholar there, and has written over six books on the state legislative process. We have been using his book The Decline of Representative Democracy for our purposes and our conversation. One reason why we use it, Alan, is that you give a wonderful flavor of the inside machinations of the State Legislature. I think the language that you use is that the legislative process is a stew pot, a mixture of activities. Let’s zero in on the committee activities. You have talked about having four different dimensions of performance within committee. One dimension has to do with determining jurisdiction. What do you refer to when you talk about the jurisdiction of a legislative committee? 
>>Well, different committees generally…it is a division of labor. A committee system is where labor is divided. And certain legislators specialize on health issues, and other legislators are on a committee that deals with transportation. And other legislators are on a committee that deals with judicial matters and appointments to the courts. So it is the way labor is divided. And each committee, then, has a jurisdiction: health, transportation, appropriations, or what have you. And bills that touch on those jurisdictional areas generally are referred to those committees. And those committees really are the workhorses of the Legislature, because no matter what goes on on the floor or in caucus, the really though work of crafting legislation, of policy making, takes place in committee. 
>>Are there certain committees that are known as the graveyard of legislation? 
>>This varies from state to state, but in some states there are such committees. I am not sure about Utah. I know Texas had traditionally graveyard committees. There are other committees that are the committees that are controlled by the leadership. So if there is a very important bill, somehow the jurisdiction goes to the committees that the leadership feels confident of. This happens. Normally there is a normal committee process, and bills are referred according to the jurisdiction, but then if the leadership feels that a bill shouldn’t come out, the leader and the Chair discuss it, and maybe the bill doesn’t get scheduled for hearings, or maybe it gets heard and then relegated to die.
>>The second dimension of performance in your textbook talks about the screening process within committees, that they tend to screen out bad ideas or unpopular ideas. Can you share some examples of committees that perform that screening activity?
>>Well, I think all committees to some extent screen out legislation. That is to say, if they didn’t screen out bills, that would mean that every bill that was introduced would pass the Legislature, assuming that the committee recommended it out and it passed on the floor. There are fifteen thousand bills introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature. And in every Legislature there are more bills introduced than eventually pass. Maybe ten percent pass, twenty percent pass, twenty-five percent pass. And each committee, basically, takes bills, and some bills have been around a long time, and most members agree that they are not good ideas. And some bills are introduced by members because constituents ask them to introduce a bill, and the member says, “Yes, I will try to help you,” and introduces a bill, but has no real intention of pushing the bill. So these are the bills that fall by the wayside. Some bills get a lot of opposition, and the Chair and the committee members think it is not worth battling over these bills. These are the bills that are screened out.
>>In your research, are there examples of truly bad pieces of legislation that have been introduced that needed to be screened quickly?
>>Well, it is difficult. I have taken the approach that I am not a judge of what is good public policy. I think we have different views on good public policy. Some people think this is good, and others think that is good.
>>But t here must have been some ides that you just thought, “Why are they wasting their time doing this?”
>>I can’t think of any. Maybe I have not gotten that close to foolish ideas. And I am not sure. I mean, I have seen bills that…I will give you an example of a bill that really did get far. And it was a bill that passed in a number of Legislatures. And it was a bill to require identification on dentures, to require that people had their social security number on dentures. Now most people kind of looking at that legislation would think that, “Oh, this may make sense for forensic purposes. It is a way to identify people who have accidents.” Well, actually, it was a bill that was pushed quietly by the nursing home industry. The nursing home industry found that a lot of their elderly people took their dentures out, and it was very difficult to figure out whose dentures went into whose mouth. So they had to try dentures on a variety of people. And the only was to correct that would be to identify each set of dentures. Well normally you might require people coming to that nursing home to have social security numbers on their dentures. But we always ask government to do it for us. So the idea was to get a law that requires dentures to be labeled. Now that was a stupid. Not for the nursing homes, but it would have been stupid to pass it as public policy. It would have required everybody with dentures, whether they went to nursing homes or not, to have the social security numbers on their dentures. And of course there was a technicians’ fee for putting those social security numbers on. So this is an example of the nursing home industry trying to get public support through rather covert means.
>>And that kind of idea got screened.
>>I think it is a bad bill.
>>All right. 
>>I would think that is a bad bill.
>>That is a bad bill. The worst bill that I was aware of in the Michigan Legislature—a Senator actually got it out of committee—and that is, if you ran over an animal on the Interstate Highway, you had to stop and make a concerted effort to find the owner of the dead animal within a two mile area of the accident with the dead animal in the highway. And I don’t know how it ever came out of committee, but we spent about an hour debating that issue before it was totally killed. And I always thought that was just an example of wasted time.
>>I think Legislatures waste their time. But that is what they are for. They are to waste their time, they are to be responsive, they are to do all of those things that really characterize a democracy. The fact is that the Legislature got rid of that bill. It took an hour, but they got rid of that bill. Just yesterday, the New Jersey Legislature, which has never been known for its great courage, enacted a package of property tax relief proposals. And they really worked hard. They were at risk. They made a lot of people, a lot of interest groups, unhappy. And they did it. And I think that is what characterizes Legislatures. They do handle a lot of silly stuff, because we want them to handle silly stuff. The various groups and individuals ask them for it. And I think they give most of it a reasonable hearing, probably more of a hearing than a lot of these ideas deserve.
>>The third category was modifying bills and amending the legislation. What is that process? How often are bills significantly changed in committee?
>>Well I think it depends on the state and the committee. It varies. I think in a good committee system, and there good committee systems and good committees, depending on the members, and the Chair, and the traditions of the committee, I think you will find that the committee really looks seriously and doesn’t take the introduction as it exists, but deliberates over it and thinks, ”Well, maybe it should be tweaked here, or tweaked there, or changes here, or changed there.” So I would say that a good committee system is one that takes that kind of modification job very seriously. If a bill goes into a committee and all they do is vote up or down, I don’t think that is enough to really mold legislation. And the other thing is in my opinion from watching Legislatures, the committee ought to do the major job. When a bill comes out of committee, if the committee has done its job, that bill ought to pass essentially in the shape that it came out of committee. Where you have a strong committee system there will be very few amendments on the floor, very few successful amendments on the floor.
>>Your fourth dimension relates to directing legislation, which I presume refers to the role of the Committee Chair. How would you discuss the role of the Committee Chair in directing the amendment process, directing the outcomes of the committee deliberation?
>>Well, I think the Committee Chair obviously needs the votes of the members, but the members need kind of the support of the Committee Chair. The Committee Chair steers the committee. The Committee Chair sets the agenda. The Committee Chair really has enormous influence. I mean, if you are dealing with a controversial issue and most members are against it, the Committee Chair will not outweigh those most members. But certainly on many issues where people aren’t that firmly entrenched; the Committee Chair can be very persuasive. The Chair decides the strategy. Usually the Chair is part of the leadership team, so the Chair and the Speaker, or the Chair and the President of the Senate, kind of converse and the Chair keeps the leadership informed as to what is going on in committee. And the leadership keeps the Chair informed as to what the leadership thinks about things in committee.
>>As previously noted, strong committees and Committee Chairs can have an impact on directing legislation. Dr. Val Peterson, Vice President of Administration and External Affairs for UVSC, caught up with Representative Stephen Clark, the Chair of the House Business and Labor Committee, and a former member of the powerful House Rules Committee, to find out more about how committees and their Chairs impact legislation.
>>Which committee do you chair?
>>My committee is Business and Labor. 
>>So you had Standing Committee this morning?
>>Standing Committee this morning. We looked at five different bills, and we had three that were fairly controversial. One dealt with gambling. Representative Sandstrom has a bill that kind of tightens the grip on gambling in the State of Utah. We believe, and most, I think, Utahns believe, that gambling is not for this state. We are one of two states that do not allow any gambling. And this bill tightens the grip on not allowing gambling in the State of Utah. 
>>So what other kinds of bills did you look at this morning? You said you had two others that were fairly controversial.
>> We had one dealing with funeral businesses, funeral directors, and how their business succeeds to their family, to their children, how close they have to live to their business. A funeral director, in existing law, cannot live beyond a hundred miles from where they do their business. That has been changed and looked at a little bit closer. There were some other things that the bill did that changed and kind of modernized the funeral business.
>>So as Committee Chair, tell us a little bit about some of your responsibilities as Chair of the Business and Labor Committee.
>>Well, the Chair has a lot of abilities to move bills quickly or hold bills. The Chair sets the agenda. And we are kind of the turnstile for the bills. They come in, and I decide where they are going to be on the agenda, or if they are even going to be put on the agenda. If there are some bills there that I don’t think are appropriate for our committee, we may be send it back, we may just hold it. Those bills that we think are appropriate and we want move, we put them on the agenda and we move them. So we have some latitude to kind of, I don’t like the word, but manipulate the system, so that we can kind of push through bills that we like, and hold on to bills we don’t like, as well. 
>>So you can determine whether or not you take a bill that is important to the majority or the majority, and decide whether or not you are going to hold it or push it through the system.
>>Absolutely. And we only have a certain amount of time to deal with all these bills, so we have got to determine which are the best bills for the State of Utah and for business and labor. And then we make those decisions, put them on the agenda, and move them forward. 
>>The fact is, I think one of the most effective techniques I have seen here in the Legislature for keeping a bill from passing is just delaying it through the process, since it is only a forty-five day session. Is that a technique that you have seen used a lot here?
>>Absolutely. Thank goodness we only have forty-five days, or we would be moving bills constantly, and a lot bills really are just duplicates in their value to the State. There are a lot of bills that really have no effect on the State. They just tend to just continue to reiterate some of the issues and moral values we have. Those are not always effective bills, and we look at them very closely. And if there are already laws on the books that address these problems, we don’t push those bills forward.
>>Now as Committee Chair, you also determine who gets to speak to bills and who gets to make motions, as well. So if you want, you can use parliamentary procedures kind of determine some of the outcomes of the committee, can’t you?
>>We can. I try to leave it open and allow everybody an opportunity to speak to the bills or make motions to the bills. We can go on and on and on in committee hearings and hear the same testimony over and over again. I don’t allow that. We try to keep our meetings crisp and to the point, and we bring them to a vote and vote them in or out. Of course we have a lot of maneuvering in amendments and so forth, but that is all part of the process. But the process works. It works very well. But the Chairman has a great deal of discretion as to how these bills are going to go.
>>How important is the committee vote? I mean, is a unanimous vote that much different, or does it just matter if it passes when you bring it to the floor? Or do people look at it and say, “Well, that one was eight to zero. So this has got to be a good, bill, so I am going to vote for it.”
>>That is a very good question. We look at the committee votes when it comes to the floor, and if there is a split vote or a close vote, then we know that it is a bill that carries some controversy, and needs to be looked at very closely. If it is a unanimous vote, then of course you often think, “Well, if those committee members have looked at it and they feel all right about it…”, then maybe you don’t take it too seriously. You read it, you understand it the best you can, but you rely on those committee members in their decision making.
>>Do you also sit on House Rules? 
>>I did last year. 
>>Oh, you did. Tell us a little bit about the House Rules Committee and what role it plays in a bill working its way through the system.
>>A good question. Rules is a very, very interesting committee. Rules is the ultimate turnstile for bills. Rules sends the bills out to the committees. And there are so many ways you can manipulate in Rules to kill a bill, that a person who sits on Rules has a lot of authority and power. So for instance, if somebody wants to send a bill to a wrong committee, say send a business bill to an Agriculture Committee, they could kill it right there, because Agriculture will look at it and say, “This is not one of our bills. We are not going to deal with it.” And so it dies there. Or they can send a bill to a committee and then the committee refers it back, and they send it to another committee, and it may also be the wrong committee, and it comes back. Or they may just hold it in Rules. Many times Rules will just hold bills that they don’t want to send out. It is a very, very powerful committee, and you have to work closely to those committee members to get your bill through the rule process.
>>So in other words, members of the body would actually lobby members of the House Rules Committee to get their bills out onto the floor, or onto the calendar, wouldn’t they?
>>You want to get to know your Rule Committee person very, very closely and very well, because he or she is the one that makes the decisions for your bills as they move thought the process.
>>All right. Well, thank you Representative Clark. This has been just wonderful learning more about the process, and what has happened today up here upon the Hill. 
>>It is now time for our term of the day. Our term of the day is omnibus bill. 
>>[graphic]
>>We hope you enjoyed today’s program on committees. For President Bill Sederburg, I am Rick Griffin, and we will see you next time on State Legislative Process.41

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