For more information contact: Michael Howard 651-296-8873

Press/News Releases

House Passes Permanent Rules, Making Legislature More Open to the Public

Changes represent two years of bi-partisan hearings, public input in House Government Reform Committee

On Thursday, the House of Representatives adopted its Permanent House Rules, making the most significant changes in over 20 years. The new rules implement over 50 changes recommended by the House Government Operations, Reform, Technology and Elections Committee that has worked on legislative reform for nearly two years. Rep. Gene Pelowski - Winona, who chairs the committee, said the new rules mark an important recognition that the Legislature needs to adapt in order to make state government more accessible and open to the public.
“Former Chief Clerk of the Minnesota House Ed Burdick said ‘The vitality of government flourishes when public officials continually seek to better the institutions they serve. What’s essential, however, is a willingness to look for weaknesses or to identify processes to be revamped. Otherwise, policymakers end up trying to operate modern legislatures with old rules and procedures’", said Pelowski.
Pelowski echoed these remarks on the House Floor yesterday as he discussed the work of the House Government Operations, Reform, Technology and Elections Committee since the summer of 2007 to improve House rules. As Chair of the Committee, Pelowski invited legislative experts from the National Conference of State Legislatures (“NCSL”), current and former legislators, House staff, lobbyists, and the public to participate in the discussion.
One of the most significant rules adopted yesterday implements a House floor management process focused on fairly managing floor discussions. 90% of other state legislatures have a similar rule. On the floor, Pelowski noted comments made by the Director of House Research, Patrick McCormack, at the first of eight hearings since 2007.
McCormick said, “Time is a lost commodity at the Legislature. Typically, Minnesota has adopted an attitude that leans against listening to how other states work. I would argue this attitude can be self-defeating.”
“We need to prioritize the resources of the state because they are limited,” said Pelowski. “We have finite resources to serve the people and if we allow infinite discussion on the floor our system breaks, and it has broke in the last several years. We have to fix it.”
Pelowski said overall the rule changes will improve management of time of floor debates and make it easier for the public to track legislation moving through the process and provide input to the legislative process.
“On the House floor we have a choice to be statesman or politicians, and too often over the last few years we have slipped,” said Pelowski. “Let’s return the Minnesota House to our tradition so that when we stand up on the House floor we argue for the betterment of our state because we’ve done our work in committee, because we have had public input, and because we understand what we are going to vote on and the impact it will have on our constituents.”

Committee recommendations directly implemented in House rule or policy include:

• The names and jurisdiction of House and Senate committees should be more closely aligned, including the accounts assigned to budget divisions.
• House and Senate committees should cooperate more, by establishing more joint House/Senate committees, or by having more joint committee meetings. The Pension Commission is a good example. Having joint committees or joint hearings would be particularly useful for finance committees.
• House and Senate committees with similar jurisdictions should facilitate joint hearings. These committees could be scheduled to meet at the same time, to facilitate joint hearings. However, if this is done, committee chairs and staff would need to coordinate to make sure members of the public can participate in the meetings of committees in both the House and Senate when they don’t meet jointly.
• Each House member should serve on fewer committees, which should be accomplished by reducing the number of committees and by reducing the number of members serving on each committee.
• The minority caucus should have proportional representation on all committees and divisions.
• The jurisdiction of each House committee and division should be described in detail (including the chapters of Minnesota Statutes within the jurisdiction of each group) and this information should be available on the House website.
• Committees should give better notice of their agendas, including notice of major amendments to be considered.
• Committee chairs should attempt to give notice of the next week’s agenda by Thursday of the preceding week.
• Committee meetings should begin at the scheduled time.
• Committees should be expected to do most of the work on bills. The House should use standing committees and subcommittees to hear testimony, build expertise, and take action on bills, and not rely on working groups, or leave detailed work for the House Floor. Committees should take the time necessary to do this work, even if it means holding bills over for multiple hearings, or having bills sent back from the floor to committee. Committee schedules, member schedules, and committee deadlines should be designed to facilitate this role.
• The House should establish a process under which aggregate time limits can be established for debate on all amendments to a bill.
• The House should consider the scheduled time of floor sessions in relation to scheduled committee meeting times, in particular with regard to potential inconvenience to the public and to House members if meetings/sessions run longer than expected.
• In establishing House rules and procedures, a primary consideration should be making the legislative process easier for the public to participate in and to follow. To the extent possible, the process should be made more transparent to the public, including specifically allowing the public to track movement of language between bills.
• The House and the Senate should make it easier for the public to track bills, especially when bills from one chamber are substituted for companion bills from the other chamber, and when individual bills are rolled into omnibus bills.
• The house should hold more hearings away from the Capitol, including possibly mini-sessions in Greater Minnesota during the interim
• The legislature should attempt to create reasonable expectations for the media and for the public about what the legislature can accomplish and what process is necessary for the legislature to conduct its business.
• The House should make legislative service more family friendly for House members by limiting evening meeting and limiting meetings on Friday afternoons and Monday mornings.
• Legislative leadership and committee chairs should be more willing to say “no” at various points in the process, in part as a means of reducing time spent on matters that are not likely to advance.
• In establishing meeting schedules, the House should take into account the time demands on members who have other jobs.

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If you have additional questions, please contact Rep. Gene Pelowski at (651) 296-8637, or rep.gene.pelowski@house.mn