Predetermined outcomes

Good governance suffers when subcommittee meetings are tightly scripted

This is my 17th legislative session. I’ve seen majorities shrink, grow and change hands. I’ve seen committees reconstituted and passed through the hands of scores of chairs, from the seasoned to the up-and-coming.

I’ve seen the House adapt to technology and public demands for transparency by implementing automated electronic notification systems that notify anyone who signs up for notification to get notice of meeting times, agendas, and changes to either. I’ve seen the House reverse its worrying practice of defeating bills on mere voice votes. I’ve praised that chamber’s embrace of tools to stream first, committee meetings, then subcommittees, and doing so in a manner that allows for easy searching, clipping and sharing.

I’ve been rough on the Senate during that time for not following the House’s lead. But on one issue, the Senate — the more deliberative of the two chambers — outshines its counterpart, and that is on actual debate and consideration of bills in committee.

I’m not naive enough to think that the fate of many bills — even in the Senate — hasn’t been decided in advance of a subcommittee or committee gaveling in to do their business officially. It’s always been there.

But I don’t think I’m being paranoid when I say that it has become more and more common in the House subcommittee system to arrange in advance which bills will fail and which ones will advance. Not only that, subcommittee meetings increasingly resemble scripted events.

Here’s what it looks like. The patron presents his/her bill. It seems like a reasonable proposal. Or not. The subcommittee members do not ask any questions or seek clarification. The chair then calls for public comment, sometimes for as brief a moment as 30 seconds per person or two minutes for an entire group of people on one side or another, and often enforced by cutting people off mid-sentence or overriding their Zoom access. A subcommittee member then makes a motion. If it’s in line with what has been decided ahead of time, it will move on — usually without explanation — but if it strays from the desired outcome, a substitute motion is offered. Substitute motions take priority and the vote will quickly follow. In a nod to we’re-all-friends-here, a motion to defeat a bill is usually accompanied by a (prepared) statement about how it’s a great idea, but….it’s too soon, there are possible unintended consequences, there are new standards to follow, it’s Wednesday, whatever.

This doesn’t really impact me. As a lobbyist — even a part-time one who works full-time for an advocacy group — my work should have been done ahead of time, whether that’s meeting with legislators or their aides, talking to lobbyists with opposite interests or supplying written materials explaining our position on a bill. I usually have a pretty good idea how the subcommittee will vote before I even get in the shower that morning.

But it DOES impact members of the public watching from home, waiting online to testify and, most of all, the people who have taken time away from their families, jobs or other obligations to observe and participate in the process.

It’s a recipe for cynicism. It foments a lack of belief that a citizen’s voice can shape a decision, or that their elected officials are working for them, listening to them and acting with at least a nod to their concerns.

30 seconds.

No questions.

No discussion.

Arranged outcomes.

This isn’t policy-making. It’s theater.