Proposed rule change is ominous
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I have served in the Montana Legislature in four different decades. As the sun sets on my legislative career and rises for the start of the 2015 legislature, I am aghast at a new House rule proposal that would wrest power from individual members of the Legislature and consolidate it in the hands of the Speaker of the House. Already the Speaker is very powerful, with unilateral authority to constitute committees, appoint chairmanships, and assign bills to particular committees.
In past sessions, the Speaker’s decision to assign a bill to a particular committee could be overturned by a simple majority vote of all members of the House of Representatives. This “check” discouraged assigning bills to “kill committees” comprised of handpicked legislators willing to follow the Speaker’s bidding. Once assigned to these committees, popular legislation that is out of favor with the Speaker can be “executed” quietly, out of sight of the public.
Even with this “check,” in recent sessions the use of “kill committees” to prevent floor debate became so pervasive that efforts were already underway to reinstate the pre-term limit process whereby a simple majority could extract a bill from a committee with a “blast” motion. Once free of the “kill committee,” a bill can be deliberated by the entire elected body. This change would return power to the people and we should ask why Knudsen has been working so hard to defeat this effort?
Rather than empower the people, House leadership has done the opposite by proposing an ominous rule change. In an audacious move that mimics what Harry Reid has done in the US Senate to prevent debate on legislation, Knudsen has proposed that he be given “imperial power” by removing the “check”. In doing so, Knudsen has declared that his unilateral decisions are beyond the reproach of a simple majority. Instead, nothing short of a super-majority would be able to overturn his decisions.
Throughout Montana’s long and storied history, no other Speaker has been granted this level of power.
Why is Speaker-Elect Knudsen advocating for a rule designed to prevent a simple majority from even debating, let alone passing legislation? In our nation of representative government, why would Knudsen, a young man in his thirties, need to create a scenario where his power is so absolute? Why should Montanans accept having their own elected Representatives, and ultimately their own concerns, disenfranchised and relegated to second-class status?
I urge every Montanan and every Legislator to demand answers as they carefully consider this newly proposed “Imperial Power Rule.”
History reveals that little long-term good results from empowering a single individual with such authority. We only need to look to D.C. to see that power, once abdicated to an executive, is lost to the people forever.
