The N.C. House adopted its first permanent rules in the post-Jim Black era Tuesday, but a vocal critic of the former speaker blasted House colleagues for “missing a major opportunity.”
The House voted, 83-34, to adopt the rules after an 80-minute debate. The debate included votes to reject a half-dozen amendments from Republican members of the House.
“We have come to the crossroads,” said Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford. “We must follow a path. Let’s follow the right path — the path of reform, the path of principle — that will lead to restored confidence in this organization.”
Black’s recent guilty pleas to federal and state corruption charges tarnished the House’s reputation, Blust said. Only extensive rules changes would have prevented similar problems in the future, he said.
“I think we’re missing a major opportunity here to do nonpartisan, nonpolitical-type reforms that would fix this place,” Blust said. “I think every editorialist in the state has called on us to do it. I think every reform group, advocacy group — left and right — has told us we need to do this. Why aren’t we listening, folks?”
Some House Democrats took issue with Blust’s comments. “It seems that you have indicted the whole state in this reference perhaps to this whole body that’s been going on here based solely on whether or not your little rules get amended,” said Rep. Phil Haire, D-Jackson. “What I hear you say is that this whole body is going to implode if we don’t adopt your amendments.”
Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, raised a similar objection. “I think you’re off base,” Luebke said. “You’re presenting yourself here as the Lone Ranger, as if the 120 of us are not well aware of the sad thing that occurred to this House with the plea that was filed several weeks ago in federal court.”
“I think all 120 of us care about this House a great deal and how it’s been damaged,” Luebke said.
Luebke asked Blust to consider positive changes that House Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, has made in the 2007 legislative session.
“If it’s going to be real change, then why won’t we put it in writing?” Blust said. “Why won’t we put it in the rules? I’d like to take the gentleman at his word, but let me explain it this way: If you’ve had a house broken into, and a couple days later, the police caught the person who did it, you wouldn’t say, ‘Great. Now it won’t happen again. Now I can sit back and do what I always did, and my house won’t be broken into again.’
“No, you get a dog, you get floodlights, you get deadbolt locks for the doors, you get special locks for the windows, you form a neighborhood watch committee, you get an alarm system. You would do something to put in place some safeguards so that it can’t happen again. That’s all we’re asking for.”
Blust sponsored two of the rejected amendments. One would have lowered the voting threshold for House members to overrule the speaker’s decisions. The current threshold is a two-thirds vote. Blust’s amendment would have allowed a simple majority to overrule the speaker. His second amendment would have reined in the speaker’s discretion to ignore other House rules as part of his power to have “general direction of the Hall.”
Other GOP amendments would have: given House members more flexibility to shift money in the budget-writing process, limited the speaker’s ability to deviate from the House’s printed calendar of business, allowed a three-fifths majority to recall a bill to the House floor, and killed a loophole that limits amendments to bills with long titles.
Some Democrats pointed to history before casting their “no” votes. Rep. H. M. “Mickey” Michaux, D-Durham, recalled the budget process under Republican House leadership more than a decade ago. “I tried to move money from one agency to another in 1995, and I wasn’t allowed to do it,” Michaux said. “I think we ought to just go on and kill this amendment.”
Rep. Leo Daughtry, R-Johnston, was House majority leader in 1995. “Rep. Michaux, you are right,” Daughtry said. “In 1995, you tried to move some money from one department to the other, and you were not permitted to. It was wrong then. It will be wrong in 2007 if we don’t adopt this amendment.”
Beyond the amendment debate, House Minority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake, raised general concerns about rules that could block the will of a House majority. “While one of my jobs is to stand up for the rights of the minority party, my bone to pick with these rules is the way they depreciate the will of the majority,” he said. “Procedural roadblocks and the actions of temporary majorities may thwart the most just, the most wise, and the most efficacious legislation.”
Without the Republicans’ amendments, the adopted rules still include more than a dozen changes. Many have drawn praise from representatives on both sides of the aisle. “The permanent rules before us today will ensure greater debate, openness, and transparency in the way we do business in this chamber,” said House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson. “The new rules will allow us to accomplish our legislative goals regarding education, health care, the economy, and many other issues.”
House rules now ban “special provisions” in the state budget bill that have nothing to do with the state’s spending plan. A special provision avoids the committee debate that most legislation faces. In recent years, lawmakers have used special provisions to approve a state lottery and to mandate eye exams for all public school kindergartners. The eye exam requirement was later overturned.
The new rules also ban “floaters,” representatives who are allowed to vote in any House committee meeting. Critics contend that “floaters” allowed previous House leaders to guarantee that a committee would approve controversial legislation.
Another new rule is designed to give lawmakers more time to consider important bills before voting. The rule would force House leaders to secure a majority vote before the full House could hear a bill on the same day it clears a committee.
“I think the speaker has really tried to make — along with the rest of us — a valiant effort to really try to make these rules fair,” said Rep. Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank, the Rules Committee chairman. “I think that has happened.”
All 34 “no” votes came from Republicans. “I do acknowledge the permanent rules are better than the temporary rules,” Stam said. “They made some improvements. But overall, I think it’s anti-majoritarian, non-democratic. Therefore, as a representative in the people’s House, the House of Representatives, I’m going to vote ‘no.’”
The new rules cover only the House. State senators made few changes in the permanent rules adopted for their chamber in January. Hackney’s Senate counterpart, President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, said he likes using special budget provisions.
“We still will have a problem because the Senate is not probably going to adopt this rule,” Owens warned House colleagues during their debate. “We will have it. We had to fight very hard last year in conference dealing with that.”
Mitch Kokai is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.