House Rules

[MozoVote]

http://jackbetts.blogspot.com/2010/11/gop-lawmaker-suggests-house-rules.html

Hopefully Glen and some of the other freshmen will have a chance to examine the House Rules before voting on them. The old rules were set up to allow the Democrats to steamroll legislation ... without that pesky minority (Republicans, and a few Dem legislators that the House speaker had a grudge against) gumming things up, with their own ideas.

[GunnyFreedom]

Mozo -- day in and day out you demonstrate yourself to be a far greater expert on these things than you have ever let on. ;)

Specifically we are discussing the reform package proposed by Representative Blust. It's a good package, and his desire was to pass the reforms prior to electing leadership yesterday. It didn't happen, in part because he jumped the gun a little bit and tried to rearrange the agenda that had the reform package set to a vote after the leadership election and he wanted it before.

I didn't honestly see where there would be a real difference between passing the reform package 30 minutes before electing leadership vs 30 minutes afterward, but John was adamant that the technical point of passing it BEFORE leadership was elected was important, so the debate over changing the agenda ended up taking about 40 minutes before the body voted it down. I think maybe if not for that it'd already be passed.

Skip Stam was elected as GOP House Majority Leader, and the good news is that in his acceptance he committed to the Blust Reform Package, and has already begun establishing a rules committee to prepare the reform package for direct insertion into the existing rules (they were worded as things that we want to do, not actual rules) and has called for the prepared package to be voted into the rules on the opening day of the session.

If the best idea would have been to pass the reform package prior to nominating/electing leadership, then the second-best idea will be to pass the package on opening day. So I am still optimistic on this.

[MozoVote]

I think this shows you that Blust has very little trust in the old guard, and wanted the rules changes to be agreed upon by the caucus, before any other voting whatsoever. Hopefully Stam and Tillis recognize that there are some frayed nerves in the caucus and they'll keep the rules improvements moving forward in the General Assembly.

If you aren't on the rules committee, maybe you'll have the ear of some of those who are on it.

[GunnyFreedom]

I think this shows you that Blust has very little trust in the old guard, and wanted the rules changes to be agreed upon by the caucus, before any other voting whatsoever. Hopefuly Stam and Tillis recognize that there are some frayed nerves in the caucus and they'll keep the rules improvements moving forward in the General Assembly.

Hopefully if you aren't on the rules committee, you'll have the ear of some of those who are on it.

I have an opportunity to request Rules, but each member only serves on 5-ish committees (roughly thereabout) so I am working on prioritizing my requests.

Regardless of what Tillis thinks, Stam has given indications of being committed to this. I don't think Tillis will want division within leadership so if Stam pushes it I think Tillis will go along with it. Tillis is likely to go along with it anyway, being more 'bipartisan' minded than most in the caucus.