Some conservative activists have expressed concerns about a proposed rule change in the Alabama House of Representatives rules that would change the amount of time that the public and House members receive before a House Committee can consider a bill. Under the rules used during the last four years, a House committee had to give 24 hours public notice before a bill could be considered in committee. The new rule would change that to just four hours. Some conservative groups have expressed alarm that this will limit the public’s input in the legislative process.
Alabama Today spoke with a member of the House off the record about the proposed rule change.
The member pointed out that the 24-hour rule was regularly worked around by the House to begin with. While the rule was on the books, how the House actually operated is that a committee chairperson would ask to be recognized on the floor of the House at some point during floor proceedings. The chair would then ask the body for a motion “to suspend the rules” so that the committee could meet and consider legislation. Sometimes those meetings would occur later that day, and sometimes those committee meetings would be held while the body was in session. Sometimes, the committee met immediately.
This interpretation of how the House (and the State Senate) functions is correct. Committees often meet inside that 24-hour notice window, often inside a four-hour window, and sometimes with just five minutes’ notice. Capitol Press Corps members would have to pick up their laptops and scramble from the House floor press room to the committee meeting somewhere on the eight floors of the State House building. A motion to suspend the rules so that a committee can meet is a regular occurrence and is usually made by voice vote without opposition.
Alabama Today was told that the GOP nominee for the Speaker of the Alabama House, Rep. Nathaniel Ledbetter, and the new House Majority Leader, Rep. Scott Stadthagen, have heard the concerns of members and the public and are reportedly concerned about the overuse of the motion to suspend the rules to avoid the notification requirement and the change from 24-hour notice to four hours notice was proposed with the intent of continuing to provide House committees with the flexibility to operate, but while having some real world actual public notice requirements.
Members have been asked by the leadership to refrain from speaking publicly on the proposed rules changes so that leadership can more thoroughly explain this and other proposals.
Changing the rules of a legislative body is a normal part of the legislative process. Every four years, the Alabama House and Senate review their rules and attempt to update them during the organizational session of the Alabama Legislature at the start of a new quadrennium. The U.S. House of Representatives is about to consider its own new set of House rules for the 118th Congress that differ somewhat from the rules put in place by the 117th Congress.
At the federal level, there has been a change in the Speaker of the House from Nancy Pelosi to Kevin McCarthy. In the Alabama House of Representatives, Ledbetter is the presumed Speaker replacement for Rep. Mac McCutcheon, who retired from the Legislature. Since Republicans have a 77 to 28 majority in the Alabama House of Representatives, the Republican choice for Speaker will likely be the new Speaker. State Rep. Chris Pringle is the GOP choice to be the Speaker Pro Tem., replacing Rep. Victor Gaston, who also retired.
The House will vote on new leadership and changes to the rules when it meets on Tuesday for the organizational session.
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