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Behind the Scenes in Committee

PART 4

"Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work."
-- Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States, 1913-1921.

BACKGROUND

Woodrow Wilson was referring to the U.S. House and Senate, but the description is just as apt for state legislatures. Floor sessions are generally what make the news at 10, but the real decisions are made in committee.

It's here where each bill is pored over and dissected, where amendments are added and sections of bills deleted. If the makeup of a committee is skewed to one side of the political spectrum, a bill could be defeated in committee even though it has the support of the House or Senate as a whole. Likewise, if a committee chair doesn't particularly like a bill, he or she generally has the power to make sure it isn't approved.

Why are there committees? Because literally thousands of bills are introduced during each two-year legislative session, it's virtually impossible for any one legislator to become an expert in all areas. So, the House and Senate are divided into about 20 committees each, allowing every member to focus on a few areas of public policy. In a sense, the committee structure forms the heart of the Legislature.

How committees work

Each member is assigned to three or four committees, which then examine all issues pertaining to a certain topic such as crime or taxes. After serving on a committee for several years, members become experts in a given field or fields and their colleagues come to rely on their judgment.

In committee, members make recommendations to the House or Senate as a whole. They can recommend that a bill pass and send it to the floor; amend the bill, recommend it to pass, and send it to the floor; recommend it to pass and refer it to another committee; and not recommend that the bill pass, which is another way of saying the bill was defeated.

The chief author of a bill appears before the committee to answer questions and usually has a cast of experts to testify on behalf of the bill. Likewise, opponents of the measure are given a chance to speak. And just as it takes a majority of members to approve a bill on the House or Senate floor, a majority must agree to recommend that a bill pass out of committee. Bills may be approved by only one committee and sent to the floor, or they can pass through several committees before heading there.

Reflection of society

Because virtually every facet of human experience is touched by the Legislature, it should come as no surprise that the committee titles themselves are a reflection of society. There are committees on Agriculture, Education, Environment and Natural Resources, and Health and Human Services -- all areas that are of great importance to Minnesotans. (See Appendix C-3)

But just 40 years ago, the committee structure was vastly different. The committees on Temperance and Liquor Control, State and County Fairs, and Dairy Products and Livestock are an indication of what was considered important to society then.

Committee control

Because committees are so important to the legislative process, control of them is the ultimate goal of the two major political parties. The party with the majority in each body gets to name the chairs of each committee and its membership.

Thus, if the Democratic Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party has a majority of seats in the House, the speaker in the House and the Rules and Administration Committee in the Senate will name all DFL chairs to committees, and they'll appoint more DFL members than Independent-Republicans (IR) to ensure their proposals have enough votes to pass.

Geography and occupation are taken into consideration when committee assignments are made. But make no mistake about it. Political power -- control of the committees -- is the ultimate goal of each political party. (See Appendix E-3)

Committee divisions/subcommittees

Most committees are also broken down into divisions and/or subcommittees. For example, the House Appropriations Committee, which has about 40 members, is made up of five divisions: Education; Human Resources; State Government; Economic Development, Infrastructure, and Regulation; and Environment and Natural Resources. Each of those divisions has about 10 members who make decisions within their given areas, then make recommendations to the full Appropriations Committee.

Being named chair of one of these divisions is considered just as important, if not more so, than being head of some of the other full committees that are considered less influential. Generally, the committees on Taxes, Appropriations, Judiciary, and Education are considered among the most important.

Some committees also have subcommittees which focus on a particular topic and function much like divisions do. The Judiciary Committee, for example, is broken down into three subcommittees: Civil Law; Data Privacy; and Family Law. The Criminal Justice Division of the Judiciary Committee also has a subcommittee on Family Violence.

Committees meet at regular times and locations early in each session. The meetings are normally scheduled to last an hour and 45 minutes. But as the legislative pace becomes more hectic toward the end of session, they may meet more often and for longer times.

Committee deadlines

Each year, the Legislature also imposes deadlines by which bills must pass through committees in order to be considered further that session. The goal of the deadlines is to winnow the list of topics to be dealt with that year.

The first deadline requires bills to have passed through a policy committee in either the House or Senate; the second deadline sets a date after which bills will not be considered unless they have passed through a policy committee in the other body. In 1990, for example, the first deadline was March 9, and the second one was March 16. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule: these deadlines generally don't apply to tax and appropriations bills. Exceptions are sometimes made in other cases, too.

Committee administrators/staff

Each committee has legislative staff members, including researchers and analysts from the House Research Department, assigned to it who specialize in that area of public policy (see Appendix B-1). Pages are also assigned to committees to hand out bill amendments, prepare packets of information for legislators, tape the meetings, and do whatever is needed to assist the committee (see Appendix C-9). If you have a question about what happened to a particular bill in a committee, the committee administrator or committee legislative assistant can probably answer it.

Committee speak

The method of speaking in committee may also appear a bit strange to people who are exposed to the Legislature for the first time. All questions are asked through the chair, so a typical exchange between two members would go something like this:

Rep. Anderson: "Madam Chair, Rep. Johnson. You're absolutely wrong that an increase in the sales tax would not place a disproportionate burden upon the poor . . . ."

Rep. Johnson: "Madam Chair, Rep. Anderson. You misunderstood what I said . . . ."

This may make the discussions appear somewhat cumbersome, but it helps when listening to tape recordings which are preserved as part of the public record of the committee meetings. That way you always know who is speaking. The tapes are available from the Legislative Reference Library, which is on the sixth floor of the State Office Building in St. Paul.

Committee seating

All meetings are open to the public, and seating and committee agendas are available on a first come, first served basis. Some of the committee meetings are packed with people, particularly ones that deal with controversial topics such as abortion or gun control. For less controversial bills, sometimes the only people in attendance are legislators and staff members.

The House committee meetings are held in the State Office Building, which is next door to the Capitol. The Senate committee meetings are held in the Capitol Building.

To testify before a committee, make arrangements with the committee administrator well before the committee meets. He or she will try to get you on the agenda.

NEW TERMS

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

Beginning

In Part 2, students were asked to propose ideas for new laws, and in Part 3, they were asked to formulate arguments -- for and against -- the proposals. At this stage students could be asked to determine the general topics under which each proposed bill would fall, and therefore which committee at the Legislature should discuss the idea. Appendix C-3 contains a complete list of the 1991 committees in the House. Keep in mind that because bills often touch on many different subjects, they are typically debated in several committees before being sent to the floor for debate. A proposal to require motorcyclists to wear helmets, for example, would probably first be heard in the Transportation Committee. But it could also be referred to the Health and Human Services Committee because of the health issues involved. And such a proposal could possibly be referred to other committees, too.

In a separate exercise, students could also be asked to divide their world into 20 or so committees, just as the Legislature is carved up into various committees. It would be interesting to compare the students' committees with the ones the Legislature has established. What committees, if any, would students like to see the Legislature establish?

Intermediate

At this point, students should have a bill, or several bills, ready to present to a committee that has been created in the mock legislature. Here, students should be encouraged to add amendments to the bill -- whether the chief author wants them or not. The bill that would give 12-year-olds the right to vote, for example, could be amended to give people 16 and over that right. Another amendment could be offered that would give 16-year-olds the right to vote only if they passed a test administered by the state Department of Education. Another amendment could be offered to allow only 16-year-old girls that right because studies have shown they mature faster. A committee discussion on the girls-only amendment will surely raise constitutional questions. But keep in mind that the Legislature has passed many laws that were subsequently declared unconstitutional by the courts. Remember that a separate committee, composed of entirely different members, should discuss the same topic in the other mock body. So the original bill could emerge from the different committees in the mock House and Senate in very different forms. And those differences could help illustrate the way in which conference committees operate.

Advanced

At the bill-tracking level, students should be prepared to spend a lot of energy finding out what happened in committee. Ideally, students should attend at least one committee meeting when the bill they are tracking is discussed. A schedule of the upcoming committee meetings can be obtained from the House Public Information Office and the Senate Information Office. Students will probably be unable to attend all committee meetings where their bills are being discussed. But there are several sources to find out what happened. First, have students check the newspapers on the day after their bills were to be discussed in committee. Second, scan Session Weekly and Senate Briefly, which are newsletters covering the House and Senate, respectively. Third, if all else fails, call the House Public Information Office (651-296-2146) or Senate Information Office (651-296-0504) to inquire about the status of a bill.

For backtracking bills, students should check with House Index (651-296-6646) and the Senate Information Office (651-296-0504) to obtain a complete history of a bill's progress through the system. Again, it would be easier for students to come to the Capitol to do this research. A log of each committee a bill passes through, and the vote tally on the floor if a roll call vote is taken, are kept on computers that are available for public use. The computer records also list the page number of the journals where more information about a particular committee action or vote can be found. The journals are available from some of the larger libraries. The truly ambitious students can also listen to tape recordings of committee hearings. They are stored in the Legislative Reference Library, but keep in mind that listening to the tapes can be very tedious.

[For additional ideas for activities on the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels, see "Getting Started" (Appendix F-1).]

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