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Editorial: Needed: A more efficient Legislature

Other states are providing some worthwhile ideas.

Last update: May 8, 2008 - 6:34 PM

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QUITE A WORKLOAD

"A total of 187 amendments were prepared by our office for HF 1812 (the omnibus budget bill) and an additional 81 by the revisor. This is 247 amendments prepared for one bill. If each amendment was given 10 minutes of debate, this would require 2,680 minutes of floor time, 44.66 hours, just under two entire days of floor session ... A legislature that is swamped with amendments and bill drafts is a legislature that appears to do more, but in fact does less."

Patrick McCormack, director, House Research, to the House Government Operations Committee, April 30.

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It's May, and the Legislature is working hard. That's what Minnesotans want, expect and deserve.

Minnesotans also expect the flow of lawmaking to be orderly and efficient. They want their representatives to set priorities, moving small, noncontroversial bills quickly through the process and allowing more time for major legislation. They want adequate opportunity for minority caucuses to present alternatives, but little room for the partisan mischief of "gotcha" votes and intentional delay. And they want enough predictability in legislative schedules so that they can offer input in a timely fashion, or follow the proceedings without investing hours and hours in fruitless wait.

Minnesotans aren't getting all of the above from their Legislature -- not consistently, anyway. The institution badly missed the mark at the close of last year's session. An overloaded 11th-hour agenda pressed by the DFL majority met with stalling tactics by the GOP minority. Though every bill required for government to function met the midnight deadline on May 21, major bills got rush treatment. Several much-desired bills died for lack of time.

No legislator was more unhappy about that than Rep. Gene Pelowski. Now serving his 11th term, the Winona DFLer and high school history teacher has for 30 years taught the legislative process in the model legislature program for five high schools, hosted by Winona State University. Pelowski says that with each passing year, the model he teaches has diverged more and more from the reality he experiences in committees and on the floor.

As chair of the House committee that oversees government operations, he has set out to improve House procedures. His committee is working to offer the 2009 session a package of proposed rules changes aimed at improving the quality of lawmaking.

A number of worthy ideas are before the committee, most of them gleaned from other states with the help of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Among the most promising:

• Get sessions off to a faster start. In 10 states, legislatures swear in members, elect leaders and organize committees within weeks of the November election. Come January, they are ready to do business immediately.

• Reduce the number of committees, and the number of committee stops a bill must make on its way to the floor. Brenda Erickson of NCSL recommends 10 to 15 committees per chamber; Minnesota has 28 in the House, 18 in the Senate.

• Limit the length of floor debates. This change is particularly urgent in the House, which is the nation's ninth-largest state lawmaking body. This year, six-hour floor sessions have been the norm and 12-hour talk-a-thons are no longer rare. "It's the wild wild west on the floor ... undisciplined at best and chaotic at worst," said Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, a member of Pelowski's committee. Most other legislatures allow one speech per legislator on a question, and limit the duration of each speech, typically at 5 to 15 minutes. Many legislatures allocate a per-bill limit to floor time.

• Limit conference committees to omnibus bills, and reserve the last days of a legislative session for conference committee reports only. These are among many possible solutions to a problem that legislators should recognize as pressing. Minnesota's lawmaking process is bloated with too many bills, too many committees and too much time-wasting debate. The result is a less-than-optimal work product -- and a state that's the poorer for it.

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