'Minority reports' being silenced

House GOP leaders are moving to adopt a new rule that will hinder — most likely stop — the chance that a "minority report" will be read out loud on the House floor.

The current hubbub is tied to HJR1, the controversial resolution dealing with the debate over taxing nonprofit credit unions.

But the new rule will likely stop all such reports in the future. And in so doing, minority Democrats would be hindered in taking potshots at bills supported by the majority Republicans, and having those statements recorded verbatim in the official House journal.

Theoretically, any members of a standing committee, regardless of their political parties, could be in the minority on a bill and feel they want to file a "minority report" stating why they disagree with what a majority of their committee did.

In reality, minority reports (routinely adopted in Congress) are written by the minority party members: in the case of Congress and Utah, the Democrats.

Earlier this week, three Democrats on the standing committee that heard and approved HJR1 wrote a minority report and had it attached to the committee's reading in. Accordingly, the House reading clerk read the Democrats' report out loud on the floor, catching GOP leaders off guard and leading to a half-hour, confusing fight over what to do with the minority report. In the end, House Republicans killed it.

The new rule will basically say that "minority reports" are committee action, not floor action, said House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy. "And as such they should be dealt with in the original committee." It's unlikely a majority of the committee would allow an unhappy member to attach a critical report to a bill.

Otherwise, "any legislator, alone, could hijack the process" and have a critical report read on the House floor and printed verbatim in the journal, Curtis said.

Many Republicans think that is exactly what happened on HJR1.

In any case, said Curtis, any member, Republican or Democrat, can stand up on the chamber floor and argue against adopting the committee's majority report, and say at that time whatever they want about the bill, so free speech will not be affected.

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