House to clear logjam

The House still has 75 representatives, and the session began on the third Monday of January, just as it has done for decades. But for House leaders, and many members, the current session is moving much more slowly than usual.

At the midpoint of the session last week, fewer bills had been passed by the House of Representatives than any session in the past decade — and more bills have been filed — resulting in a seemingly unprecedented logjam of bills on the House calendar. All told, there are more than 100 bills that have been passed by a House committee but are still waiting for debate on the House floor.

To correct the backup, House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, announced the House board will be cleared at the end of business today, and the Rules Committee will begin sifting bills. That means Rules will send out 20 bills of its choosing to the House floor, with most of those bills debated and voted on before more are released for debate.

The House will also begin limiting the amount of time representatives can speak about a bill. Both the time limits and sifting are moves typically taken in the last week, not a few days past the session's midpoint.

"We have steadily gone further into the hole with the bills on our calendar," Curtis said. "Monday they are all going away."

Sifting can pose a problem to Democrats, whose bills can get bottled up in the Rules Committee by the Republican majority. But so far, Rules has been pretty fair in assigning bills to committees, which may be a good argument for sifting, House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, said.

"It's always a concern when we go into sifting, because if the majority party is unhappy with one of our representatives or the party in general, bills can get held," Becker said. "But we haven't seen many Democrat bills being held yet."

As for the pace, Becker agreed with the assessment that things are moving slower in the House than in years past. But he's not complaining, noting that could mean better decisions are made.

"I don't know if a slower pace is necessarily bad, because the point of the Legislature is to be deliberative," he said.

In the House, however, those deliberations have included relatively lengthy debate — 20 to 30 minutes — on multiple bills that have passed with an almost unanimous vote. While the debate might be considered necessary to get unanimous support, it seemed often to consist of more mutual back-slapping than debate.

The backlog has not affected Senate bills, with which the House is efficiently dealing. Nor has it affected major tax or budget bills, which are on hold until after revised revenue estimates are released later this week.

In the Senate, meanwhile, the biggest problem they have had is the absence of Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, who has been out on medical leave for more than two weeks. Because of his absence, the Senate Judiciary Committee was forced to cancel at least one meeting for the lack of a quorum. Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, has since replaced Buttars on that committee.

---

E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com