Director's Report

House adopts new rule
to record spending votes

Change applies to amendments that hike or cut spending

The House Monday adopted new rules that require recording the votes of representatives on amendments that raise or cut state spending.

The step will open more of the House’s work to the public and hold legislators accountable for more of the votes they cast. It’s a positive change, one the Equality State Policy Center hopes will lead to recording votes on other issues.

Rep. Alan C. Jones, R- Powell, HD 25, proposed the change that will require recording the “ayes and noes” on spending amendments. Majority Floor Leader Colin Simpson, R-Cody, HD 24, successfully amended the rules change to require taking a roll call when an amendment passes a voice vote.

As approved the amendment, which appears under House rules 9-3 (b) and 13-3 (b), reads:

(b) Except as provided by House Rule 10-5 (b), only after a voice vote in which the ayes have prevailed, the ayes and noes shall be taken on the motion to adopt any amendment which directly increases or decreases an appropriation by a specific dollar amount.

Jones argued that the amendment will help constituents “get a complete picture” of how they’re being represented. He discounted claims that the requirement will slow down the process. Indeterminate voice votes already prompt the call for “division” when House members stand to be counted, he noted, and those standing votes take considerable time. (Even then, individual votes are not recorded.)

Jackson Rep. Pete Jorgensen, D-HD 16, called the argument that taking a roll call will slow down the House “a weak excuse. There’s no excuse not to be here (to vote).”

Rep. Pete Illoway, R-Cheyenne, HD 42, called the change a “great rule.”

“It’s time we stood up to be accountable,” he said. “This makes people stay on the floor … this makes people vote.”

Under the old House rules, the public could learn only how a representative voted on the final version of a bill with an appropriation, including the 2007-2008 $7.5 billion biennium budget bill passed last year. That left in the dark the many votes representatives cast on the dozens of amendments to the budget bill.

As a result, no one knows officially how their representative voted on amendments that exempted grocery purchases from the sales tax or that included appropriations to the Wildlife Trust Fund, two of the biggest issues of the last session.

The Wyoming Senate has operated for several sessions under a rule that requires a roll call vote on any amendment that directly increases or decreases state spending by a specific amount. The Jones rules amendment was presented as a mirror of the Senate rule.

The change will require taking more time to record these votes. A roll call of the 60 members of the House can take up to five or six minutes. But the ESPC believes that is a problem easily solved by recording votes electronically. The Legislature’s own research shows that other state legislatures that record votes electronically conduct roll call votes in about a minute. – not much more time than it now takes to conduct a voice vote and certainly less time than it takes for members to stand to be counted when someone calls for “division” on a close voice vote.

Recording votes is key to legislative accountability. We thank everyone who contacted House members over the weekend to urge them to support adoption of the new rule. The House passed the measure 59-0 with Rep. Kathy Davison, R-Kemmerer, HD 20, excused.

Cheers,

Dan Neal, executive director

***