Report Title:

2001 conference procedures

WHEREAS, each year, the Conference period constitutes the most critical days of the legislative session, because key differences between the House and Senate versions of bills must be resolved; and

WHEREAS, since the mid-1990's, the House and Senate leadership has issued joint written procedures that specify the manner in which crucial logistics will be handled during the Conference period, including meeting times, decision-making deadlines, meeting notices, and so forth; and

WHEREAS, these joint Conference procedures took on even greater importance during the 2000 session, when the leadership of both houses agreed to require, among other things:

(1) The presence of a quorum for decision-making;

(2) Open decision-making; and

(3) Expanded meeting notices;

and

WHEREAS, a key provision in the "Joint Senate-House Committees on Conference Procedures" (Conference Procedures) was that a majority of the quorum of House managers and a majority of the quorum of Senate managers must vote in favor of the proposed amendments to report a measure out of Conference Committee in amended form; and

WHEREAS, on April 6, 2001, the leadership of both houses agreed to keep this key provision in the 2001 Conference Procedures; and

WHEREAS, however, on April 12, 2001, the leadership of the House of Representatives approved a Senate leadership proposal to amend this provision by requiring that all chairs and a majority of the quorum of House managers and a majority of the quorum of Senate managers must vote in favor of the proposed amendments to report a measure out of Conference Committee in amended form; and

WHEREAS, this amendment would give individual Conference chairs the ability to unilaterally veto a Conference result notwithstanding support by the majority of the managers of the Conference committees and would otherwise provide any such chair with disproportionate power over the Conference result; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2001, that the House of Representatives hereby amends the Rules of the House of Representatives of the Twenty-first Legislature to add a new Rule 16.5 as follows: