House Rules Committee amends legislative-process rules on priorities, sponsor transfers; limits post-numbering sponsor changes

The House Rules Standing Committee unanimously adopted, as amended, House Joint Resolution 6 on Feb. 12, approving a package of changes to legislative process rules that clarify priority-designation transfers for legislators who change chambers or are appointed, allow sponsors to request committee amendments to their own bills when appearing in the other chamber, and limit how many times a numbered bill’s sponsor may be changed. Representative Dunnigan, who presented the resolution, said the package was largely technical but addressed ambiguities created by recent turnover among legislators.

The new language clarifies that the seat — not an individual legislator — is allocated a fixed number of priority bill designations. If an incumbent is elected or appointed to the other chamber, they may carry their existing requests and priorities to the new chamber, but the legislative seat itself still retains the original allotment (for example, four priorities for that seat). Megan Bollin of the Office of Legislative Research and…