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 General Counsel said the rules file “gaps” that arose this past election and explained how priorities and drafting requests will be handled when a legislator transfers chambers or is appointed.

“If an incumbent legislator is transferring to a different chamber, if they have any requests, if they have any priorities, they get to keep those,” Bollin said. She described a concrete example: an appointed legislator who joins in January would have the allotment appropriate to that seat and the remaining timeline for designating priorities; the rules aim to prevent a seat from effectively receiving more than its allocated priorities because of personnel changes.

Committee members pressed for clarity on scenarios where an outgoing legislator has already designated priorities and whether an incoming appointee can be forced to run that predecessor’s priorities. Representative Wilcox asked whether a predecessor could “hamstring” a new appointee by designating all the seat’s priorities; Dunnigan and Bollin responded that the rules permit transfer of priorities but the seat’s total allotment remains constant and deadlines apply.

The committee also approved a sponsor-transfer limit for bills that have already been numbered. Under the adopted language, once a bill is numbered and carries a committee note, the sponsor may be changed only a limited number of times. Representative Wilcox moved an amendment to replace the draft’s limit of “once” with “twice” for sponsor changes after numbering; the committee adopted that amendment unanimously.

Other procedural clarifications in the package include: allowing, but not requiring, a roll-call vote for members participating electronically; permitting bill sponsors appearing in the opposite chamber committee to request and present amendments to their own bills during committee (with floor amendments remaining subject to the floor’s member-request rules); and rules for when a committee bill loses its committee note after substantive changes post-numbering (technical corrections are exempt). Dunnigan said the changes reflect current practice in many cases and aim to improve clarity and processing.

The committee voted unanimously to adopt the first substitute of HJR 6 as amended and to favorably recommend the measure for further consideration.

Votes at a glance

- Amendment (line 589): strike “once” and replace with “twice.” Mover: Representative Wilcox. Outcome: adopted unanimously. - Adopt first substitute, HJR 6. Outcome: adopted unanimously. - Favorably recommend first substitute HJR 6 (as amended). Outcome: recommended favorably unanimously.

What this means

The changes remove ambiguity about who controls a seat’s priorities after resignations, elections or appointments and create a clearer process for sponsor-requested amendments in opposite-chamber committee hearings. Committee members flagged practical issues about deadlines and drafting-queue timing; the committee preserved deadlines tied to the session calendar and the bill-numbering process.

The resolution now proceeds to the full House (and, as a joint rule change, will require concurrence from the Senate).