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Lawmaker says health bill was moved out of committee without membersinput; House advances House File 2435
Summary
Representative Liebling told the Minnesota House that a health bill was revealed to committee members only as an informational item and left the committee without an opportunity for amendment or a committee vote; the House subsequently accepted the committee report on House File 2435 and read the bill a second time.
Representative Liebling, the member from Olmsted, told the Minnesota House on May 7 that the health committee—s bill now on the House—s general register was handled in an "informational only" way and that committee members were denied an opportunity to amend or vote on the measure.
"Those committee members had 0 input," Liebling said during floor debate, adding that in her more than two decades in the Legislature she had never seen "a budget bill leave a committee without the committee having an opportunity to amend the bill and actually vote it out." She said the chairs negotiated the bill outside of the committee and that an amendment was placed on a vehicle in Ways and Means before that committee voted the bill forward.
The comment came after House leaders agreed to consider the committee report on House File 2435 separately at Liebling's request. Following her remarks, the House accepted the committee report by voice vote and moved House File 2435 to a second reading.
Liebling framed her concern as a procedural one about committee authority and member input. She said committee members "had 0 input" despite having sat in the committee and heard testimony during the session. She asked colleagues to note the process and said she hoped it would not be repeated.
Clerical business on the floor that afternoon also included the first reading of House File 3309 and the second reading status noted for House File 3228; the chief clerk reported those bills without substantive debate recorded in the transcript.
The House then recessed to the call of the speaker after brief announcements about committee and caucus meetings. The transcript shows no roll-call vote on the committee report; the adoption was recorded as a voice vote.
