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Committee creates study panel to review education law after debate over membership makeup
Summary
The committee approved House Resolution 887 to create a study committee to review and recommend housekeeping changes to education statutes. An amendment to specify a particular majority/minority makeup of the study committee was debated, tied in a hand-count and failed; the resolution then carried.
The House Education Committee approved House Resolution 887 (LC492403) to create a study committee tasked with reviewing and recommending clean-up changes to education-related code sections.
Chairman Blackman, the resolution's sponsor, described the panel as a code-revision exercise to identify statutory provisions that are obsolete or in need of update to reduce administrative burden and restore local control where appropriate. The committee discussed membership and appointment authority at length.
A proposal to specify that the seven-member study committee be appointed with four members from the majority caucus and three from the minority caucus prompted debate. Legislative Counsel explained the common practice is to defer appointments to the Speaker for House study committees but said there is no legal prohibition on specifying makeup in the resolution.
Members attempted an amendment to set committee composition as seven members (4 majority, 3 minority). The amendment was put to a hand-count and the vote resulted in a tie; after discussion the chair allowed the amendment to fail. Committee members then moved to adopt the resolution without the specific membership language. The committee adopted the resolution by voice vote and the sponsor thanked the panel.
The resolution directs legislative staff and the appointed members (per the normal appointment process, which the committee left to the Speaker) to study the code sections identified in the resolution and report back with recommendations to the House in the next session.
Action: The committee voted to approve HR 887 (LC492403) as presented. The transcript records the failed amendment attempt on committee composition and the final passage by the committee.
