House adopts conference report on panel selection for appointed statewide offices; critics call it a power grab

The House on March 17 adopted a conference committee report on Senate Bill 105, which revises the process for filling vacancies in certain statewide offices currently filled by gubernatorial appointment.

Representative Proctor presented the conference report and said the measure creates a panel that appoints nominees and sends them to the legislature; the governor would then select a replacement from among the panel's nominees. Under the conference report, the panel provides three names directly to the House and Senate; if the legislature is not in session when the panel acts, the conference report includes a five-day window during which the legislature may call itself back into session to consider the nominees before they go to the governor.

Representative Miller spoke against the conference report on grounds it represented overreach by the legislature. Representative Blake Carpenter said staff and the reviser had addressed his concerns and urged support. Representative Proctor moved adoption of the conference committee report; the House then took a roll-call vote and the clerk recorded 84 in favor and 36 opposed, and the Speaker declared the bill passed.

Floor remarks described the conference committee changes as a narrowing of options from the panel-to-legislature process that had previously been proposed in other drafts. Sponsors said the five-day recall provision preserves a legislative role even when the legislature is out of session.