Senate State Agencies committee adopts rules, allows short technical verbal amendments

The Senate State Agencies and Government Affairs Committee on Thursday adopted its committee rules for the session after a debate over whether bills should be placed automatically on committee agendas and how long an unpresented bill should remain listed.

The committee voted to adopt the draft rules with one change: rule 3 was amended to permit short technical verbal amendments. The chair announced the rules were adopted by voice vote after members discussed and declined to remove the automatic-placement provision in rule 4.

Committee vice chair Senator John Payton urged the committee to strike rule 4, which would prevent every bill referred to the committee from automatically appearing on the agenda. "If you look at your draft there, the rules number 4, all bills referred to state…