House Rules Committee debates stricter decorum penalties, delays vote on amendments

Chair Steve Fitzpatrick (House District 24) opened the Rules Committee meeting and presented HR 1, then introduced amendment hr001.001.001, a proposed change to the House rules that would define decorum violations and establish a graduated disciplinary process.

The amendment lists prohibited conduct—"imputing the motives of members, profane language, or threatening injury"—and lays out progressive sanctions: a warning for a first offense, loss of recognition for up to three days for a second offense and removal from the floor for up to six days for subsequent offenses; it also authorizes expulsion for the remainder of a session for conduct that causes injury or sparks a riot. Fitzpatrick said the text needs a technical fix to make the complaint/appeal window retroactively limited to one legislative business day.

Several members expressed concern that parts of the amendment would give too much unilateral discretion to the presiding officer or allow the House to escalate immediately to expulsion. "Nothing in this rule may be construed to preclude the house from taking additional measures to discipline a member including expulsion regardless of the number of prior offenses," Representative Carlin said, adding that the language could undermine the progressive-discipline framework and leave limited recourse to the rules committee.

President Sullivan asked whether the amendment constrains when a complaint may be filed; Fitzpatrick replied that the intent was for complaints to be limited to one legislative day and that the drafting would be corrected to reflect that.

Representative Howell flagged subsection e, which ties serious disturbance in the chamber to the most severe sanction, saying members could be held responsible for reactions by the public. "If somebody says something on the floor and people in the chamber start clapping or booing, I feel pretty darn uncomfortable that we are then gonna hold the legislator who was speaking responsible," Howell said, characterizing the proposed 90-day expulsion language mentioned by some speakers as disproportionate.

Representative Dan cautioned that progressive discipline on paper could remove necessary discretion from the speaker and warned that suspending or expelling a member for an extended period would effectively disenfranchise the roughly 11,000 voters in that district even if the member retained the right to cast a recorded vote.

Supporters of preserving broader discretion, including Representative Henkel, argued not every breach can be captured in rules and that the House needs authority to address unforeseen conduct. Representative Griffin, drawing on experience with governance boards, warned that punitive-first approaches often fail to restore cooperation and can chill speech.

Committee members also discussed a separate amendment (1.002) requested by the speaker that would restrict where legislative interns can work and bar interns from lobbying; representatives on one side asked that Room 64 (their bullpen) be exempted so their interns may continue to work there.

With drafting changes still outstanding, and one amendment described as being "in drafting and not here yet," the chair proposed delaying executive action. The committee agreed to reconvene the following day at noon to continue executive action on the package; no vote on the decorum amendment or other amendments was taken during the meeting.

The committee adjourned until tomorrow at noon.