Committee clarifies interim committee rules, approves HB 142 to adjust partisan bill-draft limits

The Senate Legislative Administration Committee on Thursday approved House Bill 142, which would increase the number of partisan bill-draft requests an interim committee may make from four to five and explicitly defines "partisan basis" as a vote in which members from only the majority party vote to request a bill draft.

Sponsor Lucas Schubert (House District 8) said the change addresses an incident in the previous interim where a member of the minority attempted to advance bills after a losing vote; the bill clarifies that "partisan basis" means the majority party and prevents ambiguity about whether a losing vote could nonetheless advance a bill.

Committee staff witness Mister Howe explained that prior statutory language used party labels in a way that some interpreted as allowing a majority of minority members to claim a partisan passage; legal counsel had ruled that a majority vote is required to pass a bill out of committee, and HB 142 aims to make that statutory reading explicit.

During discussion members expressed differing views: one senator said they supported the majority-party clarification but opposed increasing the partisan cap from four to five; another argued the majority could change over time and favored the increase. The committee conducted a roll-call vote: Vice Chair Emerich (yes), Vice Chair Hamann (no), Senator Dunwell (no), Senator Fuller (yes), Senator Zolnikov (aye by proxy), and Chair Ricky (yes). The chair announced HB 142 passed out of committee, 4–2.

Schubert urged members to view the bill as a "common sense cleanup" to prevent advancing bills on losing votes and to give interim committees slightly more capacity to request partisan drafts.