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Utah House adopts temporary rules change to give members time to review Senate concurrences
Summary
The House amended and passed House Resolution 1 on Jan. 18, 1999, requiring a one‑day placement on the calendar for Senate concurrences and requiring committee chairs to sign and report committee reports within one legislative day; the resolution passed 70–0.
The Utah House of Representatives approved House Resolution 1 on Jan. 18, 1999, adopting technical changes to House rules intended to give members more time to review Senate amendments and to tighten committee reporting deadlines.
Representative Susan Cohen, sponsor of the resolution, said the rules change requires a committee chair to sign a committee report and send it to the House clerk within one legislative day and creates a place on the calendar that holds concurrences from the Senate for 24 hours so members can review amendments before a final vote. "This part of the rules would provide a place on our calendar for concurrences, and it would lift for 24 hours those bills, which are coming up for a concurrence so that you would have an opportunity to look at those bills," Cohen said during the floor explanation.
Members debated the practical effect of deletions and reinsertion of language addressing who may speak before the Rules Committee. Representative Short expressed concern that the earlier deletion could be read to bar outside parties from testifying to a standing committee; Cohen and other members clarified the intent was not to prevent testimony but to place some discretion with committee chairs. After a brief procedural back-and-forth and a motion to reconsider an earlier deletion of lines 49–51, Cohen successfully offered a technical amendment on page 2 to renumber a parenthetical from (5) to (6). The amendment passed on voice vote.
Voting was opened and, with summation waived, the resolution passed on a recorded vote of 70 yes to 0 no. The Clerk entered the resolution into the journal for Jan. 18, 1999.
The change is procedural: it does not itself amend substantive law but alters House rules governing how and when Senate concurrences and committee reports are placed and reviewed. The sponsor said the calendar change is intended to reduce rushed consideration of Senate amendments and to give members reasonable time to examine what the Senate has done before they cast a final vote. The House circled and later uncircled the resolution during the day's proceedings as members worked through related business before final passage.
