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Utah House Adopts Temporary Rules, Appoints Committees and Suspends Three-Reading Requirement
Summary
On opening day the House temporarily adopted the prior session's rules, authorized committees to draft permanent House and joint rules, approved committee and caucus leadership listings, and suspended the three-reading requirement for bills for this session.
The Utah House of Representatives took a series of organizational actions during its 2005 opening session. Representative Rebecca Lockhart moved that the House adopt the same rules used in the previous (50th) legislature until new rules could be drafted; the motion carried by voice vote. The House then authorized the Speaker to appoint a committee to draft House rules and to work with a joint committee from the Senate on joint rules.
The Speaker appointed members to the House rules committee and to the joint house-senate rules committee, with Representative Becky Lockhart named co-chair. The House also approved motions to print the membership of majority and minority caucus leadership in the House Journal and to record appointments including Merlin T. Newbold as speaker of the third house, Gordon E. Snow as speaker pro tem, and David Yore as House parliamentarian.
On a separate procedural motion, Representative Jeff Alexander moved and the House approved suspending the requirement that every bill be read by title three separate times; the suspension applies to bills and resolutions introduced during the session unless a majority of the House directs reading of a bill's long or short title. Representative Lockhart also moved that legislators be allowed to sign as cosponsors on prefiled bills when permitted by the chief sponsor; that motion passed as well.
The House clerk read a long list of bills and resolutions (House bills and resolutions numbered across multiple series), which were considered read for the first time under suspension of the rules and referred to the rules committee for assignment.
Next steps: the rules committee will draft recommended rule changes and report back to the House; referred bills will be assigned to standing committees under established procedure.
