The Mississippi Legislature gets to make most its own rules of operation. Even with that broad prerogative, though, lawmakers should at least try to maintain a resemblance to democratic principles, such as the concept that the majority rules when a vote is taken.
That, however, was apparently not the case in a couple of recent committee votes in the House of Representatives. In each of these cases, the Republican committee chairman ruled that controversial measures had passed on a voice vote, even though the voices against the measures clearly sounded to be in the majority.
In early February, it was House Education Committee Chairman Rob Roberson who pulled that trick with a bill that would allow for students who live in D- or F-rated public school districts to receive state funding to help pay their cost of attending private schools.
Roberson refused the request of dissenting committee members to put the proposed legislation to a definitive roll call vote, instead declaring the measure had passed and thus would be forwarded on for consideration by the full House.
A Clarion Ledger reporter later polled members of that committee and found that 14 would have voted “no” and at most 10 would have voted “yes.”
The measure later died in the House without a vote.
Something similar happened last week, when the House State Affairs Committee was considering two bills designed to overhaul the overly expensive state employee retirement system.
According to a Mississippi Today reporter who attended the committee proceeding, no more than one or two of the 11 members present voted “yes” on the bills. Nevertheless, the chairman, Hank Zuber, ruled each time that the measures had passed. Once again, the dissenting members’ request for a roll call vote was ignored.
Such unilateral actions by committee chairmen defeat the whole rationale for committee hearings. The panels are supposed to be the vetting places for legislation, where a sampling of the House membership hears the arguments, pro and con, and decides whether a proposal has enough merit to take up the time of the full chamber. The committee system is supposed to make the legislative process more efficient, as it would be impossible to consider even a tiny fraction of the bills filed each year if each one of them had to be debated and voted on by all of the House or Senate members.
Although the chairmen have great sway over what gets out of their committee, that power generally rests with their decisions of whether to bring a measure assigned to their committee up for a vote. They are not supposed to also have the power to overrule the will of the majority of their committee members.
House Speaker Jason White could and should put a stop to this obvious perversion of the committee process. By letting it go on, he has created the impression that committees are mostly intended to rubber stamp those measures the leadership supports, and if there aren’t the votes to secure that rubber stamp, then the committee chairmen are free to ignore the majority.
That’s not democracy.
