Assembly rules changes to watch

by: simonstl

Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 08:35:46 AM EDT

Yesterday's Capitol Confidential reports that the Assembly celebrated Reform Day with rules changes that inch the body closer to being the public deliberative body it's supposed to be.

Update: The Brennan Center blog has mixed to slightly positive feelings on the rules changes.

Highlights include:

• Monthly meetings of the Committee of Conference Committees - will we see more conference committees?

• No more racing bills through the Rules Committee only; everything has to go through another committee too.

• Streamlining the passage process for bills that passed in the previous session.

• An additional five minutes of debate time (from 30) for a sponsor's opening statement.

• More time for filing and pre-filing bill introductions and motions to discharge.

• Strengthening the '99' rule for members to force consideration of bills by committee.

• Ethics training for all Assembly members and staff.

They're also boosting the base amount of money each member gets for staff from $70,000 to $85,000. (Maybe they realized it's embarassing to be asking for a pay raise when the base Assembly pay is $79,900 and that's more than their staff gets total?)

So now we know how far the Assembly leadership is willing to go today. Is this substantial reform or just nibbling around the edges? My bet is on the latter, but we'll have to see how these things play out.