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Lawmakers address need to improve legislative transparency

January 26, 2011

Based on a bill introduced in the Senate yesterday, it appears the Attorney General's and State Auditor's call for improved legislative transparency is not falling on deaf ears. Earlier this month Attorney General Rob McKenna and State Auditor Brian Sonntag wrote a letter to legislators encouraging them to adopt our proposal for a constitutional amendment to improve legislative transparency.

A variation of our proposal has been introduced by Senators Becker, Swecker, Delvin, Benton, Stevens, Holmquist Newbry, Honeyford, King, Sheldon and Roach.

Though not a constitutional amendment and applying only to budget and tax/fee bills, SB 5419 would require:

"(1) An omnibus operating, capital, or transportation appropriations bill and any tax or fee bill, and any proposed substitute, striking amendment, or conference committee report thereon, must be made publicly available to the members of the legislature and the public at least twenty-four hours before such a bill is eligible for a public hearing, is eligible for legislative action, or is eligible to be voted on by the senate or the house of representatives.

(2) A bill identified in subsection (1) of this section is not eligible for legislative action on the floor of either the senate or house of representatives until twenty-four hours after it has been placed on the floor calendar.

(3) A bill identified in subsection (1) of this section is not eligible for final passage in either house of the legislature unless copies of the bill, in the form to be passed, have been made available to the members of that house of the legislature and the public for at least twenty-four hours.

(4) This section may be suspended by a two-thirds vote of the members elected to the house of the legislature in which it is pending, and every individual consideration of a bill or action suspending this section must be recorded in the journal of the respective house of the legislature."

This proposal would have prohibited the public hearing on a draft proposal to create a state income tax last year by the Senate Ways and Means Committee. The public did not have copies of that proposal until the hearing started. Ranking member of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Sen. Joe Zarelli, believed the hearing held on the draft income tax bill was in violation of Senate rules and asked for the hearing to be postponed. Here is the video exchange between Zarelli and then Committee Chair, Sen. Margarita Prentice:

Sen. Prentice overruled Sen. Zarelli's objection and allowed the hearing to proceed.

Though a step in the right direction, it does not look like SB 5419 would prohibit the use of title only bills.

According to the Legislature's joint operating rules:

"Rule 13 - . . . No bill shall be introduced by title only, and, in the event a bill is not complete, at least section 1 shall be set forth in full before the bill may be accepted for introduction . . ."

Unfortunately this prohibition on title only bills is easily avoided by simply repeating the title of the bill as Section 1. This is exactly what occurred on one of last year's most notorious title only bills, SB 6853.

SB 6853 was introduced, received a public hearing, and passed to the Senate rules committee all on the same day – as a title only bill.

Here is how that process looked. First the Senate Ways and Means Committee had to suspend Senate Rule 45 requiring five day public notice before bills can be heard.

Next a public hearing was held on the title only bill.

Finally the Committee took executive action on and adopted the title only bill.

During the 2010 Session lawmakers routinely waived legislative rules requiring five-day notice before holding a bill hearing; provided inadequate notice of the time, location and topic of public hearings; held hearings on bills with no text; and voted on bills the same day details were made publicly available. The rush to vote on the budget and tax bills without allowing meaningful public comment or adequate review time by lawmakers led to mistakes in the bills.

To address these problems we recommend the following constitutional reforms: Require 72-hour public notification before any bill could receive a public hearing; prohibit title only bills (no public hearing or vote should occur on a “ghost bill”); and prohibit votes on final passage until the final version of the bill to be approved has been publicly available for at least 24 hours.

If its transparency protections applied to all bills and not just budget and tax/fee bills, SB 5419 would help provide the public the opportunity to participate in the legislative process in a more meaningful way.

Here are some of the editorial calls from across the state on the need for improved legislative transparency: