Terry Keel Tries To Muddy The Waters Of Speaker Power Debate
Vince Leibowitz | Aug 14, 2007 | Comments 1
Leave it to newly-ordained House Parliamentarian Terry Keel to continue working his hardest to muddy the waters of the ongoing debate on the power of the Speaker of the House and the interpretation of the House Rules.
Last week, State Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth) filed a letter in response to House Speaker Tom Craddick’s Reply Brief filed after the majority of briefs were turned into the Texas Attorney General’s Office relating to the Speaker Power opinion request.
Now, Keel has responded to that letter and done his best to muddy the waters almost beyond recognition:
Here is a portion of Geren’s letter Keel takes issue with:
“One must remember that the election of a House Speaker occurs before the adoption of the House rules. To amend the rules requires a speaker to recognize a member to offer an amendment or a resolution…The Speaker would never be required to recognize anyone for a motion regarding anything that he or she didn’t already support. The will of the House, including changes to the House Rules, would forever be subjugated to the wishes of one individual.”
Keel claims this incorrect, and essentially says that the only way to require the Speaker to recognize anyone for any purpose is to include provisions in the temporary rules “mandating recognition of any proposals to change the permanent rules.”
In short, Keel is claiming that any changes to the rules of the House have to be facilitated by a portion of the temporary rules requiring the Speaker to recognize members who want to change the permanent rules.
Clearly, that makes no sense whatsoever.
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Filed Under: 2009 Speaker's Race
Vince, you are uberwrong on this.
When I first read Geren’s statement I was utterly confused as I have said since the night that Keel took over that one of the very first votes of the 81st Session would be to change Rule 5 – 20 (or whatever it is…too early for me today).
In an earlier post you said that the House selects the new Speaker prior to selecting rules…this is only half true.
First, the House must adopt Temporary Rules (usually they adopt the full rules of the previous House…this obviously won’t be the case)….this is under the Secretary of State. And then the House adopts rules for the election of Speaker. And THEN they elect Speaker. Throughout this process they may adopt rules mandating changing that specific rule or making sure that a change to that rule is at least considered. The only person who could possibly stop this is the Secretary of State. Now, if the SoS wanted to get his hands dirty, it could get interesting….but he won’t want to.