Merritt’s 5-Point Plan For Reforming House Rules

State Rep. Tommy Merritt (R-Longview) this week released a five-point plan to reform the rules of the Texas House as part of his campaign for Speaker of the 81st Session of the Texas Legislature.

The five points are as follows:

•Using a sealed ballot for electing the Speaker.

•Ensuring that a motion to vacate the chair must be recognized and only requires a simple majority vote for adoption.

•Changing the House Committee structure to ensure that House districts are fully represented.

•Changing the daily order of business to designate periods for consideration of all 3rd reading bills.

•Increasing the oversight for large expenditures of House funds and amending the housekeeping resolution to require a vote of the House Administration Committee for certain types of expenditures.

“Members like me who are running for Speaker, and members who have suffered through the last Legislative session, want change, and the first place to start is with the rules under which the House operates.”

Merritt said that only two contested speaker elections have not been conducted by sealed ballot and noted that on the opening day of the Legislature in 2007, then-Secretary of State Roger Williams, under the advice of Tom Craddick’s own parliamentarian, ruled that a sealed ballot was authorized and that it was a matter for the house to decide.

“As for recognition of the members to remove the Speaker,” Merritt said,” we don’t need new rules as much as we need a new speaker who will apply and interpret the rules properly and fairly. We never envisioned that clear Texas House precedent would be so blatantly ignored or that the rules we adopted last session would be interpreted to so clearly thwart the will of the majority.”

Merritt said those at the Speaker’s Summit also expressed a desire to reduce the number of committees so that membership on individual committees can be increased, providing for more diverse input on legislation at the committee level, and to reinstate seniority rules for Appropriations, to allow a more diverse cross-section of the House to be involved in the most important decisions

Of additional interest is that Merritt has met with Secretary of State Hope Andrade to emphasize the importance of having a fair and impartial parliamentarian to advise her when she presides over the Speaker vote in January.

The issue of Terry Keel serving as Parliamentarian for that particular exercise has already been the subject of some significant debate by House members.

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