There’s just one week of session left and lawmakers are pulling out every trick in the book to get their bills across the finish line. Here’s an inside look at some of the parliamentary procedure involved.
Since 1975, Schoolhouse Rock has taught us every bill that becomes a law has to go through a process. Approval by the House, approval by the Senate, then off to the executive’s desk for a signature. But that’s just the veneer. Beneath that explanation of the process is a complex knot of rules, conventions, and etiquette. And there are few lawmakers who understand that knot better than former Senate President Don Gaetz (R-Niceville).
“This is my ninth session in the Florida Senate,” Gaetz says. “I never served in the House of Representatives, my background is in healthcare and education, I’m a former superintendent of schools—elected not appointed.”
Gaetz represents the state’s first Senate district which comprises much of the northwest portion of panhandle. He served as Senate president from 2012 to 2014. This week, the legislature passed one of its final landmarks along the way to the end of its regular session—the fiftieth day.
“It means committees stop meeting unless it’s the appropriations committee, it means notice requirements change as we get down to the last few sands in the hour glass,” Gaetz says.
Now, it’s actually the rules committee that can continue to meet, but the point still stands. After the fiftieth day of session, committees—the highways bills travel toward final approval—close down. In the House and Senate, leadership assigns a handful of committee stops for each bill at the beginning of session, and if the bill hasn’t successfully run that gauntlet by day 50, it’s more or less dead.
And if the time limit wasn’t enough of a hurdle, Gaetz explains lawmakers have to follow a specific set of rules for introducing, amending and debating the proposals.
“Here in the Florida Senate we use Robert’s rules, and we use Thomas Jefferson’s rules of legislative procedure as a guide,” Gaetz says. “But every year we maneuver and massage the rules of order to meet current extingencies.”
Robert is General Henry Martyn Robert—he served in the US military, and his rules of order was published in 1876. The Senate’s rules of order is published as a paperback book. Think your average novel—more than Gatsby, but not quite David Copperfield.
And it helps manage things like the amendment process.
“Well a good rule of thumb that doesn’t always work, but is a pretty good rule of thumb is sort of last in, first out,” Gaetz says.
He offers an example of a bill with an amendment, a substitute for that amendment and then a further amendment on the substitute.
“First you take up the amendment to the substitute amendment, you dispose of that. Then you take up the substitute amendment, you dispose of that—as amended. And if the substitute amendment as amended passes, you don’t need the main amendment,” Gaetz says.
“And you’re back on the main bill, with the substitute amendment as amended,” Gaetz concludes. “Sounds confusing, but it really isn’t,”
And Gaetz explains the rules are important for handling objections to amendments—known as points of order.
One point of order that’s come up a lot recently is germanity.
“Well a germanity challenge is very common rules challenge,” Gaetz says. “What it simply means is the amendment that you’re trying to put on my bill is not really related to the purpose of the bill or the title of the bill.
Gaetz goes on to explain that on the house or senate floor, the presiding officer then makes a ruling based on the advice of the rules committee chair.
“Here in the Senate we have a guy named John Phelps, and I think he was originally hired by Andrew Jackson, to interpret the rules here,” Gaetz says. “He really knows everything there is to now, so if John is advising the rules chair and the rules chair is advising the presiding officer, they’re right.”
The lawmaker whose point of order has been put aside could bring a motion to overrule that finding, but Gaetz says he’s never seen it, and that kind of breach of decorum carries consequences.
“If such a motion were made, the senator making the motion, might discover his parking place has been moved to Governor’s Square Mall, his office has been moved to Sopchoppy, and his only committee assignment is the committee on the future of Florida’s sidewalks.”
But in addition to committees and amendments—both germane and otherwise—a bill has to get through three readings on the floor. The first reading puts the bill on the calendar. At the second, the bill’s sponsor takes questions from the full body about the proposal and fellow lawmakers can propose amendments. Then at the third and final reading, there’s debate on the bill, and another chance to offer amendments.
With this crucible in mind it’s easy to see why so many bills die on the way to the governor’s desk. But the surprising thing is just how sanguine Gaetz is about the process. The last question I asked was, “what’s the most interesting way you’ve seen a bill die?” Instead, Gaetz told me about a last-minute compromise he made with former House Speaker Will Weatherford.
“It was the last thing that we did before the close of session, and as a result, now children in Miami have more access to neo-natal care when they need it, and now people all over Florida have chemotherapy that’s more appropriate and less painful when they need it,” Gaetz says. “And it’s all because of a Speaker who was willing to work with a Senate President in the waning moments to put to bills together so neither idea would die.”
As we move into the final week of session with the House and Senate at odds over healthcare funding, it’s unclear whether there is any chance of similar compromise before the hankies drop and the chambers adjourn sine die.
