Bacon's Rebellion

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What? No Amendments Permitted to a $4.3 Billion Budget Bill?

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sherlockj
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Delegate Luke Torian, D-Woodbridge

by James C. Sherlock

Del. Luke Torian, D-Woodbridge, the Chair of the Appropriations Committee in the House of Delegates, has announced that there will be no member amendments allowed for the budget that the governor sends down during the upcoming special session.

Three things about that:

  1.  Torian is the king of budget amendments. Look at all of the amendments that he permitted/authored on education and healthcare policy in the past two sessions on what were supposed to be a budget bill. He was also the one that orchestrated the tabling in his committee of the Health Enterprise Zone bill that passed overwhelmingly in the policy committee among other examples;
  2. It is not clear that his ruling is either Constitutional or practical; and
  3. The budget bill will spend $4.3 billion.

Article VI of the Constitution of Virginia grants legislative power to the General Assembly. Torian’s ruling subordinates the General Assembly to the Governor for this session.

It also seems to make no sense.

The leadership must be confident that it can whip enough votes to pass every one of the Governor’s line items without change. But what happens if the General Assembly rejects one of the Governor’s items to spend part of the $4.3 billion windfall? Without the ability to amend, that part of the money will sit unspent.

Will legislators convene yet another special session to spend it? Change the rule in mid-session?

Torian cites lack of time to assess amendments. That is a self-imposed restriction. Delay the convening of the special session to allow time.

Allow a limited number of amendments, say no more than one per member by a date certain a couple of weeks from now. Let staff research them for 30 days. Then convene and vote in mid-September.

I say this with full knowledge that Democrats control both Houses. Amendments may not be to my personal liking, but the constitutional principle needs to be maintained.

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Comments

17 responses to “What? No Amendments Permitted to a $4.3 Billion Budget Bill?”

  1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Not everything you dislike is automatically unconstitutional. Regarding the legislature, Article IV, Section 7 of the Virginia Consitution provides, in part, “Each house shall select its officers and settle its rules of procedure.”

    Torian is announcing ahead of time what the House leadership has decided. The proposed rules of procedure for the Special Session will undoubtedly include this provision, which will then be adopted by the entire House.

    Just because individual members will not be able to submit budget amendments (most of those are for “show” for campaign brochures, anyway) does not mean that the General Assembly will accept the Governor’s proposals without change. The House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance committees will surely put their imprint on the budget amendments and individual members not on those committees will feel free to make their opinions known to the committee members. And, don’t worry–they will spend all the money that is available.

    Finally, the House members don’t want to stretch this session into September. After all, there are re-election campaigns going on.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      Dick, you (and Steve below) are talking as old Richmond hands. I respect that. But your comments are inside baseball.

      An overarching principles in both state and federal constitutions is representative government and a separation of powers among three branches. Checks and balances to preserve the rights of the people.

      The fact that as you wrote “the House leadership has decided”, “settled its rules of procedure” in this case, doesn’t make the action they took constitutional.

      Your caveats about “how things work” in our endlessly corrupt General Assembly serve only as shiny objects to distract from, not change, those fundamental principles.

      Steve has it right. Torain’s excuse is not his reason. He could have created a window for member amendments as I suggested. He did not want amendments.

      Your stated position leads directly to a subversion of a representative republic. If we don’t stand on the principle of separation of powers, the rest is details.

      It makes the presence of our elected officials who do not have leadership positions all but worthless except in the final votes. You would have their roles in crafting this budget end at their votes for the leadership.

      That may be the “way things work”, but it is not right.

      Look to Congress. Are you OK with writing all House of Representatives legislation in Nancy Pelosi’s office? I am not. The most important thing Speaker Ryan did was return the House to regular order after Pelosi’s first term as Speaker. Pelosi upon re-assuming office immediately broke the House Democrats to her will – again.

      That too is not in my view constitutional in the big picture of representative government, even though she is getting away with it.

      Not everything we can do is something we should.

      I urge you to re-consider.

      1. Stephen Haner Avatar
        Stephen Haner

        I never said that this kind of one-party arrogance is acceptable. But I share Dick’s lay opinion (worth what is paid for it) that it does not violate the state constitution. And I repeat that GOP complaints would carry more weight if they had five or six viable proposals of their own.

      2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        You should probably reserve judgement until the Special Session is over and you can compare the adopted budget bill with Northam’s recommendations and you can see the extent of changes made. Of course, in any regular GA session, in which members are allowed to submit amendments and the money committees make changes, the final budget bill is about 90-95 percent what the Governor submitted. That is one of the powers of the Virginia governor in a system with a part-time legislature.

    2. emjak Avatar
      emjak

      Article IV, Section 7 of the Virginia Constitution gives the authority to the General Assembly as a body, not to the majority party leadership.

      1. Stephen Haner Avatar
        Stephen Haner

        And “the body” (House anyway) with 51 votes can dump and change any leader it wishes to. Seems the Dems are fine with things as they are right now.

        1. emjak Avatar
          emjak

          Indifference to constitutional details is a violation of the oath of office taken by elected officials and indicates a casual contempt for the rule of law.

          If the House Democrats are convinced they have the votes, then they should take a vote on the record and let their constituents decide whether their abdication of their legislative responsibilities to the whims of an arrogant Governor (who presumes to ignore the Virginia Constitution) warrants their removal from office at the next election.

          1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
            Dick Hall-Sizemore

            They will take a vote, probably on the first day they are in session, on the rules.

            Just because they have decided not to allow individual members does not mean they have abdicated their responsibilities to the governor.

            The House Appropriations Committee will review the Governor’s recommendations and propose any changes they feel are needed. The full house will have a chance to vote on the committee amendments. The same process will occur in the Senate. And, at the end the two houses will agree on a set of changes.

            The truth of the matter is that amendments proposed by the members are considered by the Appropriation Committee first. Most of those amendments are put in as a sop to various interest groups that support specific members and not are given serious consideration.

    3. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      Torian’s excuse that it takes time for the legislative staff to prep and evaluate member amendments is valid. But to overcome that, he could have created a window for amendments a few weeks ago, with a reasonable cut off say of early July.

      But when asked just what amendments they had in mind, the GOP legislators complaining about this did not mention any. A lost opening….

      The real question is whether the GOP members on those money committees were completely cut out, as they are on the front line. If so, that’s more telling, especially if it happened in the Senate, where Finance has been more balanced. Nothing has stopped any of the 140 members from communicating among themselves, asking staff for assistance, or publicly touting their ideas. I’d be more impressed if the GOP side had produced its own list of priorities.

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        It would have been difficult for members to have submitted amendments before now, because the Governor has not yet formally submitted all his amendments (I don’t think so, anyway.) The members would not have known what they were amending. They could have, of course, communicated with Appropriation Committee members and staff some of their preferences and I am sure they did.

      2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
        James C. Sherlock

        See my reply to Dick above.

  2. tmtfairfax Avatar
    tmtfairfax

    How about pulling a Texas and enough members stay away such that there is no quorum? Biden liked that. I bet Northam did too.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      I cannot find any reference in the House rules regarding a quorum. I assume that means, if the Republicans decided to leave town and go to Texas, the Democrats in the House could proceed without them.

      1. tmtfairfax Avatar
        tmtfairfax

        A legislative body cannot act without a quorum. I think leaving the state is an asinine thing to do. My point is that with our elected officials and MSM, whether it’s correct depends on which party does it. A good half of the reasons we have such bitter splits in this country is because of the media. And this comes from a guy that, when he was a kid, read the St. Paul papers every single day.

      2. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        The definition of a quorum is not in the House Rules, it is in Article IV, Section 8 of the Constitution:

        Quorum.
        A majority of the members elected to each house shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and shall have power to compel the attendance of members in such manner and under such penalty as each house may prescribe. A smaller number, not less than two-fifths of the elected membership of each house, may meet and may, notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution, enact legislation if the Governor by proclamation declares that a quorum of the General Assembly cannot be convened because of enemy attack upon the soil of Virginia. Such legislation shall remain effective only until thirty days after a quorum of the General Assembly can be convened.

        But, since a majority constitutes a quorum, you are correct that the republicans cannot “pull a Texas” (unless they are certain a sufficient number of members from the other party will also be absent).

      3. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        The definition of a quorum is not in the House Rules, it is in Article IV, Section 8 of the Constitution:

        Quorum.
        A majority of the members elected to each house shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and shall have power to compel the attendance of members in such manner and under such penalty as each house may prescribe. A smaller number, not less than two-fifths of the elected membership of each house, may meet and may, notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution, enact legislation if the Governor by proclamation declares that a quorum of the General Assembly cannot be convened because of enemy attack upon the soil of Virginia. Such legislation shall remain effective only until thirty days after a quorum of the General Assembly can be convened.

        But, since a majority constitutes a quorum, you are correct that the republicans cannot “pull a Texas” (unless they are certain a sufficient number of members from the other party will also be absent).

        1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
          Dick Hall-Sizemore

          I am embarrassed that I did not think to look at the Constitution. Since the rules did not address that issue, I should have known that it was addressed somewhere.

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