New rule: Efficiency trumps debate on Senate floor

CARSON CITY

New rule: From now on, Democrats can’t bring amendments to bills on the Senate floor!

That’s not officially the wording of a brand-new set of rules governing the Nevada state Senate, but Democrats are saying it may as well be, as acrimony in the upper house rises with the approach of the end of the 2015 Legislature.

Under the current rules, any senator can move to bring an amendment to a bill on the Senate floor, a tactic that minority Democrats have used repeatedly to force roll-call votes on issues Republicans would rather avoid seeing in campaign mailers. Some of those votes have come on bills that majority Republicans have crafted in order to force Democrats to take votes that they’d rather not see in campaign mailers.

But Republicans are still the majority party. And that’s where the new Standing Rules of the Senate come in. Although a set of rules was adopted at the start of the session, as is customary, Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson introduced an entirely new set on Monday. Included in that set is Rule 22, which creates the Senate Parliamentary Rules and Procedures Committee.

That brand-new, three-member committee must approve all potential amendments that senators want to bring to bills on the Senate floor. And since that committee consists of two Republicans (James Settelmeyer of Minden and Greg Brower of Reno) and one Democrat (Kelvin Atkinson of Las Vegas), it’s a fair bet that no embarrassing-to-Republican amendments will ever emerge from the Rules Committee.

That must be why Democrats didn’t really like the idea and voted en masse against it.

Minority Leader Aaron Ford, D-Las Vegas, objected, saying a change to the rules requires a two-thirds vote and one-day notice. But Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison overruled him, saying the Senate was adopting an entirely new slate of rules, not changing existing ones.

“The proposed rules change is clearly punitive,” Ford said, citing a Friday vote in which minority Democrats denied Republicans the votes they needed to pass a bill regulating and taxing ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft. (Ironically enough, after getting some additional information, nearly all Democrats voted for that bill.)

Ford added the new rules were “an unfortunate and unabashed display of yet another abuse of power.” Perhaps, but Republicans are the majority, and in the Legislature, majority rules. It says so right in Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure, Roberson said.

Roberson denied the rules were a recompense for anything, but merely a way to deal with a crush of bills pending before the end of the session. “We need to be as efficient as possible to finish the people’s business,” he said.

And, he said, nobody should be surprised: He gave the proposed rules to Ford for his review. But Ford said he saw the draft 90 minutes or so before it was brought up on the floor, not enough time to review the rules in depth.

Atkinson, before he knew he’d be the lone Democrat appointed by Roberson to the Rules Committee (irony alert!), railed against the idea, saying it will increase tension between the parties, not relieve it.

“I really hope that you, Mr. President, the governor, someone can stop this madness. This is ridiculous,” Atkinson said to Hutchison, who serves as president of the Senate. “This is more bullying, more intimidation, from the majority party. … This is downright ridiculous. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Neither has anybody else in the building. Apparently, the last time an entirely new set of rules was adopted was 1973, and that happened eight days into the 57th Legislature.

Ironically enough, Democrats accuse Roberson in attack news releases of being a creature of Washington, D.C., where the House Rules Committee wields tremendous power that can affect the outcome of votes on legislation. Now, Carson City has its own agenda-setting Rules Committee, at least for the next three weeks or so.

Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist who blogs at SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.