A Legislative “Do Over”

We passed a bill today that within minutes had caused quite a stir. Not from the media or constituents, but from within our own body as some of us began to realize what we had just voted on. It was SB 119, Sen. Stephenson. The bill was presented by the House sponsor, Rep. Morley, and his entire presentation of the bill is as follows, “The intent of this bill is to help or at least encourage the most participation possible when taking on new debt in local legislative bodies.” There was no public debate and we went straight to a vote. It passed 41-22, with my yes vote, which was a mistake. It was after the vote that some of us realized this was not the “simple bill to encourage participation” that had been purported in the presentation. In fact it does two things that greatly impact a school district’s functioning: 1) requires that an election for a bond, levy, leeway, or sales tax issue requires a 2/3 majority vote of the local legislative body, and 2) limits the date of a special election called by a local school board to the general election day in November (now it can happen in June or November) except for a vote on a voted leeway or when creating a new school district. These are things that impact school districts tremendously and place tighter restrictions on their ability to make decisions. So, the process for reconsidering the bill was put into place. Basically what happens in that case is that a person who voted on the prevailing side (yes) requests from the speaker “under suspension of the rules that we reconsider” the bill in question. That is placed to a vote of the body. In this case, there were more than enough votes to bring this bill back to us for a reconsidered vote.  Reconsidering a vote is very rare, and although someone spoke against bringing it back saying doing so would create a negative perception from the public, I believe the public would rather have legislators admit when as a body we’ve made a bad vote, either by inattentiveness or lack of preparation, and rectify the situation before we enact into law a flawed bill. This was one of those cases. This bill was circled once it was brought back to the reading calendar and it is being worked on for a possible amendment in preparation for the next presentation. A legislative do-over. And I appreciate the mechanism we have in place in the legislature that allows this.