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How an Idea Becomes a Law in Minnesota

How does a bill move through the committee process?

After a bill’s introduction and first reading, it is referred to a committee for consideration.

Every biennium, House and Senate leaders establish a series of standing committees that address both policy and financial issues, and appoint the chairs of those committees. In the House there are approximately 35 committees, and in the Senate there are approximately 20 committees, each ranging in size from 10 to 25 committee members. Generally, each member of the House or Senate is appointed to serve on three to five committees.

Bills may travel through one, two, or many more committees before reaching the House or Senate floor for a vote by the full body.

Senator Sharon Marko (DFL — Cottage Grove) speaks at a
press conference convened by Sierra Club volunteers
and the Transit Partners Coalition.

The Power of the Chair

Committee chairs in the Minnesota House and Senate hold a tremendous amount of power.

It is up to the author of a bill to request a public committee hearing for the bill, where the details of the bill and its potential consequences can be discussed and put to a vote. However, the chair of the assigned committee has complete discretion about whether or not to grant the author’s request for a hearing. Some bills in the legislature never move through the committee process because the chair of a committee refuses to take up the bill in his or her committee.

Additionally, the chair can also require that bills referred to other committees receive a hearing in the chair’s committee prior to being forwarded to the full House or Senate for consideration.

The Power of the Committee

Before a committee can consider a bill, the chair of the committee decides whether or not a hearing will take place. If the chair agrees to hold a hearing, the committee can then amend the bill, send it to the floor for debate, vote the bill down, or send the bill to another committee. Once they have done so, the chair of the committee will note the action taken on the bill’s jacket and that “report” is sent to the Clerk of the House of Representatives or the Secretary of the Senate. The Clerk or the Secretary then forwards the bill to the next committee or places the bill on the register of bills to be voted on by the House or Senate.

More specifically, here are the options that committees have when considering a bill at a committee hearing:

• The committee can pass the bill and send it to the House or Senate floor for a vote (with or without amendments)
• The committee can pass the bill and send it to another committee.
• The committee can pass the bill and place it on the Consent Calendar (a special register for non-controversial items that are unlikely to be opposed or amended and are typically passed unanimously on the House or Senate floors).
• The committee can send the bill to the House or Senate floor, or to another committee, with no recommendation.
• The committee can kill the bill by voting it down or tabling the bill indefinitely.

The Power of Other Committees

Bills are not necessarily considered by only one committee. If a bill is complex and tackles more than one issue, different committees focusing on those separate issues can review the bill.

This process can result in large referral sequences, with a single bill being passed to a large number of committees for review. Additionally, many committees’ jurisdictions overlap, thereby making it acceptable and often necessary for multiple committees to review the bill. Bills usually move through multiple committees before reaching the House or Senate floor for a vote of the full body.

Whether and to what extent committees choose to review the contents of a bill often relates to the culture of that committee and the desire of the committee chair. For example, a committee may choose to review work done by a previous committee even though the subject matter is outside of the current committee’s jurisdiction, or the committee may choose to limit its review to only the sections of the bill where the committee has particular expertise.

As a bill moves from committee to committee, the revisions that committees make to a bill are tracked by creating “engrossments.” An engrossment is the act of incorporating amendments into a clean version of the bill. It is nothing more than a revised document that contains all of the changes made to the bill up to a certain date. When examining the contents of a bill, during the committee process or when it reaches the House or Senate floor, it is important to make sure that you are looking at the most recent engrossment.

Sierra Club volunteers stand at the base of a large wind turbine
at the West Central Research and Outreach Center in Morris, Min-
nesota. The wind turbine was a stop on the Walk for Wind
a six-week series of events calling for greater awareness about
renewable energy in Minnesota.

Voting in Committee

Voting in committees is complex. To begin, a quorum is always necessary when making any sort of decision during a committee hearing. A quorum is typically defined as the presence of one more than 50% of the members of the committee. A quorum must be present to deliberate or make any decisions regarding a bill under consideration.

Committees make decisions about the fate of a bill by voting. This process can be executed in several different ways.

• Voting by voice. A surprise to many, this is the most common form of voting by a committee. Members of the committee indicate their support simply by shouting “Aye” or “No” at the request of the chair of the committee. How each individual member votes is not officially recorded, and the chair of the committee calls the vote based on the shouts that he hears coming from committee members.
• Voting by division. This type of voting is done by a headcount or a showing of hands, and is commonly used by committee members who object to the decision of the chair following a voice vote. The chair of the committee counts the number of hands that are raised or the number of members standing, and announces the number of members that vote for or against the issue being discussed. This voting is also not officially recorded; hence, unless you are in the room at the time of the vote, there is no way to trace how individual committee members voted.
• Voting by roll call. Roll call voting takes a record of each individual member’s yea or nay vote when the committee secretary calls the committee member’s name. This is the only type of voting that allows individual member’s votes to be traced. In committee, any member can request a roll call vote, and roll call voting is required for the final passage of bills on the House and Senate floors.

These voting techniques are not only used during committee debate, but they are also used on the House and Senate floors when considering bills for final passage.

Committee Deadlines

Each year the House and Senate set deadlines, by joint resolution, for committees to hear and act on bills. There are typically three deadlines that relate to committee action. It is important to know about these deadlines, since it is nearly impossible to revive a bill that has not been acted on by a committee prior to these deadlines.

The “first deadline” usually occurs before the Easter holiday and is the date by which committees must act favorably on a bill in either the House or Senate.

The “second deadline” usually occurs just after the Easter holiday, and is the date by which committees must act favorably on bills, or companion bills, that have met the first deadline in the other body.

The weeks preceding the first and second deadlines are often very busy times at the capitol, with committee hearings lasting well into the evening and early morning hours. After the second deadline has passed, there is usually a sudden lull in activity at the capitol because there is no longer a reason for policy committees in the House and Senate to continue meeting. This lull lasts a brief time, until conference committees and finance committees begin to meet and perform the bulk of their work, which will last until the close of the legislative session.

Major appropriation, finance, and capital investment bills are typically exempted from these first two committee deadlines. However, there is a “third deadline” by which committees must act favorably on major appropriation and finance bills.

If any of these deadlines are missed, the bill must be sent to the Rules Committee in the House and Senate, which have the authority to waive the application of the committee deadlines.