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North Carolina Press Release
PRESS RELEASE
By Senator Phil Berger
North Carolina General Assembly
Senator Phil Berger, Office of the Republican Leader, North Carolina Senate
1121 Legislative Building, Raleigh, NC 27601 (919) 733-5708
NCC Editors Note: Better late than never.....This press release is dated January 30, 2004. This info was NOT well known across the state and got very little media coverage at the time. We thought this info was well worth repeating.
http://www.ncsenategop.com/opinion/20050130a.htm
Senate Democrats 'Circle the Wagons' to protect
nervous conservative Democrats
Raleigh – Jan. 26. As has been reported in the Charlotte Observer, and elsewhere, changes made in the Rules governing the state Senate, at the opening of the 2005 Session, have raised some eyebrows. Democrat leaders have given themselves a way to provide cover for their embattled conservative Senators without prompting a revolt among their expanding liberal numbers.
Maintaining a ban on laptop computers grabbed more attention but Democrat leaders changed the way the Senate does business in fundamental ways. Greater power over the Senate agenda has been placed in the hands of Democrat Senate Leader and Rules Committee chairman Sen. Tony Rand (D-Cumberland). To some this appears to be an attempt to protect worried conservative Democrat senators from North Carolina voters increasingly at odds with the liberal pronouncements of the national Party.
The changes did not go unnoticed by Senate Republicans. Andrew Brock (R-Davie) even commented that the parliamentary changes brought into question whether the state Senate was still "a deliberative body."
As the first order of business for the 2005 Session, Republicans tried to amend the Democrat's new Senate Rules, but attempts to reverse the autocratic direction of the majority were defeated along party lines, as Democrats circled their wagons. The effect of all this on Senate Republicans will likely be minimal, but the effect on popular bills being heard and voted on may well be significant.
In years past, when a Republican bill disappeared into a committee chairman's attic, hope was still not lost. All bills filed were required to be sent to at least one Senate committee, and the possibility remained of a "discharge petition," signed by three-fifths of the 50 Senators, forcing the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. The latest Senate Rules, however, say only that the Rules Committee chairman "may" refer a bill to a committee, meaning bills can remain in limbo, literally in a single senator's pocket, creating a new way for one legislator to veto any bill and destroy any hope of it ever being considered or of their constituents obtaining any record of how their representatives actually vote on controversial issues.
If the new "option" of referring a bill to a committee, the new Senate Rules also increase from three-fifths to two-thirds, from 30 to 33, the number of Senators required to enforce a discharge petition.
It's speculated these new restrictions are directed at the Defense of Marriage Act, a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman, filed by Senator Jim Forrester (R-Gaston) last summer, and already reintroduced this session by Forrester and Sen. Fred Smith (R-Johnston). It is estimated that better than 70% of North Carolina’s voters would support the measure; it is not, however, popular with liberal Democrats.
Last summer, there were not enough Senate Democrats willing to join Republicans in discharging the Defense of Marriage Amendment when only 30 were needed. If the Defense of Marriage Act is sent to Committee, the need for additional signatures makes discharge more difficult, and overriding the wishes of liberal Democrat leaders, who don't want a Defense of Marriage Amendment to actually reach the Senate floor, much less likely.
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PRESS CONTACT: Joel Raupe - Administrative Asst. Office of the Minority Leader North Carolina Senate
joelr@ncleg.net (252) 944-8894
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