By Rep. Jason Murphey
Last week I wrote of the impending new legislative leadership. These new leaders will take office in the House and Senate in November.
The current state of legislative malaise has provided them with a tremendous opportunity – especially those in the House of Representatives.
Over the last three years the Legislature has been been stricken with this malaise due the failure of the House of Representatives to clearly define a set of operational criteria and guiding principle.
The bicameral system of governance is designed to put the lower chamber, the House of Representatives in the driver’s seat. It is the place of principles, ideas and action. It represents the average citizen, the grassroots and the populace’s demand for immediate reform.
By design the Senate provides a deliberative check on the impetuousness of the House. As such, they are also slower to get on board with reform; nonetheless, when the House follows its role of advancing reform and representing the values of the people then the Senate inevitably follows.
I saw this happen time and again during the period of legislative reform which took place with varying degrees of intensity starting in 2005 and culminating in 2014.
The malaise of the past years has taken the House out it’s designed position of driving and defining the actions of the Legislature.
House officials no longer start each legislative with an intense public pronouncement of guiding principle and goals for reform by which the public can measure their progress or lack thereof.
In the last handful of years not only have these officials not aggressively declared their goals, but they have acted against the defining principles and undone reforms made by their predecessors.
They have significantly walked back transparency reforms and acted hostilely towards the remaining transparency safeguards; they conducted a 180 degree departure from the important concept of using motor vehicle revenues for transportation purposes; and in the last year have demonstrated a marked change on tax reform policy.
The failure of House leaders to declare a commitment to guiding principles has had a dramatic effect.
For example, the House’s failure to commit to defending tax reform policy opened the door for a series of dangerous proposals this year. For several weeks it actually appeared as if the Legislature might move forward with a new services tax about which I wrote multiple times and a new tax that would have been especially punitive to the middle class.
In previous legislatures such an incredible proposal would have been ruled out immediately.
Not this year!
Incredulously, numerous House members, including House leaders were ready to support and move forward with this terrible new tax even though many of them had campaigned and won election on the concept of tax reform.
In recent years the Legislature has been a ship adrift, stumbling from issue to issue without the guidance of defined principles and expectations.
Thus the opportunity of the new House leaders.
By simply defining a core set of reform-themed principles, they can put the House back into its designed position of driving reform.
I would suggest the first of these principles should re-commit legislators to transparency and transforming the opaque and antiquated legislative process.
I will keep you informed.
