Oregon daily emerald., February 01, 1978, Section A, Page 8, Image 8

House speaker holds reform power
By JANE LEHMAN
Of the Emerald
The first place to begin legisla
tive reform is with the powers of
the House speaker, state Rep.
Grattan Kerans, D-Eugene, told
the local chapter of Common
Cause Monday night.
Kerans joined Alan Green, di
rector of legislative research, in
isolating potential areas the public
interest group might support as is
sues. Common Cause is now
planning legislation to submit to
the 1979 state Legislature.
“The most important vote your
state representative makes is for
the speaker,” Kerans told the au
dience of 15. "After that he (state
representative) can go for five
months without casting a vote that
even begins to measure up in sig
nificance.”
Powers of the House speaker
include appointment of all mem
bers to each standing committee,
withdrawal of memberships, as
signment of legislation to commit
tees and subsequent referral of
legislation to other committees.
“House rules, custom and tradi
tion” are the only checks on the
power of the presiding officer, the
representative said.
“Customs and tradition set the
boundaries, which will work as
long as the speaker has a working
majority in the house,” Kerans
said.
Last spring House Speaker Phil
Lang lost that crucial working ma
jority due to abuses of his power,
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according to Kerans.
“Too much rural, agricultural,
conservative legislation was sent
to the graveyard," he said.
As a result, a "revolt” lead to the
suspension of the speaker’s pow
ers, which were turned over to a
rules committee, unpopularly re
ferred to as the “gang of six,” he
said. However, Kerans was not
happy with the outcome.
“We went from a very powerful
speaker to a figurehead who pre
sided over the meetings. Neither
was very satisfactory.”
After the session ended, a Task
Force on Rules and Procedures
was appointed in the fall to review
each power of the speaker and
procedures for adopting rules.
The purpose of this year-long in
vestigation is to “democratize the
rules,” according to Kerans.
The task force is looking into
three areas now controlled by the
speaker: appointment of mem
bers to committees, selection of
committee chairers and vice
chairers and control over bill as
signment to standing committees.
Kerans predicted that eventu
ally "both minority and majority
caucuses will select their own
members and leaders."
He warned against suggestions
of dividing up the power of the
speaker.
“Put the responsibility in one
place. Common Cause should not
attempt to diversify power that
there is no accountability. If power
accumulates in one person there
should be a check on that power .”
Kerans said the legislature
would not return to its former
methods of selecting the presiding
officers. “During the past session
only one vice-chairmanship was
granted by the speaker to a minor
ity party.”
In past years, the minority party
received "11 or 12 or all of the
vice-chairmanships. They (minor
ity party) felt cut off from the be
ginning,” said Kerans.
Kerans endorsed the idea of
chairer selection by a vote of the
majority and minority caucuses.
“It’s the only route that will ever
recognize talent, which is different
from use of power. Under the pre
sent system we are wasting ana
frustrating good talent in public
service.”
The problems inherent in
speaker control over bill assign
ment and referral is the lack of
adequate checks, the representa
tive said.
Presently, the speaker can as
sign a bill to a hostile committee,
make enough subsequent refer
rals to kill a bill or arbitrarily hold it
on his desk. Keran has known
cases of bills “lost” for 100-day
spans under the latter conditions.
“Usually it happened because it
was blatantly objectionable or ob
noxious to those in the majority
party,” but this was abused
beyond tolerable limits, said Ke
rans.
Methods to remedy the situa
tion include shortening the time
period of referral, spelling out
jurisdiction of standing commit
tees, limiting subsequent referrals
and allowing appeals on referrals.
In summation, Kerans warned
the Common Cause members,
“Issues may never survive unless
the process allows honest, full
treatment of your issues.”
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^ Information:
EMU Lobby, 10-3,
Jan. 31-Feb. 1.
Interviews:
Placement Center, Campbell
Hall, Feb. 1-2. By
L appointment.
J