Without addressing any of your concerns about the annexation moratorium legislation, I feel obliged to point out that the video you posted does not show the N.C. House Judiciary II Committee voting to amend the bill. The vote shown in the video highlights instead a common practice in legislative committee meetings.
When a bill sits in a particular committee, several things can happen. First, the committee chairman can ignore it (thus effectively killing the bill). Second, he can schedule debate on the bill as written. This tends to occur only with noncontroversial legislation.
Third, the most likely option for a bill involving any dispute or controversy is that debate will open with the unveiling of a “proposed committee substitute,” or PCS. The committee is presented with this PCS, and then the committee must decide whether to give the PCS a hearing. That is the process depicted in your video. Rep. Dan Blue says, “Rep. [Jimmy] Love moves adoption of the proposed committee substitute for purposes of discussion. Any discussion or debate?”
I did not attend the meeting and can’t say what happened next. It’s entirely possible that after the vote depicted in this video, committee members voted again without discussion to approve the PCS. (If they did not take another vote to approve the PCS itself, they acted in error.)
My post does nothing to deflect your criticism about the process. Instead my comments are designed to clarify both the content of the video you posted and to highlight a legislative procedure that deserves more attention and scrutiny.
The PCS can be a dangerous tool for lawmakers. It makes no public appearance until a legislative committee is expected to vote on it, often minutes after it reaches committee members’ hands. If the PCS resembles the original bill, it still tends to incorporate suggestions made during hallway and backroom discussions involving the bill sponsor and interested lobbyists.
I used the word “if” in the previous sentence because the PCS also has been used in the past to change a piece of legislation completely. Here’s the basic strategy: A House or Senate leader waits for a piece of legislation to clear the other chamber. Especially helpful is a piece of legislation that’s important to a powerful member of the opposite chamber or a piece of legislation that no one wants to oppose (let’s say a bill against beating puppies).
Instead of considering that bill, the powerful legislator in the second chamber “guts” it and substitutes an entirely different piece of legislation. If the bill clears the second chamber, then a conference committee is set up to negotiate the differences. Since the House and Senate versions are entirely different pieces of legislation, the high-ranking members of the two chambers can debate how to resolve the controversy. They have bargaining chips for other debates.
Unlike the normal legislative procedure, this type of scheme allows a piece of legislation to become law by facing scrutiny in only one chamber. Members of the other chamber have a chance to vote up or down on the legislation only in the context of approving the conference report. They’re forced to accept the other chamber’s proposals or to vote against the entire package (and, using our example above, risk being labeled as supporters of puppy cruelty).
In fairness to the current crop of lawmakers, I can’t recall any egregious examples from the past session or two. But this is a strategy that crafty legislators have used effectively in the past.
