GOP slashes House committees, claims $800,000 in savings
Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at 9:53 am
- 8 Comments
Republican leaders announced Tuesday that they have greatly reduced the number of legislative committees in the Minnesota House and Senate and that they estimate cost savings at between $750,000 and $800,000. Future House Speaker Leader Kurt Zellers said the new structure will reduce the number of committees from 36 to 24, and future Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch said her caucus has reduced committee from 25 to 16. Zellers said the new structure will make it easier for businesses to navigate the process.
“We wanted to productively innovate to make government more user friendly,” Koch said at a press conference at the Capitol Tuesday afternoon. “It’s going to make the process much more transparent.”
She added, “We are estimating that in the Senate we will save $250,000 to $300,000.”
She said the new structure is a 36 percent reduction in committees.
On the House side, Zellers said that the new structure will help business owners and concerned citizens navigate the process.
“We’ve streamlined government,” said Zellers. “We set our structure up so that it’s to the advantage of the voters. It’s what the voter expected and demanded.”
He said saving will be “close to if not a half a million in savings.”
“There’s going to be one stop shopping in most cases, if you are a business owner,” he said. “It’s just a matter of how efficiently we run this place.” He said that his caucus had spoken to a lot of business owners who had trouble getting through to complicated committee structure when an issue came up.
“It’ll be a lot easier and more transparent,” he said.
The major changes include doing away with subcommittees and combining policy and budget committees as well as staff reductions.
“We’ve done some combining of policy and finance committees,” said Koch. “If you looked at a lot of the bills, policy and finance are so intertwined anyway, it just made a lot of sense.”
In terms of staff reductions in the Senate, Koch said it’s likely to be four to five people.
Zellers said in the House, “it is going to be a significant reduction.”
“I think it will be double digit,” he said, but noted that a lot of those cuts will come from positions left unfilled.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Thissen was not convinced that the new structure is a good idea. “My fear is that Republicans will use their new structure to reward the anonymous corporations who helped pay for many of the seats in this election,” he said.
Zellers dismissed his statement, “We’ll leave political pot-shots back on the campaign trail.”
Here’s the old committee structure for the House and Senate:
Here’s the new structure that GOP leadership unveiled on Tuesday:
Follow Andy Birkey on Twitter8 Comments
Comment posted November 17, 2010 @ 10:26 am
Hm. Most of this article seems to repeat the GOP talking points, with only that quizzical statement by Thissen at the end. Will this really save money, or did those extra committees have a purpose?
If I didn’t know you better, Andy, I’d think you’re currying favor ;)
Comment posted November 17, 2010 @ 10:30 am
Nope, not currying favor. As someone who has frequently tried to navigate that system, I personally find it a favorable change. Whether it is a good change in terms of transparency or that the previous committee structure was better, I haven’t heard any arguments to the contrary.
Comment posted November 17, 2010 @ 11:54 am
I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. My suspicions are raised by the emphasis on making the Legislature a nicer place for businesses.
Comment posted November 17, 2010 @ 12:09 pm
Wow, that first graphic shows how confusing a layout can be when you transpose and jumble.
And look how great that second graphic is when you put like committees on the same snapline!
Almost as if they are dissembling through visual disorder…
Comment posted November 17, 2010 @ 3:09 pm
Sounds great to me. I’m sure any structure of committees can be used to reward corporate cronies, but as long as I don’t have the time and energy to police the whole system: Less is more!
Comment posted November 18, 2010 @ 4:48 pm
Whoa!! All of the sudden the GOP cares about saving $$$$$… What a bunch of douche bags!! The GOP saves money like a Japanese whore saves phone numbers….. HOW all of the sudden did the Tea Bag Party care about deficit spending
Comment posted November 18, 2010 @ 9:10 pm
When a system becomes inadequate to the demands placed on it, adjustments become necessary. Over time, those adjustments becomes a complicated patchwork that begins to break down the very processes they were meant to empower.
At that point, a redesign is the only solution. Simplification is a part of that redesign, but it has to be done with careful deliberation because there is the risk of OVER-simplification and unintended (or maybe intended) consequences.
Due diligence:
Streamlining the number of committees can make it easier for lobbying and public scrutiny, but it also means fewer legislative eyeballs focused on the bill. This means less intellectual diversity and expertise, and an increased possibility for partisanship and unintended consequences. The question that needs to be asked here is whether redundancy or specialized focus is being reduced.
Bottlenecking:
Passing the same number of bills through fewer committees cannot help but constrict the legislative process. This could mean a significant reduction in the number of bills that go through the state legislature, but the more likely outcome will be a reduction in the time spent deliberating a bill in committee. This represents an additional reduction in due diligence.
What should concern everyone is that this is being put forward by a political party that does not like government and would be happy to see it fail in it’s regulatory capacity.
I am positive that this will not receive the debate and public scrutiny that it demands.
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