New House and Senate Rules

Tuesday, February 15th, the Rules Committees of the Rhode Island House and Senate will take up their rules for 2011-2012. There are a number of very significant changes, especially in the House Rules this year. You can read more about them here. Common Cause is very pleased with most of the changes to the House rules, including:

• Putting floor votes online
• Moving toward putting committee votes online
• Providing for an audio recording of all non-televised committee hearings
• Not allowing new bills to be introduced after 11:30 pm.

We remain skeptical of several rules changes, including the new inclement weather policy that allows the House to roll over to the next day all their committee agendas rather than post them again with 48 hours notice. We are also skeptical of the Senate rules change limiting public access to the floor 10 minutes prior to the scheduled beginning of the session.