Missing Out

On every Tuesday at the state legislature, the legislators attend Caucus.  This is a time where each party (in both the House and Senate) meets to discuss the latest bills. 

Caucus offers a great opportunity for strategy and discussion.  It is also very helpful for members to learn about what happened in each committee during the past week.  Often, members will have questions about a certain bill.  A lot of times, they want to know what happened in the committee hearings regarding this bill.  Usually, someone from that committee can address the issues.

For example, if I’m on the Government Committee but James is on the Transportation Committee, then I can explain to James what happened in the Government Committee.

But this only works if I actually attended the original hearing.

And that’s exactly the issue that occurred today in the Democrat Caucus in the House.

HB2564, the Abortion Consent Act, was being discussed this morning in Caucus.  As noted from last week, Democrat Representatives Ableser and Lopes decided to boycott the original Health Committee hearing.  Instead of serving on the committee, they decided to hold their own press conference in what was called a “temper tantrum” by Speaker Kirk Adams. 

So, when the Democrats met this morning for Caucus, the members weren’t able to ask Mr. Ableser or Mr. Lopes what they had learned from committee.  There was complete confusion surrounding the bill among the Democrat members as many were unclear on the language or provisions of the bill.  Had their representatives decided to take their seat in the committee last week, they probably would have been able to help out their fellow representatives.