The House Government Operations Committee
reported a constitutional amendment Wednesday that would change the way
immediate effect is granted in the House. House
Joint Resolution FF was reported on a 3-0 vote with both Representative
Rudy Hobbs (D-Southfield) and Minority Leader Tim Greimel (D-Auburn Hills)
abstaining from the vote. HJR
FF would require a two-thirds roll call vote of both legislative chambers
in order to enact immediate effect and would stipulate that bills not granted
immediate effect would become law 90 days after they were filed with the
Department of State.
Representative Ed McBroom (R-Vulcan) is the
primary sponsor of the resolution and he is joined by 96 co-sponsors of the
bill. Mr. McBroom stated that the resolution is based on the way the Senate
currently handles immediate effect and by leaving the vote out of the House
Journal the resolution allows the minority party the ability to negotiate with
the majority to grant immediate effect to a bill without supporting it.
Although historically the minority party is the one complaining about the
handling of immediate effect passage, Minority Leader Tim Greimel (D-Auburn
Hills) said that without recording the vote it cannot be known if there are enough
votes to grant immediate effect.
Traditionally, immediate effect has been
decided by a voice vote under the presiding officer who is a member of the
majority party. This allowed passage of immediate effect on bills even if
two-thirds of the House did not support the passage. Currently without
immediate effect a bill does not become law until 91 days after the end of the
two year legislative session (sine-die) unless there is an effective date
mentioned in the bill.
The former counsel to the House Judiciary
Committee, Bruce Timmons, spoke in support of the bill saying that the 90-day
clause made sense as immediate effect has become such a common practice in the
House. He added the only option for restoring the correct process to immediate
effect may be a constitutional amendment. HJR
FF would have to be passed with a two-thirds vote of both the House and the
Senate in the next week in order to make the general election ballot in
November.