Assembly Journal of October 30, 2001 .......... Page: 483
Point of order:
Representative Black moved that the rules be suspended and that Assembly Bill 294 be withdrawn from the committee on Labor and Workforce Development and taken up at this time.
Ruling on the point of order:
Speaker Pro Tempore Freese ruled the motion dilatory under Assembly Rule 69.
Representative Black appealed the ruling of the Chair.
Speaker Pro Tempore Freese ruled that a motion to appeal the ruling of the Chair was not in order because his ruling was not made on a point of order raised under Assembly Rule 62.
[Note:] Assembly Rule 69. Dilatory motions.
(1) When it appears to the presiding officer that any motion or procedure is being used for the purpose of delay, the presiding officer shall declare it dilatory and out of order.
(2) Two consecutive identical motions are dilatory unless significant business has intervened between the motions.
(3) Two consecutive motions to adjourn are not be in order unless other significant business has intervened between the motions or unless no other business is pending before the assembly.
(4) While a motion remains undecided pending the presiding officer's ruling on a point of order taken under advisement, it is dilatory to enter a substantially similar motion on the same question, but it is proper to request an expansion of the question under advisement.
Assembly Rule 62 (6) Any member may appeal a ruling of the presiding officer on any point of order. When an appeal is made, the question is: "Shall the decision of the chair stand as the decision of the assembly?"
MASON'S MANUAL
Sec. 230. When an Appeal Is in Order
1. The proper method of taking exception to a ruling of a presiding officer is by appeal. All questions of order are decided by the presiding officer, subject to appeal by any member. It is the responsibility of the presiding officer to rule on points of order in a fair and impartial manner.
3. When a presiding officer rules a motion out of order and refuses to present it to the house, the proper procedure is to appeal from the presiding officer's decision. It is not proper for a member to put a question to vote which has been ruled out of order by the presiding officer.
Sec. 240. Purpose of Points of Order.
1. It is the duty of the presiding officer to enforce the rules and orders of the body without delay and without waiting to have the presiding officer's attention called to breaches of order. It is also the right of every member who notices a breach of order or of a rule to insist upon its enforcement. This is called raising a question or point of order, because the member puts to the presiding officer the question as to whether there has been a breach of order or of the rules. It is the duty of the presiding officer to maintain order and enforce the rules.
2. A point of order is the parliamentary device that is used to require a deliberative body to observe its own rules and to follow established parliamentary practice.
3. Any request for compliance with the rules is in effect a point of order and is subject to the same rules.
4. The presiding officer is not required to decide any point of order not directly presented in the proceedings of the body.
Assembly Journal of October 30, 2001 .......... Page: 484
Point of order:
Representative Black rose to the point of order that the motion to suspend the rules and that Assembly Bill 294 be withdrawn from the committee on Labor and Workforce Development and taken up at this time was not dilatory.
Speaker Pro Tempore Freese took the point of order under advisement.
Assembly Journal of October 30, 2001 .......... Page: 487
Representative Black withdrew his point of order that the motion to suspend the rules and that Assembly Bill 294 be withdrawn from the committee on Labor and Workforce Development and taken up at this time was not dilatory.
[Note:] This may have been a parliamentary inquiry, not a point of order.
MASON'S MANUAL
Sec. 230. When an Appeal Is in Order 8. An answer to a parliamentary inquiry is not a decision and therefore cannot be appealed.
Assembly Journal of October 30, 2001 .......... Page: 485
Point of order:
Representative Black moved that the rules be suspended and that Assembly Bill 294 be withdrawn from the committee on Labor and Workforce Development and taken up at this time.
Ruling on the point of order:
The Chair (Representative Duff) ruled the motion not timely because Assembly Bill 294 was already under advisement for a previous point of order.
Representative Black appealed the ruling of the Chair.
The Chair (Representative Duff) ruled that a motion to appeal the ruling of the Chair was not in order because his ruling was not made on a point of order raised under Assembly Rule 62.
[Note:] Assembly Rule 62 (6) Any member may appeal a ruling of the presiding officer on any point of order. When an appeal is made, the question is: "Shall the decision of the chair stand as the decision of the assembly?"
Assembly Rule 69. Dilatory motions. (1) When it appears to the presiding officer that any motion or procedure is being used for the purpose of delay, the presiding officer shall declare it dilatory and out of order.
(2) Two consecutive identical motions are dilatory unless significant business has intervened between the motions.
(3) Two consecutive motions to adjourn are not be in order unless other significant business has intervened between the motions or unless no other business is pending before the assembly.
(4) While a motion remains undecided pending the presiding officer's ruling on a point of order taken under advisement, it is dilatory to enter a substantially similar motion on the same question, but it is proper to request an expansion of the question under advisement.
MASON'S MANUAL
Sec. 149. Appeals, Points of Order, Inquiries
See also Ch. 23, Secs. 230-235, Appeals; Ch. 24, Secs. 240-246, Points of Order; and Ch. 25, Secs. 250-254, Parliamentary Inquiries and Other Requests for Information.
1. In conducting its business, a legislative body may have questions relating to policy or procedure presented to it for decision on appeals from decisions on points of order. Appeals may involve important questions of policy and, therefore, appeals may take on all of the characteristics of a main motion and are subject, in general, to the same rules.
2. Points of order are presented to the presiding officer for determination. The decision of the presiding officer on points of order may always be questioned by the body on appeal and the question decided by the body itself.
Assembly Journal of October 30, 2001 .......... Page: 490
Point of order:
Representative Hubler rose to the point of order that a second motion to table Assembly amendment 1 to Assembly Bill 579 was not in order under Assembly Rule 69.
Speaker Pro Tempore Freese took the point of order under advisement.
Assembly Journal of October 30, 2001 .......... Page: 491
Ruling on the point of order:
Speaker Pro Tempore Freese ruled not well taken the point of order raised by Representative Hubler that a second motion to table Assembly amendment 1 to Assembly Bill 579 was dilatory under Assembly Rule 69, citing a previous ruling from the Assembly Journal on October 31, 1985, pages 544-545.
[Note:] The ruling referred to above dealt with two motions to take from the table and noted, that under Assembly Rule 69 (2), two consecutive identical motions are dilatory unless significant business has intervened between the motions.
Assembly Journal of October 30, 2001 .......... Page: 491
Point of order:
Representative Black moved that the rules be suspended and that Assembly Bill 294 be withdrawn from the committee on Labor and Workforce Development and taken up at this time.
Ruling on the point of order:
Speaker Pro Tempore Freese ruled the motion dilatory under Assembly Rule 69.
[Note:] Assembly Rule 69. Dilatory motions.
Assembly Rule 69 (1) When it appears to the presiding officer that any motion or procedure is being used for the purpose of delay, the presiding officer shall declare it dilatory and out of order.
(2) Two consecutive identical motions are dilatory unless significant business has intervened between the motions.
(3) Two consecutive motions to adjourn are not be in order unless other significant business has intervened between the motions or unless no other business is pending before the assembly.
(4) While a motion remains undecided pending the presiding officer's ruling on a point of order taken under advisement, it is dilatory to enter a substantially similar motion on the same question, but it is proper to request an expansion of the question under advisement.
Division of question
1 9 9 9 A S S E M B L Y
Assembly Journal of October 6, 1999 .......... Page: 383
Point of order:
Representative Hubler rose to the point of order that the committee of conference report on Assembly Bill 133 is divisible under Assembly Rule 80.
Speaker Pro Tempore Freese took the point of order under advisement.
Ruling on the point of order:
The Chair ruled not well taken the point of order raised by Representative Hubler that the committee of conference report on Assembly Bill 133 is divisible.
The complete text of the Chair follows:
"The Lady from the 75th had raised a Point Of Order that didn't basically agree with the Chair declaring her motion to divide the Conference Committee Report. She raised a Point Of Order that the Conference Committee Report could be divided, as I understood it, into Sections 1, 2, and 3. I believe her original motion was to divide it into Item 3.
The Chair has spent some time trying to work through this particular Point Of Order to make sure because I am sure that the Lady will ask that it become precedent in the rulings of the Chair. So the Chair has taken some time looking at Assembly Rules, Joint Rules, Senate Rules, Mason's Manual and Jefferson's Manual to try to resolve this issue. The Lady from the 75th and the Gentleman from the 44th make the Point Of Order that we can divide it into different components based on Assembly Rule 80(4).
Assembly Rule 80(4) lists what is not divisible and because the Report On Committees doesn't happen to show up there it is the belief, I believe, of the Lady from the 75th and the Gentleman from the 44th that because it is merely not stated there, that it is divisible. One has to, I believe, look at Assembly Rule 80(1), which is "any member may request a division of simple amendments and motions involving distinct and independent propositions or concurrent action if they are severable without being rewritten or restated and the question shall be divided if each separate proposition or action to be voted on is complete and proper, regardless of the action taken on the other portions of the original question."
So the Chair looked, taking the advice that the Lady from the 75th and the Gentleman from the 44th were telling the Chair that this is a Report on the Committee On Conference. It is not an amendment, they report, because it is not specifically talked about in Assembly Rule 80(4). Therefore, it is divisible. It is the Chair's opinion, that under Assembly Rule 80(1), which governs what is divisible, this simply is not an amendment. It is not a simple amendment. Actually, if we were even to take conference amendment l, which is an amendment to the Assembly Substitute Amendment, I think members can easily see that this is just not a simple amendment. It is rather complex. It's actually a little longer than Gone With the Wind, and has quite a bit more intrigue in it, I think.
So, it is clearly, to the Chair, not a division of a simple amendment because as the Lady from the 75th and Gentleman from the 44th pointed out in their Points Of Order, that it was a report that should be divided based on the fact that it didn't show up in 80(4).
Then the Chair went one step further just to have a little more comfort because if it were an amendment, could this amendment be divided and taken up in three different components? It is the Chair's belief that under Assembly Rule 80(1), that each question if they were divided, Question l., Question 2 and Question 3 and were separate propositions or actions to be voted on, would be complete and proper regardless of the action taken on the others. And it is this Chair's opinion that they would not be, as the Chair was asking during the point of order that was being raised if Section l were adopted and Section 2 and Section 3 were not, could the bill stand on its own? The Chair's belief is, no it could not. If Section 2 were adopted but not Sections 1 and 3 the same situation. Or, if only Section 3 were adopted without negating the actions taken by the Senate and Assembly, could it stand on its own? It is the Chair's belief that it could not.
But wanting to make sure because knowing the Lady from the 75th was going to be fairly persistent and the Gentleman from the 44th is a scholar of the rules, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't not reading this properly and when one looks at the Joint Rules, Joint Rule 3(3) "approval of the Conference Report by roll call vote in each house sufficient to constitute final passage of the proposal shall be final passage of the bill or Joint Resolution in the form and with the changes proposed by the report." And the Joint Rules really are silent on whether or not we can amend the Conference Report.
So the Chair looked at Senate Rules which are somewhat more obscure than ours and really not to the point, so the Chair looked at what other rules are available to us to determine and under Assembly Rule 91(1) "in the absence of pertinent Assembly or Joint Rules questions of parliamentary procedure shall be decided according to applicable rules of parliamentary practice and Jefferson's Manual which are not inconsistent with constitutional or statutory provisions relating to the functioning of the legislature."
So, upon reading about the statutory provisions, we did a search of the Wisconsin Statutes and Constitution to see if there is something that would apply there. Of course, that didn't help us. So the Chair then referred to Jefferson's Manual. And, if members want to take a look on page 47 in the section on Conferences on page 48 as well and the ending of this regarding conference committees "and each party reports in writing to its respective house the substance of what is said on both sides and entered into the Journal."
And that is the report we have before us. "This report can not be amended or altered as that of the committee may be." So, the backup for Assembly Rules and Joint Rules was Jefferson's Manual but also wanting to make sure that that is the established precedent, I looked to Mason's Manual which is the manual we often refer to as well and under Section 770 (2) it says "in voting in a conference committee, the committee of each house votes separately. The committee on conference from each house submits its report to the house from which it was appointed, "which we have. "The report upon being received may be treated like other reports except that the report of the conference committee is usually given higher precedence."
That's why we're here at l0:00 p.m. "Under no condition, including suspension of the rules may the house alter or amend the Report of the Committee, but must adopt or refuse to adopt the report in the form submitted."
So it is the opinion of the Chair that the Lady from the 75th's Point Of Order is not well taken based on those following reasons."
[Note:] Assembly Rule 80 (4) was later amended to provide: Bills, joint resolutions, resolutions, and substitute amendments, and amendments received from the senate for assembly concurrence, may not be divided. A bill vetoed in its entirety by the governor may not be divided. A report of a committee of conference may not be divided.
Emergency statement (to pass appropriation bill before budget)
2 0 0 1 A S S E M B L Y
Assembly Journal of March 13, 2001 .......... Page: 142
Point of order:
Representative Freese rose to the point of order that Senate Bill 1 was not properly before the Assembly under 16.47 of the Wisconsin Statutes.
Speaker Jensen took the point of order under advisement.
Assembly Journal of March 22, 2001 .......... Page: 171
Ruling on point of order:
Speaker Jensen ruled that the point of order, raised on Tuesday, March 13, by Representative Freese that Senate Bill 1 was not properly before the Assembly under 16.47 of the Wisconsin Statutes, was not timely.
[Note:] For a bill requiring an emergency statement, the point of order would be timely in conjunction with the vote on passage or concurrence.
16.47 (2) No bill containing an appropriation or increasing the cost of state government or decreasing state revenues in an annual amount exceeding $10,000 shall be passed by either house until the budget bill has passed both houses; except that the governor or the joint committee on finance may recommend such bills to the presiding officer of either house, in writing, for passage and the legislature may enact them, and except that the senate or assembly committee on organization may recommend to the presiding officer of its respective house any such bill not affecting state finances by more than $100,000 biennially. Such bills shall be accompanied by a statement to the effect that they are emergency bills recommended by the governor, the joint committee on finance, or the senate or assembly committee on organization. Such statement by the governor or joint committee on finance shall be sufficient to permit passage prior to the budget bill. Such statement by the senate or assembly committee on organization shall be effective only to permit passage by its respective house. For a bill requiring referral to the joint finance committee, the point of order would be timely in conjunction with the vote on passage or concurrence. The statutory rule requires only one referral between the 2 houses.
Assembly Journal of March 22, 2001 .......... Page: 171
Point of order:
Representative Freese rose to the point of order that Senate Bill 1 was not properly before the Assembly under 16.47 of the Wisconsin Statutes.
Speaker Jensen took the point of order under advisement.
[Note:] No ruling. The bill had a fiscal estimate of approximately $2 million but did not have an emergency statement. For a bill requiring an emergency statement, the point of order would be timely in conjunction with the vote on passage or concurrence.
16.47 (2) No bill containing an appropriation or increasing the cost of state government or decreasing state revenues in an annual amount exceeding $10,000 shall be passed by either house until the budget bill has passed both houses; except that the governor or the joint committee on finance may recommend such bills to the presiding officer of either house, in writing, for passage and the legislature may enact them, and except that the senate or assembly committee on organization may recommend to the presiding officer of its respective house any such bill not affecting state finances by more than $100,000 biennially. Such bills shall be accompanied by a statement to the effect that they are emergency bills recommended by the governor, the joint committee on finance, or the senate or assembly committee on organization. Such statement by the governor or joint committee on finance shall be sufficient to permit passage prior to the budget bill. Such statement by the senate or assembly committee on organization shall be effective only to permit passage by its respective house.
2 0 0 1 S E N A T E
Senate Journal of February 13, 2001 .......... Page: 72
Point of order:
Senator Welch raised the point of order that Senate Bill 1 requires an Emergency Statement and is not properly before the Senate.
Ruling on the point of order:
Senate Bill 1 was referred to the Joint Committee on Finance on January 25, 2001. The Senate Co-Chair of the Joint Committee has attempted to schedule a meeting; however, the Assembly Co-Chair has refused to concur with a meeting schedule.
There are two issues involved prior to consideration of Senate Bill 1 by the full Senate:
1. The first is the requirement for an "emergency statement" as required by ss. 16.47(2).
2. The authority of the Senate Committee on Finance to report the proposal to the Senate when the proposal was referred to the Joint Committee on Finance by the Senate.
Section 16.47(2) of the statutes requires that prior to passage of the biennial budget bill, any proposal which impacts state finances by an amount exceeding $10,000 requires an emergency statement before either house of the legislature may take a vote on final passage of the proposal.
The fiscal impact information provided by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau indicates a cost of $16 Million in fiscal year 2001-02 and approximately $106 million in fiscal year 2002-03. Clearly, in accordance with ss 16.47(2), the bill requires an emergency statement.
A brief history of the "emergency statement" requirement is in order at this time. The concept was developed as the result of one of the first Legislative Council Study Committees on the Budgetary Procedure. The Legislative Council by its resolution establishing the subcommittee advised that the subcommittee "consider the feasibility of including all appropriations in a single bill". The report of the subcommittee stated: "Studies bring out an alarming trend of the large number of separately enacted appropriation bills, including the executive budget bill. The last three sessions show 84 bills in the 1943, 85 bills in 1945 and 110 bills in 1947." The subcommittee also stated: "It is often questionable whether or not all the members of the legislature have a clear picture of the financial condition of the state. Nor do they know whether or not the appropriation bills being acted upon fit into a sound pattern for the state's financial welfare."
The subcommittee reviewed a recommendation of a prior committee on the budget, chaired by the late Senator Melvin R. Laird Sr. That recommendation was to employee 5 budget assistants to advise the legislature on fiscal policy. Senator Laird was quoted as saying: "Budgetary systems are concerned with the coordination of public finances into financial plans. It is apparent that with technical assistance given, the budget can be evaluated and considered in a better legislative light."
The Legislative Council Subcommittee recommended the adoption of a proposal that would accomplish the goal of informing the members of the legislature on fiscal matters and provide for speedy and effective consideration of appropriation bills.
Assembly Bill 11 was introduced into the 1949 Legislative Session, relating to a state fiscal policy and appropriation procedures. The bill as originally introduced clearly restricted the legislature's ability to act on appropriation bills. One provision of the proposal read as follows: "No appropriation bill shall be passed by either house until the executive budget bill has passed both houses; except that the governor may recommend the enactment of an emergency executive budget bill which shall continue in effect only until the executive bill becomes effective or until the next succeeding July 1, whichever is later. There was additional language in the bill to provide for the Joint Committee on Finance to report and propose a Joint Resolution on the fiscal condition, and a requirement that appropriation bills provide a source of revenue, this last provision did not become law.
