Montana labor news., 1938-10-20
By SAM SPIEGEL

Legislative bills intended to be-
come laws have strange, eventful,
sometimes puzzling life-stories. The
general public usually becomes
aware of a bill only when it is
thrown onto the open floor for de-
bate, that is, when one of the legis-
lative committees has reported it out.
What has happened to it before this?
What r the committees? Why do
they exist?
Committees ostensibly exist to
speed the wheels of legislation. With
hundreds of bills introduced at each
session, members have very little
time to debate each bill introduced.
So they set up committees under the
heading of Petroleum, Oil and Gas,
Labor, Education, Highways and
Highway Transportation, etc.
Bills affecting gas and electricity
rates, for example, go to Public
Utilities, bills on oil production to
Petroleum, Gas and Oil, and so on.
Now the committees go to work.
How are they appointed? By the
Speaker of the Assembly, and the
Lieutenant C Governor in the Senate.
Some of these appointments are the
juiciest plums in the Legislature and
are frankly political. With them the
Speaker rewards those who have
helped him gain the ~speakership.
Members of the Legislature vie
and struggle for good" committee
appointments, for it is in the com
mittees that lobbyists do their most
important work. Considerable po-
litical, and often financial, benefit
may, and often does, accrue to the
members of a committee which has
just pigeon-holed a bill imposing,
for example, a new tax on power
companies or oil companies. A tax
bill that the chairman or a majority
of members of the committee on
Revenue and Taxation wish defeated
may never be heard of on the floor
of the House, unless a majority of
the members vote to withdraw it
from committee. The committees
may amend bills at their own will
although the House may restore the
original bill or add new amendments
by majority vote,
1t is almost impossible to get a
record of how members of a COM
mittee vote on any particular bill.
No printed record is made, Usually
the minutes of a committee meeting
show simply that the measure con-
sidered was sent to the floor with a
"do-pass'' or that the bill was tabled
or that it was recommended that
passage be refused, no more. Most
votes taken in committee are oral.
1t can now be understood why the
selection of a man for Speaker of
the Assembly arouses such interest
and furore at each session.
How the People Are Betrayed
Let us shadow a proposed law
through the legislative mill. We will
assume it is a bill which will, if
passed, exempt foodstuffs from a
state ~sales-tax. After being intro
duced in the Assembly by a liberal
member, the Speaker, %ensconced be-
hind the big, raised desk, refers il
to the committee on Revenue and
Taxation and the clerk goes on read
ing other bills. Apparently no one
is excited. Members of the commit
tee on Revenue and Taxation know
that public opinion demands the bill
and are afraid to kill it.
But week after week the bill re-
mains on the committee agenda I'M
til finally ear the close of the ses-
sion, it is brought up and reported
out without recommendation" But
when the author reads his bill 1t has
a new sectionl Now it not only
exempts foodstuffs, but beer, wines
and liquors as well,
The author concludes that the
lobbyists have been busy, S o he be-
gins organizing his friends against
the amendment. He suspects the
conservatives have killed two birds
they have met the demands Of
their supporters, but back of that
their covert purpose is to line up
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