During
the course of the 2003 legislative session, several
members of our Association inquired about the Legislation
Committee, wanting to know how the Committee's membership
is selected, what its responsibilities are, and how
it functions. Many people also wanted to know how they
can become more involved in the legislative process.
The composition of the Legislation Committee and
its functions.
The Arkansas Bar Association's
Legislation Committee is established under Article VIII
(Committees and Task Forces) of the Association's bylaws.
Under section 1(E) of Article VIII, the Legislation
Committee is comprised of nine members: the Association
president and president-elect; the chair of the Jurisprudence
and Law Reform Committee (appointed annually by the
incoming president); the chair of the Legislation Committee
(appointed annually by the incoming president); two
at-large members appointed jointly by the incoming president
and incoming president-elect and who serve staggered
four-year terms; and three members who are elected by
the House of Delegates from the Association's three
Bar Districts and serve for two-year terms. The members
who served during the 2003 legislative session were
Murray Claycomb, Tom Daily, Bill Haught, Charles Schlumberger,
Dustin McDaniel, Donna Pettus, Boyce Davis, Cindy Grace
Thyer and Mike Wilson.
Section 1(F) of Article
VIII prescribes the Legislation Committee's responsibilities
to:
(1) support the Association's
Lobbyist in promoting the enactment of bills included
in the Legislative Package approved under Article X
of these By Laws;
(2) support the position
of the Association on legislation pending before the
Arkansas General Assembly; and
(3) consider and decide
the position of the Association on legislation which
the House of Delegates has not taken official position
on and is under consideration or expected to be considered
by the Congress of the United States or by the Arkansas
Legislature or its interim Committees, or on proposed
initiated acts.
Subsection (F)(3) also
contains additional directives and limitations regarding
the Committee's charge, requiring it to:
a. establish and
maintain a statewide legislative action network of lawyers
who will serve as legislative contacts to advocate the
Association's position to legislators, and recruit lawyers
to be legislative witnesses in support of the Association's
position on legislative proposals; attend Committee
meetings and legislative sessions when the Lobbyist
cannot be present, and perform such other tasks as are
reasonably calculated to achieve the Association's Legislative
goals.
b. not support
any legislation which the House of Delegates has rejected
within the immediate past 24 months nor oppose any legislation
which the House of Delegates has approved within the
past 24 months. It shall have authority to make changes
in proposed legislation of the Association which do
not materially change the intent or the purpose of such
legislation and may take a position for the Association
on other legislation and proposed legislation under
consideration or expected to be considered by the Congress
of the United States or by the Arkansas Legislature
or its interim Committees. During special sessions,
the Committee may sponsor technical corrections to existing
law and poll the House of Delegates on substantive matters
which have not previously been voted on by the House.
c. not take a position
on any legislation unless it would have a direct effect
on the practice of law or a significant impact on the
administration of justice.
The Legislation Committee's process for developing
the Association's position on legislation.
The Committee meets on
an as-needed basis when the General Assembly is not
in session. Beginning two to three weeks prior to the
commencement of a regular session, the Committee meets
weekly, usually on Friday afternoons, for the duration
of the session. In addition to the Committee members,
the Association's executive director and lobbyist attend
these meetings. Also, any Association member may address
the Committee by requesting the Committee chair to place
him or her on the agenda for a future Committee meeting.
The Committee also meets in this fashion during special
sessions, although its meetings are more frequent, given
the compressed timing of special sessions.
Of all the responsibilities
entrusted to the Committee, the most onerous and time-consuming
is the one contained in Section 1(F)(3), under which
we are required to develop the Association's position
on measures on which the House of Delegates has not
spoken. To fulfill this obligation, the Committee
reviews and considers every non-appropriation bill that
is filed. This is no easy task. In the 2003 regular
session, over 2800 bills were introduced. Approximately
two-thirds of these bills were non-appropriation bills,
meaning that your Committee reviewed over 1800 bills.
To do this, we have a system whereby each Committee
member is pre-assigned to newly filed bills, according
to the last digit of the bill number. For example, one
Committee member is responsible for reading all non-appropriation
bills ending with the number 1, another is responsible
for reviewing such bills ending with 2, and so on.
Each Committee member
reads his or her assigned bills and then gives a report
to the full Committee at the weekly meeting. In accordance
with part (c) of section 1(F)(3), the Committee first
determines which bills "have a direct effect on
the practice of law or a significant impact on the administration
of justice." As one might expect, most bills do
not meet this standard, and so the Committee takes no
position on those bills.
Where bills do meet this
standard, the Committee then determines the Association's
position, as it is required to do under section 1(F)(3).
That position may be to support, oppose, or be neutral
on the bill. Because the Committee is comprised of lawyers
from various specialties, we usually have the benefit
of having someone who understands the bill's purposes
and consequences. However, when the subject matter of
a bill focuses on particularly specialized areas beyond
the ken of the Committee or its members, we often will
refer the bill to the appropriate section of the Association
for further review and comment to help us in developing
the Association's position. In addition, we consider
information that is given to us by Association members
who ask to be included on the agenda to address particular
measures. In the vast majority of cases, developing
a consensus on the Association's position is relatively
easy: The diversity of the Committee's composition (coupled,
when necessary, with the advice we receive from sections)
provides a sound and reliable base for recognizing good
bills, bad bills, and bills that are well-intended but
need amendment in order to avoid unintended, adverse
effects.
The hard situation, of
course, is the one in which the bill encompasses subject
matter on which different factions of the bar might
disagree. On the one hand, the Committee is sensitive
to the "big tent" of the Association and accordingly
it will not be used to advocate the interests of one
group over another; on the other hand, under Section
1(F)(3)(c) the Committee is obligated to develop a position
on any legislation that presents "a direct effect
on the practice of law or a significant impact on the
administration of justice." The various "tort
reform" bills introduced during the 2003 regular
session present the prime example of this conundrum.
In fulfilling its responsibilities in these situations,
the Committee members put their own personal interests
to the side and focus on the language of the bill -
not the underlying concept or motivations - to determine
whether, if enacted, the bill would conform to the Association
membership's universal interest in having "good
law" that is constitutional, free of ambiguity,
and is even-handed, so that it does not undermine the
fair administration of justice.
Lobbying
and the Legislative Action Network - Your Involvement
in the Process.
Recognizing the impact
of term limits and the diminishing number of attorneys
serving in the General Assembly, in 2001 the Association
took three significant steps. First, the membership
amended Section 1(F)(3) of Article VIII to include,
at subsection (a), a requirement that the Legislation
Committee establish a statewide legislative action network
(LAN). Second, the Board of Governors authorized the
Association to hire a full-time lobbyist. Third, the
Board of Governors approved an expenditure to subscribe
to an internet-based service that members could use
to both be informed of legislative developments and
to contact their legislators.
We first hired our lobbyist.
A search committee was formed, and from an attractive
field of highly qualified applicants the search committee
selected Jack McNulty, a former Association president
and long-time advocate and servant of the Bar. Jack
is currently under contract through June 2005.
The next task was to establish
the LAN. The Committee members, Jack and Executive Director
Don Hollingsworth collaborated on a program to recruit
attorneys in each legislative district who had developed
relationships with their legislators. Many legislators
have told us that the most effective means of educating
them on matters of importance to us is through individuals
from their communities whom they know. By the session's
end we had over 80 active LAN members. We continue to
encourage our members to become active in the LAN. If
you have a strong relationship with your senator or
representative and want to help the Bar Association
in its efforts, please contact Jack. His e-mail address
is jackmcnulty@lobbyist.com,
and his office telephone is (870) 534-5532.
Finally, the Association
contracted with VoterVoice, a company that specializes
in creating "grass-roots" software packages
to which organizations such as ours can subscribe. Through
this package, Jack and the Committee became "connected"
to thousands of Association members, and those members
also became "connected" to their constitutional
officers and legislators. Of all of the measures we
took to improve our presence at the legislature, this
was by far the one most readily recognized and appreciated
by the membership. We are in the process of negotiating
a new contract that will take us through the 2005 session.
Conclusion
I hope that this article
answers your questions about the workings of the Legislation
Committee. I also hope that it demonstrates that in
the Committee you have a hard-working group of colleagues
who take their responsibilities to you very seriously
and who want to hear from you. Again, any member who
wishes to address the Committee on a particular piece
of legislation may do so by requesting of the chair
to be placed on a meeting agenda. Finally, and most
of all, I hope that this will motivate all of us to
become more active in the legislative process, for the
benefit of our profession and our legal system.
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