Harold Dutton

A rebellion over House committee appoint­ments and the power of Speaker Joe Straus seems to have been averted after Democrats backed away from asking to swap committee seats. The right of the speaker to make committee assignments is a key power of the office. However, Straus had faced repeated questions from Dems over whether it was possible for two members to swap by mutual agreement. On Feb. 25, Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, made his own inquiry. Straus initially rejected restarting the discussion, calling committee appointments “a ministerial act of the chair.” Dutton pushed for a motion to bring the issue before the floor, so the whole issue got kicked over to Parliament­ar­ian Denise Davis. On Feb. 26, before Davis could make any announcement, Dutton withdrew his inquiry. He explained, “They were going to rule against me, so I thought there’s no point putting a ruling in the record.”

Dutton was quick to put down one rumor. “People thought it was about me. I think my committees, other than Public Ed, are so bad nobody would switch with me in the first place.” He said he was only responding to his fellow members’ discontent. “Many of them [asked] not to be put on a certain committee, and they ended up on it. Go figure,” he said.

The rules are clear that the speaker gets to make the initial assignments, Dutton said, but when it came to voluntary committee swaps, “I did a little research on it, and there’s nothing in the rules that prohibits it. The way I’d interpreted past speakers’ rulings, when the rules are silent, that meant the activity is not prohibited.”

So is this a full declaration of peace or just a cease-fire? Dutton remains critical of both Straus’ selections (“He put a lot of square pegs in round holes”) and on how he handled the discussion (“I was taking the speaker at his word that this was really going to be a members’ House”). However, he accepts there’s nothing that can be done about it this session, so he plans to make the right to swap explicit in next session’s House rules. As for Straus, Dutton said, “I’m looking forward to him having some better experience next time on getting it done a little bit differently so that you match up people’s interests with their committee assignments.”

This article appears in March 6 • 2009.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.