Conducting Business on the Floors (transcript)
Today’s post is on conducting business on the floors.
https://soundcloud.com/capimpactca/conducting-business-on-the-floors
The California Legislature conducts its business both in policy and fiscal committees as well as on the floors of the State Assembly and the State Senate. Each house determines its own rules and specifies how business will be handled on their respective floors. This process of conducting their activities on the floors is called the Order of Business.
The processes between the two houses are similar in many regards, but there are a few differences as well. So let’s look at the Assembly and the Senate and how each conducts business on the floors.
Pursuant to Assembly Rule 40A, the Assembly’s Order of Business is:
- Roll Call
- Prayer by the Chaplain
- Reading of the Previous Day’s Journal
- Presentation of Petitions
- Introduction and Reference of Bills
- Reports of Committees
- Messages from the Governor
- Messages from the Senate
- Motions and Resolutions
- Business on the Daily File
- Announcements, and
- Adjournment
In addition, under Assembly Rule 63 the following constitutes the Order of Business of pending legislation as contained in the Assembly Daily File:
- Special Orders of the Day
- Second Reading – Assembly Bills
- Second Reading – Senate Bills
- Unfinished Business
- Third Reading – Assembly bills, and
- Third Reading – Senate Bills.
As for the State Senate, under Senate Rule 4, the Order of Business of the Senate is:
- Roll Call
- Prayer by the Chaplain
- Pledge of Allegiance
- Privileges of the Floor
- Communications and Petitions
- Messages from the Governor
- Messages from the Assembly
- Reports of Committees; Motions, Resolutions, and Notices
- Introduction and First Reading of Bills
- Consideration of the Daily File in the following order:
- Second Reading,
- Special Orders,
- Unfinished Business, and
- Third Reading
- Announcement of Committee Meetings
- Leaves of Absence, and finally
There are no additional special rules for the Senate found in the Senate Rules. When a bill is taken up that is not on the Daily File, it is done so without reference to file – most often known as its acronym WORF. When a bill is subject to a WORF, what the Senate or Assembly is actually doing is suspending the Orders of the day as set forth in their respective rules providing the order of business.