Tennessee House adopts rules to limit debate and punish members for speaking out of order

The Tennessee House of Representatives formally adopted new rules for this year’s legislative session Wednesday that limit debate time and silence members for speaking out of order.Representative William Lamberth, R-Portland, brought forward the change involving the amount of time members are able to speak on a topic. Under the new rule, both the Democratic and Republican caucuses each get 30 minutes total to speak on bills.Caucus leaders are responsible for dolling out how much time each individual member can speak during those 30 minutes.“This is pretty significant change, we’ve never done it this way before, not twelve years in the House, but we’ve heard a lot of input from both Republicans and Democrats, and we want to make sure that on the larger bills, there is plenty of time for both Republicans and Democrats to get all the points that you would like to get out,” said Lamberth.The House is also limiting the initial presentation time members have for their bills to five minutes under the new rule.House members also approved Representative Johnny Garrett’s, R-Goodlettsville, proposal to ban members if they go off topic.The new rule bars an offending member from speaking on the subject they were ruled out of order on following the first offence. A second offence reduces the offending member’s speaking time from five minutes to two on any other issue. A third offence costs the offending member the ability to speak on the floor for two legislative days.Democratic members expressed concern that the new rule could be misused to silence members by ruling them out of turn.Representative Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, was among those expressing concern and suggested members should be told why they’re out of order. Republican members rejected a similar request in committee on Monday.“If a member is ruled out of order or off topic, and we have, as a body, have to vote on whether we agree with that or disagree with that, then I think it’s important for us to be told where the member was off topic or out of order so we can make an informed vote,” said Parkinson.Republican supporters of the changes say these new rules are needed because some voices have been silenced by a few Democrats who monopolized the floor to speak, including members of the so-called Tennessee Three that faced ouster last session, Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, and Justin Jones, D-Nashville.Representative Jason Zachary, R-Knoxville, provided members with a list compiled by the House Clerk of the members who spent the most time speaking on the House floor. Representative Pearson held the top spot with three hours and 43 minutes, followed by John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville with more two hours and 16 minutes, and Representative Jones with two hours and 12 minutes.Only one Republican made the top ten on that list.“These rules are necessary to ensure that every single member on this body, that 99 people representing this house, representing 60 to 65 to 70 thousand people at home have the opportunity to be the voice for their constituents. Because voices have been silenced,” said Zachary. “There are many in this body that monopolize the time that silence the vast majority of districts across the state.”