Earlier this year, the Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on a bill, H.B. 6331
Here is how it looked as originally submitted and still showing as the “Raised Bill” on the General Assembly Web <Raised Bill>:
AN ACT CONCERNING TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS TO CERTAIN ELECTION-RELATED STATUTES REGARDING TABULATORS.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
Section 1. Subsections (a) and (b) of section 9-168a of the general statutes are repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof…
This bill was the subject of a public hearing on February 10, 2011 <Agenda>
And here is the “Substitute Bill” that was passed by the committee on April 1st <Agenda> Note the change in the name of the bill on the agenda.<Substitute Bill>
AN ACT CONCERNING AN AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO
ELECT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BY NATIONAL
POPULAR VOTE.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General
Assembly convened:Section 1. (NEW) (Effective from passage) The Agreement Among the
States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote is hereby
enacted into law…
It looks a lot like a bill H.B. 6163 where a public hearing was held on March 11, 2011 <Agenda>
I attended both hearings and the meeting on April 1st. The Committee did debate the National Popular Vote, yet no member noticed/mentioned that they were passing a completely different bill than the bill number on the agenda.
As a final note, currently the Bill Status page remains confused as to the name and the purpose of the bill <read>
AN ACT CONCERNING AN AGREEMENT AMONG THE STATES TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BY NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE.
To make technical corrections to the elections statutes, including updating the statutes to reflect the current use of voting tabulators.
According to the rules of the General Assembly:
[15.] (b) Hearing Requirement for Favorable Report. Except as provided in Rule 32 (2)(A), no bill and no resolution proposing an amendment to the constitution or other substantive resolution shall be reported favorably by a committee unless a public hearing has been held as provided in Rule 6, but no further public hearing shall be required for a favorable report on a substitute for such bill or resolution, provided the substitute is based on or is germane to the subject matter of the original bill or resolution, or for a bill or resolution petitioned under Rule 11 on which a subject matter public hearing has been held.
I suppose it all depends on how inclusive a definition of “germane” is implied. I understand that similar changes happen regularly.
