Missouri Legislature streamlines committees

Committees in the Missouri Legislature -- made up of lawmakers from across the state -- have the important task of deciding whether a bill is worthy of being forwarded on to the House or Senate for further debate.

The committees are truly the front line of the legislative process.

But in recent years, the number of these committees has swelled to unmanageable levels. That has happened out of necessity in some cases, but partly because leaders in the House and Senate wanted more chairmanships to reward legislative supporters. There were even cases of a legislator creating new committees just to have plum assignments for political friends.

The ever-growing number of committees has diluted the process, created scheduling conflicts and -- as new House Speaker Catherine Hanaway put it -- made representatives generalists on many issues instead of specialists of a few.

That's about to change.

With Republicans in control of both chambers for the first time since 1948, the House recently enacted new chamber rules that reduced the number of standing committees to 32 from 42, also eliminating three special committees. The much smaller Senate also cut four committees, leaving it with 17.

The way it's structured, functions of committees that handled similar issues are being consolidated. For example, the House has combined two panels that had handled elementary and secondary education and higher education into one education committee. Other committees were also combined.

Both Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder and Hanaway say this should improve the process.

We agree.

The change makes sense and is downsizing of the best kind. The streamlining of the process will mean that legislators, including the 90 freshmen representatives in the House, should be better informed.

In theory, it also should mean those committees will get more attention. It also may lead to less legislation, and that may sound like good news to some.

Our only quibble is that it doesn't go quite far enough. There are still too many committees. The Missouri Legislature should look at trimming even more committees.

This is a step in the right direction. Let's hope it is the first step towards a truly efficient lawmaking process.