HOUSE Speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider likened it to the first few months of a romantic relationship: “You have a new boyfriend. Nothing hurts you. You always think about him. You are very energetic, you sleep late but you wake up early.”
But the honeymoon at the House of Representatives is over, according to Hofschneider.
After nearly five months in office, the 13th House is no longer in the “lovey dovey” stage, he said.
At this stage, the speaker said “the period of adjustment has set in” and that House members are now trying to “live up to their task as chairmen and members of the committees.”
He said members are now aware of the nitty gritty of legislative work—the time table for certain bills to be reported back to the floor for votes or consideration, bills that came from the Senate that have to be reported out in a given period of time.
Hosfchneider described the performance of House members as “good.” He said a lot of House committees are in fact meeting almost on a daily basis.
“(They) have been competing for time everyday. And there are only so much committee meetings we can hold in a given day and if you overlap it, the problem is that composition and membership may in fact be inadequate for the performance of the committee. You can only accommodate two or three committee meetings a day,” said Hofschneider, R-Saipan.
To address this concern, he said the leadership has taken steps to prioritize the bills that have been referred to them, look at those referrals and decide which are to be reported out based on the urgency of particular legislation.
