By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A St. Joseph state representative begins a new role in the Missouri House this legislative session, a role vital to the legislative process.
Rep. Brenda Shields, a Republican, will chair the House Rules Committee which makes sure legislation is ready for floor debate.
“The Rules Committee is the committee after bills have been through the other committee structure. It all comes to the Rules Committee for its last review, making sure the member is ready for it to go to the floor, that it is the type of legislation that we want to debate,” Shields tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “So, it’s kind of like a coffee filter where all the legislation comes through this committee and we only select the best to come out to the floor.”
Shields says the work of the Rules Committee is important to ensure the sponsor of the legislation is ready and that the legislation is important enough for the House to spend precious legislative time debating.
“As much as we work in this House to make sure that everything is right, it’s really the Rules Committee’s job to make sure that we have dotted all the ‘i’s’ and crossed all the ‘t’s’ on pieces of legislation before it ever makes it out to the floor,” according to Shields.
Shields says she is pleased the House Speaker has shown such confidence in her to place her in the role.
Shields says her committee must make sure the bill sponsor hasn’t overlooked something in their legislation as it moves to the final step in the legislative process.
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