Caterpillars are poisonous. A caterpillar transforms into the butterfly that would be named Louisiana’s official butterfly. So, Rep. Greg Miller said he didn’t want to be on record supporting the bill designating the state butterfly. He wanted to reverse his previous vote supporting the proposal.
“I don’t like caterpillars,” said Miller, R-Norco. “And I found out it’s poisonous to be eaten.”
“Do you eat a lot of caterpillars?” asked Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie.
Miller replied: “I didn’t say I ate them.”
As The Associated Press details, the exchange on the Louisiana House floor last week was one of the stranger give-and-takes of the regular legislative session. But if it seemed silly, it was meant to be.
Miller, who eventually withdrew his request about the butterfly bill, was trying to draw attention to a practice little-known to the public that lets House lawmakers change their votes after bills have passed or failed—as long as the switch doesn’t change the outcome.
Critics say the practice allows lawmakers to change their position after the fact to lessen pushback against their votes or to curry favor with particular lobbying groups and organizations. They say it undermines the chamber’s integrity.
“I want people to just live with their votes,” said Miller, who acknowledges he changed votes in prior sessions.
In a recent special session, a number of Republican House lawmakers who had voted for changes to an insurance tax credit later that day streamed to the microphone to switch their votes to opposition. They worried language in the bill might have been an indicator of support for Medicaid expansion, and they didn’t want that on their records.
Only the final decision shows up in the vote tally listed online for a piece of legislation. People tracking bills would only know that lawmakers switched their positions after the vote if they looked in the official journal of the day’s floor action, a more cumbersome—and less obvious—search.
An official “legislative calendar,” printed months after a session ends, includes an index showing the vote changes. But that document isn’t available online. The calendar for the 2015 regular session showed 144 vote changes from 59 lawmakers.
