Before a budget is brought to the full Senate for a vote, it would have to pass through a floor debate called Committee of the Whole.

Lawmakers and Capitol observers simply call it by the acronym COW. 

On most days, COWs are a dull, routine part of the legislative process.

But on other days, the meetings can become explosive, acrimonious, or even downright nasty.

The source of the contention is that COW is the last stop before legislation gets voted up or down. It is during COW that all lawmakers have the chance to debate and offer amendments to specific legislation. Perhaps more significantly, it is the one avenue available to critics to try to stop measures that actually have enough votes to pass. 

For the most part, decorum is maintained. But at times, the debate teeters on the edge of civility – and sometimes, lines are crossed. 

Much really depends on the subject, but sometimes, it also depends on the lawmaker with the gavel sitting in the dais, calling the shots.

That person is called a COW chair. He or she manages the flow of debate, ensures that the business at hand is finished, and sees to it that everyone behaves.

But that's when things get complicated. Lawmakers can offer floor amendments to a bill, propose amendments to the amendments, verbally divide the amendments or try to amend the COW report to reflect that an amendment has passed or failed – even after the debates have concluded. In between, lawmakers may challenge the "germaneness" of the amendments and raise a flurry of points of order.   

That's just the technical side of COW. Then there is the debate itself.

And then there is the filibuster, a parliamentary maneuver meant to derail passage of legislation.

During the past few weeks, the Senate has been holding a "COW camp," a one-hour instruction on Senate rules, procedures and motions. Senate President Bob Burns sent out an invitation to lawmakers to attend one. Several new members and veterans have since participated in the COW camp.

What have lawmakers learned?

"Don't turn off the microphones," said Sen. John Huppenthal, a veteran lawmaker.

Rewind to June 27, 2008, the final night session: A Republican chairing COW cut off two Democrats in the middle of what amounted to a filibuster to try to stop a proposal to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage in Arizona.

The Democrats, senators Paula Aboud and Ken Cheuvront, actually discussed a different subject – excise taxes – to stall. It was getting late, lawmakers had worked through the previous night, and the pair of Democrats knew the Republicans had the 16 votes needed to pass a so-called marriage amendment.

The showdown began when another lawmaker offered a floor amendment on counties and excise taxes. Sen. Jack Harper, then the chair of COW, recognized Cheuvront, who voiced his concerns against the amendment. At that point, Cheuvront already achieved half of the Democrats' goal – which was to take control of the floor. Under Senate rules, a senator who has the floor during a COW debate can talk as long as he wants and as long as he stays on topic.

Soon Cheuvront engaged Aboud in discussion. Only then it became clear to everyone that the two Democrats had just begun a filibuster.

Harper interrupted the Democrats by clearing the microphones and handing the floor to a Republican, who made a motion that effectively ended the debate.

The ballot referendum, now known as Proposition 102, was eventually passed. Democrats protested that Senate rules were violated. Cheuvront later charged Harper with an ethics violation.

After investigation, Harper was cleared of the charge. Harper admitted he intentionally turned off the microphones and apologized for his part in the divisiveness that ensued. But he said the tone had been set by his "more liberal" colleagues, particularly during the earlier debate to pass the state's fiscal 2009 budget.

Lingering pains

On the first day of the current session, there were indications that the wounds from last session lingered on – or at least they remained unforgotten.

Immediately after the Senate adopted rules, a pro-forma action made at the beginning of each session, Sen. Meg Burton Cahill, a Democrat from Tempe, stood up to say she had pressed her "speak" button because she wanted a roll-call vote on the adoption of rules.

She said she wanted to make a point: "When we have an instance where things go by and there is an error, there is, at least to the best of my knowledge, no procedure in our rules to accommodate going back."

She wanted a roll-call vote because of what happened last year, she said.

Senate President Bob Burns told the body that the rules adopted were temporary and there would be an opportunity to change them at a later date.

"My point," Burton Cahill later told the Arizona Capitol Times, "is just that if we have a rule that has no consequence, do we really have a rule?" She added she could not vote for the adoption of rules that has no mechanism to go back to an error if one were made.

Asked if the hard feelings still linger, Aboud said, "Nothing has changed. Only time has passed. Time doesn't heal, contrary to popular opinion."

Even Sen. Ron Gould, a Republican from Lake Havasu City, noticed people are not exhibiting that "warm, fuzzy feeling."

"It's nothing that is spoken," he said. "I think people were cordial. And people are still cordial, but you could just kind of tell."

He doesn't harbor any hard feelings, even though his rights were stomped on as hard as anybody's, he said.

Open to rules revision

Republicans appear open to the revision of rules.   

Sen. Thayer Verschoor, a Republican from Gilbert, said he thinks the current rules pretty much cover everything, but added he is not necessarily opposed to the idea of a mechanism to go back to correct an error.

"Now is an opportunity to have that discussion and see if there is anything that can be worked out," he said.

Gould, who is adept at using Senate rules to his advantage and has pulled out some of the rarest parliamentary maneuvers in recent years, said he would have objected himself to the adoption of "final" rules.

"We need to actually sit down and take a look at our rules because there is some stuff that we need to work on," he said.

Gould said for one, he wants to look at the rule about "calling for the previous question," which has the effect of immediately stopping debate to vote on the motion at hand.

"It ends all debate," Gould said, adding he disagrees with it because the business of the chamber is to debate. But there would be plenty of time to look at the Senate's rules later, he said. After all, committees would not be hearing non-budget bills any time soon, because Burns has announced he won't be assigning bills to committees until after the budget is fixed.

Asked if the hard feelings have lingered, Verschoor said June "wasn't too long ago."

He said he would have preferred to take care of controversial business, such as the marriage amendment or the equalization property tax, early in the session, in February, for example. These are issues that ought to be brought to the floor and dispensed with quickly one way or the other so they can get on with the rest of the Senate business, Verschoor said.

"And I think that's the smartest way to do it – not to hold them off, basically not to really let them sit in the pot and stew and stew and stew because I think it just makes it worse," he said.

Verschoor said it doesn't surprise him that what happened in the final days of last session still lingers a little bit.
"I think for the most part that the process is a good process and right now, from what I have been able to see, most of the members are ready to move forward with the business at hand, which is how do we deal with this deficit."

Sen. Pamela Gorman, the majority whip, said she and a legislative staff had actually started talking about the idea of a COW camp when both were in the House. Through the course of term limits, they have seen the understanding of rules, proper procedures and motions getting "harder and harder." Members were starting to stumble with fewer examples to follow, she said. 

"I said maybe we need to start regularly training people each term before we put them on the spotlight and put them on the line and expect them to be running a room," she said.

"But that," Gorman said, referring to what happened last year, "certainly prompted a surge of effort" to push for changes.

They don't want to put anyone in that kind of situation again, she said.

 "It wasn't just the person in the chair," Gorman said. "There were people making improper motions not understanding when a motion was appropriate, when it wasn't (and) people shouting ‘Point of order.'"

Maybe things could have been handled differently, she said.

Senate Secretary Charmion Billington and Rules Attorney Joni Hoffman conducted the COW training. Melissa Taylor of the majority office organized the camp.

Billington said they discussed how to deal with points of order, motions to divide amendments and the difference between retaining a bill on the calendar and retaining it in place. They talked about making sure that motions are proper. They discussed debate, such as the concept of "yielding the floor." They touched on what to do when a bill fails during debate and on the use of the request-to-speak system. And they even held mock COW debates. 

One of those who attended the COW training was freshman Sen. Al Melvin, a Republican from Tucson.

One of the things emphasized was to refer to members by their district instead of their names when discussions get really heated, according to Melvin.

Gould sat in the class with Melvin.

Gould said he also gave Melvin some instructions "on the black arts of Senate rules."

Just pause

Gould is adept at practicing parliamentary maneuvers. He has, for example, refused to vote while remaining on the floor, which effectively stalled Senate business, since all members on the floor have to vote unless excused. The move can actually be countered. But when he did it a few years back, he got what he wanted.

What's his advice to the COW chair? Just follow the rules, he said.

At times, the body, through what he called "creative motions," may get into places it has not gone before. When that happens, Gould said the chair needs to just pause.

"Pause and wait until you get some instructions from the secretary, her staff and the rules attorney to figure out how to proceed," he said.

One lawmaker won't be chairing any COW this year – Harper, the Surprise Republican.

"I will not be chairing Committee of the Whole even if asked," Harper said.

"I came to that conclusion when I saw that even if you follow the Senate rules you can be dragged to the Senate Ethics Committee for the purpose of politics, during election, when you put yourself in that situation by chairing Committee of the Whole."