PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — More than a dozen Rhode Island House Democrats who call themselves the “Reform Caucus” put forward a set of changes Wednesday they say will open up the legislative process and help them better serve their constituents.

The caucus was formed last fall in opposition to the leadership of Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, criticizing him for centralizing power and killing bills he opposes even if they have support among rank-and-file members. On Tuesday, 19 of the chamber’s 66 Democrats refused to vote for Mattiello as speaker, and 16 of them participated in Wednesday’s news conference.

“We are all joined together for one common goal, and that is to create an open, fair and transparent legislative process,” said Rep. Deb Ruggiero, D-Jamestown, who has emerged as one of the caucus’s leaders.

The arcane topic of rules reform comes up every two years, when Rhode Island’s House and Senate prepare to adopt the policies that will govern legislative debate for the current term. Republicans and a small number of Democrats have unsuccessfully proposed changes in the past, but there appears to be more support this year.

A number of Reform Caucus members said they discovered last fall that an increasing share of voters are questioning how the House operates. “This was a surprise issue in my campaign,” said Rep. Rebecca Kislak, a newly elected Providence Democrat.

The rules of the House may be an “esoteric topic,” but “like the spark plugs in your car, it’s key to the process,” added Rep. Jason Knight, D-Barrington.

Mattiello spokesman Larry Berman said Wednesday it has not yet been decided when the proposed House rules for 2019-20 will be released and debated. The speaker appointed new members to the Rules Committee on Wednesday, excluding all the dissidents from the panel.

“The Rules Committee was appointed today and it will hold a public hearing on the rules in the near future,” Berman said. “All legislators are welcome to offer proposals to amend the rules and those will be considered by the committee.”

Mattiello, D-Cranston, told WPRI 12 on Tuesday: “We will make sure that our rules are fair, promote collaboration, are very inclusive to all, but that there’s an appropriate screening process so bad ideas don’t go through.”

Republicans are keeping an open mind but not endorsing the proposals. “The caucus hasn’t reviewed these proposed changes,” House Minority Leader Blake Filippi, R-New Shoreham, said in an email. “Conceptually, some make sense, but a lot more thought needs to go into them.”

The Reform Caucus members proposed four specific changes.

The first: allowing the House rules to be suspended only by a vote of two-thirds of representatives. Currently the rules can be suspended by leadership, leading to the annual end-of-session vote marathons where bills fly through the chamber faster than the public can read them.

“A great many of the members don’t like it,” Kislak said. “The public doesn’t like it.”

Their second proposal: requiring that the text of any amended bill by published at least 48 hours before a final vote. Currently, legislation is sometimes changed significantly and then approved on the spot, before anyone but House Democratic leadership has been able to scrutinize the revisions.

Rep. Katherine Kazarian, an East Providence Democrat who was among those removed from the Rules Committee, said other states have even more stringent rules for how long bills must be posted before a vote. “Citizens of Rhode Island deserve transparency,” she said. “Forty-eight hours is the least we can do.”

Their third proposal: if a bill is submitted in the first year of a two-year term, it will still be alive in the second year rather than having to be filed again. Knight said that would reduce the need for hours-long hearings about hot topics such as abortion and gun control that currently happen annually.

The fourth idea may be the toughest to explain: discharge petitions, an obscure parliamentary mechanism that lawmakers can use to force action on a bill that leadership has bottled up. (It is also sometimes used in Congress.)

The Reform Caucus proposal would allow the prime sponsors of bills to circulate a discharge petition, and if 38 signatures are obtained, the relevant committee would be required to pass the bill or send it to the House floor without a recommendation. (Bills could no longer be “held for further study,” a common practice now that can effectively kill them.)

Discharge petitions could also be walked around the House floor for signatures; currently, they must “sit on the desk” up front, forcing dissidents to sign it “right under leadership’s nose,” said Rep. Edie Ajello, a 14-term Providence Democrat. Requiring signatures to be collected in front of the speaker was a change made years ago after an unsuccessful discharge petition effort by former Rep. Nick Gorham, she recalled.

In addition to those four rules changes, the Reform Caucus members said they were also endorsing a line-item veto and creating a new Office of the Inspector General.

John Marion, executive director of good-government group Common Cause Rhode Island, praised the various ideas.

“Over decades the House rules have been amended by successive speakers to consolidate power,” Marion said in an email. “The changes have resulted in perhaps the most centralized state legislature in the country. At least one historical change — limiting the discharge petition power — was in retaliation to the Separation of Powers movement 15 years ago.”

“These proposed amendments to the House rules are a serious effort to reverse that consolidation of power and make that chamber more ‘small-d’ democratic,” the continued. “Common Cause hopes all House members — including the current leadership — will join in supporting some or all of theses proposed changes.”

Filippi, the House GOP leader, offered the most positive response to keeping bills alive for two years (“a good move”) and reforming the process for discharge petitions (“makes sense”).

However, he questioned whether all amended bills, known as “Sub-A’s,” need to be posted for 48 hours, since some revisions are for minor stylistic or grammatical corrections. “Instead, it would make more sense to enable 25% of a committee to demand a 24-Hour hold on the Sub-A before it is voted on,” he said.

Filippi also said there could be headaches from limiting House leaders’ ability to suspend the rules unless other changes are made.

“Changes to the rules needs to be looked at in the context of our part-time legislature,” he said. “So long as we are not full-time, the session must come to a close. In order to limit the ability to suspend rules, the legislative calendar needs to be moved up, so that we do most of our work in early June, and then ‘clean up’ in the last few weeks without the ability to suspend the rules.”

Ted Nesi (tnesi@wpri.com) covers politics and the economy for WPRI.com. He is a weekly panelist on Newsmakers and hosts Executive Suite. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook