Civility Rather Than Judgement Is a Choice, Panel Says

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 08/04/2025) (BOSTON) – Civility is the secret sauce to an effective Legislature because being curious about your colleagues rather than judgmental can lead to consensus building, said New Hampshire House Clerk Paul Smith.

In a National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) session on civility, Smith said one of the things that drives him nuts is when members in his chamber start a session with a white “what-to-do” sheet on their desk that instructs them on how to vote, because it discourages floor debate and amendments.

“We’re focusing more on the paper and less on what we can arrive at,” Smith said.

Minnesota State Sen. Zach Duckworth joked that he wishes his chamber had instructions like that handed to him every day.

“Seems like it would save a lot of time in caucus,” Duckworth said before going on to explain the Minnesota Civility Caucus, which he co-chairs.

Duckworth said the Caucus allows legislators to connect on a personal level by developing relationships with trust and commonality.

Idaho Lt. Gov Scott Bedke, whose family business is cattle ranching, said his father told him after he graduated college that if he was smart, he should be able to work with cows.

“Cows were never going to come to us. We’re going to go to cows, and we’re going to employ livestock handling practices that only the cows understood,” Bedke said. “I won’t draw analogies that…” Bedke stopped as the opposite-party moderator, Idaho State Sen. Melisssa Wintrow, stopped him as the crowd laughed.

Wintrow told a story of her second term, when Bedke was the Speaker of the Idaho House, and she went to him with a bill that would change how sexual assault examination kits were handled in the state. By the next day, despite being sponsored by a Democrat in a Republican majority, the bill had a committee hearing and later passed almost unanimously, she said.

“We’re not that far from Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, all of the places where these people took on the existing world superpower to fight for us. We’re their dream. So, we have some level of responsibility to live up to that dream,” Bedke said.

The panel also discussed challenges with decorum and civility they face in their chambers. Bernard Dean, chief clerk of the Washington House, said chamber rules dictate a certain standard to which members’ social media accounts are held. However, on accounts of theirs that aren’t explicitly associated with their office or campaigns, they’ll post disparaging comments about their colleagues, sometimes while there are floor speeches and debate happening about the very issue they’re posting about.

Smith said he’s noticed the same occurrence and pointed out the irony of posting online about an issue while debate is happening before them.

To wrap up the session, Pennsylvania State Rep. Chris Rabb read the James Baldwin quote that goes, “we can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”

To that, Duckworth said civility does not cancel out passion. It’s not the inability to hold folks accountable, it’s just doing it professionally with respect, he said.

“What civility is, though, is a choice. And I choose to believe that anybody in this room can choose to be civil with anyone regarding any issues, because at the end of the day, you are the one who controls the words you use and how you treat others,” Duckworth said.