Ever wonder who killed a certain State House bill, or how it is a proposal came to breathe its last? Don't bother looking. You won't find the answer.

Savvy internet surfers know that while member-by-member lists of legislative floor votes can be found buried deep on the General Assembly's Web site, committee votes are another matter entirely. They aren't online. If you want a vote tally, you have to go directly to the committee clerk -- a challenge all its own.

Fed up with that rigmarole, open government advocates are pushing a proposal that would require all roll call votes in House and Senate committees to be published on the Legislature's Web site for all to see.

"Committee votes are the only votes on most bills, and citizens interested in those bills should be able to learn how committee members voted," said Rep. Rod Driver, a Richmond Democrat and former board member of Operation Clean Government, who has sponsored the proposed bill.

Regular Rhode Islanders too have raised the need for publication of committee votes, regularly contacting your Political Sceners with requests for tallies.

But Driver's bill could itself be left for dead. The proposal was granted an initial hearing before the House Finance Committee in early May, but hasn't heard from since -- a potential sign of trouble with just weeks left in the Assembly session.

House Spokesman Larry Berman had little to say about the fate of the bill other than "It is still being reviewed."