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Massachusetts Lawmakers Get A Do-Over Hearing For RMV

Massachusetts lawmakers this week will try again to get some information out of the officials from the Registry of Motor Vehicles. 

The legislature held a hearing last week to learn more about that scandal related to a repeated failure to process out-of-state driver violation notices. But it didn't go as planned.

Matt Murphy, State House News Service: This was an oversight hearing that the House and Senate chairs of the transportation committee called to really dig into and investigate what happened at the RMV, and what caused the RMV to stop reviewing these out-of-state drivers' notices of violations that should have, and could have, resulted in thousands of drivers being suspended in Massachusetts over the past year and a half -- or possibly even longer.

But what actually happened was a number of the witnesses that the committee was hoping to show up, and wanted to question, did not turn up at the State House for the Monday hearing. Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack did show up, along with the new interim registrar of the RMV. They were willing to answer some questions, but not all, because they said that there was an ongoing investigation being done by an outside auditing firm that the administration has hired to also probe what went wrong. And they were going to be limited in what they could say. 

So the legislators on the committee conferred quickly. They were very disappointed and they recessed.

Carrie Healy, NEPR: And now the governor is encouraging RMV staff to participate in the process. So what do the playground rules look like when the governor is playing carrot and stick?

It seems that there were some conversations behind the scenes over the course of the week. The committee has said that the hearing will resume on Tuesday. The House chair, Rep. William Straus, has said that he has been assured by Pollock that the witnesses that they have called to testify will be there.

The governor would not say that he has ordered them to appear, but he said they've been encouraged to appearand cooperate with this investigation. And this all comes after a very tersely worded statement from House Speaker Robert DeLeo, where he saidthat the House and the role of the legislature as an oversight body would not "be subjugated to...an outside auditing firm." And it appears that the governor is trying to get his administration to cooperate with this inquiry.

It's July 29th already. What are some of the measures lawmakers will want to wrap up before taking a summer recess?

Yeah, we have not gotten the official word, but it appears that these are the final few days this week until the legislature breaks formally for the month of August. They did get a bunch done last week, including that all-important fiscal 2020 budget, which gives them a bit of comfort going into this recess.

We have not seen an education bill. That seems most likely now for the fall. The governor is also reviewing the budget, but he could take all the way until Friday to issue his vetoes and potentially send back some of the outside policy sections in the budget.

It's unclear whether or not the legislature will have time to consider any of that. And it wouldn't be unusual for them to wait until September to deal with a lot of this stuff.  But it's really shaping up for a busy, busy fall with a revenue debate, an education reform debate, potentially debates over sports betting, maybe even a health care bill and other major topics that they have not yet tackled.

That's interesting. How long could it take the legislature to try to override any of those Baker vetoes in the budget?

It usually takes some time for the Committee on Ways and Means to review all of them and figure out how much spending. There's also something we're watching closely, which is the fact that the conference committee decided to mark up this budget by about $600 million, revising the state's tax collection revenue estimates for next year because they're so optimistic based on what they've been seeing in the economy over the past several months.

We don't know yet if the governor is going to agree with that, and that could significantly cut into the money available for spending in this budget. So there are a lot of balls in the air right now and we don't know. That's why it's probably unlikely that all of this will get sorted out before the summer recess.

Keep up here with Beacon Hill In 5.

Carrie Healy hosts the local broadcast of "Morning Edition" at NEPM. She also hosts the station’s weekly government and politics segment “Beacon Hill In 5” for broadcast radio and podcast syndication.
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