After months of uncertainty and buildup, for the first time since 2019, Massachusetts lawmakers have agreed to change how they operate together. A joint rules deal was struck that affects how bills move through committees. It changes legislative deadlines and expands what's shared with the public. State House News Service Reporter Chris Lisinski breaks down what's changed.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: Chris, Legislative leaders say these changes are going to make the lawmaking process more transparent. Both House and Senate lawmakers voted in the new joint rules. How did these votes go down? Was everyone on board with the changes?
Chris Lisinski, SHNS: Virtually everyone was on board. There were two dissenting Republican votes in the House. But in general, this won quite a lot of approval. And Republicans in the Senate went out of their way to praise this as a very good deal, calling it significant reforms and acknowledging that while they wish it went further in a few areas, I believe the common refrain was that 'the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.'
Okay, so now we plunge a little bit into the weeds for a moment. There are some dates and traditions that are being scrapped with these new joint rules. And one of them happens on July 31st of the second year of the two year lawmaking session, which is not this year. What's changed?
Let's start with what the status quo was for basically almost about three decades. Lawmakers told themselves: "hey, we're not going to do anything major or controversial after July 31st." In the second year of the term, four and a half months before the election, when all 200 legislative seats are up for grabs. But now they will allow some major business after that date from a narrow, predetermined list. They also leave themselves room to deal with anything the governor sends back with an amendment or a veto or newly filed spending bills. So it's a subset, but it does give them quite a bit of flexibility that has not been present in recent years.
But also, changes mean that there's a new reporting deadline. Previously, a final report from joint legislative committees needed to be filed by one specific Wednesday in February of the second year of the session. That's a poor definition of joint rule ten, I think. That has changed. Can you explain the new winter time deadline lawmakers created for themselves?
The simplest version is that that deadline that was once in February year two is now in December year one. So it's about two months earlier in the calendar. But, there is an additional twist where the House and Senate are now bifurcating the way that they take up bills that move through committees.
Instead of representatives and senators voting together on every joint committee on bills they review, senators will face that first Wednesday in December deadline to take committee action, and the House has a new rolling deadline attached to every committee hearing. So once a committee hears testimony on a bill, it has 60 days for the House side to report out. So in addition to representatives and senators voting separately on bills moving through committees, they also basically are running on two different clocks.
It sounds like the adjustments to how the House and Senate are working together also allow them to not work together. House lawmakers on joint committees are voting only on bills that you say are filed in their branch. That doesn't leave much room for compromise, does it?
It doesn't leave much room for compromise at the committee level. But of course, the back end of the process will still be essentially the same. I think the intent that lawmakers have for splitting up the committee process is to get more bills moving earlier to save themselves from upfront negotiations that might wind up being moot by the time something makes its way to the floor. And just get bills out of committee. Send them to either branch. Let either branch take them up, and then figure out how to get on the same page down the line.
Briefly, what are some of the other big changes contained in these joint rules?
There's some new notice requirements. Joint committee hearings have to be listed ten days in advance of taking place. I believe conference committee reports— those final accords on legislation — I think there's a 24 hour clock. So once a deal is filed, the legislature itself can't actually approve the deal for at least 24 hours or sometimes a bit more if it's filed late at night and with a goal of helping the public better understand what's proposed and what's in motion on Beacon Hill. Lawmakers are going to be required to produce plain language summaries of legislation that should be pretty easily accessible to the public.
If a rule is broken or overlooked. Is there a penalty?
No, I don't believe so. And that's long been part of the dynamic here. These are significant operational changes, but they're legislative rules. They're not statute. They are not a part of the Massachusetts Constitution. I don't think that there's really anyone who has standing to bring legal action over it. And of course, as we see all the time, legislative rules can very easily be suspended by the Democratic supermajority in either or both chambers when they want to. It's a very quick voice vote to suspend the rules and do something however they feel like doing it that day.`
