In the meantime, I’ll hit you with some of the highlights.
One proposed joint rule change we were surprised to see? A requirement for bill sponsors to write and publicize a bill summary for every bill they file. This was a change we asked for in our letter that hadn’t been previously mentioned by Senate leaders– so it looks like they read our letters!
Having plain language bill summaries that explain what a bill would actually accomplish and breaking down the legal jargon for everyday people is an important step to making the legislative process more accessible. Although the Senate’s proposal stops short of our full demand, which would include detailed summaries of bills once they’ve passed through the committee process (including changes made to bill language), we were excited to see this in the Joint Rules proposal.
A key point of rules contention between House and Senate in recent years has centered around public committee votes: the Senate generally supports public committee votes, but the House does not, which means that Joint committee votes remain private. Interestingly, the Senate seems to have come up with a handy workaround in these rules, which will use the Senate-only rules to mandate that the votes of Senate members be released from Joint Committees, even if the House votes are not. It would certainly be a step forward to get the Senate votes from joint committees, and we can also hope that this might provide more clarity for advocacy: for example, if a bill is sent to study, and all senators are recorded as having voted for it, we can target our advocacy to House members.
Of course, there is also the hope that this provision will make it so embarrassing for House members of joint committees to keep their votes private that they will also make their votes public. And to that I say: join the Transparency Action Hour next week to push House rules committee members for just that!
The Senate Joint rules proposal also proposes to do something unprecedented with Joint committee structure, aimed at reducing friction between the two chambers. Currently, Senate and House members of Joint committees vote together to advance, reject, or send bills to study. Senators complain that this disadvantages the Senate, which has fewer members.
Thus, the Senate’s new rules would allow Senate members of joint committees to vote on Senate bills and House members to vote on House bills, with the aim of moving things out of committee more quickly. Although this might also allow for better targeting for advocates, this change could also just kick the can of negotiation down the road; differences between Senate and House bills would still need to be ironed out later in conference committee, which include fewer members and are even more tightly controlled by leadership. And of course, the House would have to agree to such a huge change in committee structure.
Overall, the Senate’s rules proposals do include some meaningful reforms that would improve transparency. However, many also seem designed for a system in which more and more work is left to conference committees, which are tiny, closed-door, and hand-selected by leadership. Indeed, another proposed change (which we cautioned against in our letter) would permanently extend the deadline for conference committee reports beyond July 31st, allowing more work to be saved for the very end of session and done by closed-door conference committees. That is not good for democracy in our Commonwealth.
But that’s just the headlines! Join us on Wednesday at 7 pm for a full break-down and to take action to push the House ahead of their rules debate.
Massachusetts Leaders “If only there were someone who could do something about this” Quote of the Week
A new section in which we document the creative ways that our state leaders absolve themselves of responsibility for Massachusetts’ response to our federal crisis.
If you missed last week’s Scoop, I had a bit of a rant about how state leaders have had at least three months to prepare our state for the worst of what the Trump administration had planned, chose not to act pre-emptively, and now claim that things are moving too fast to react.
This week’s most egregious offender? Lucky winner House Speaker Ron Mariano, who was asked this week about the dangers of a federal funding freeze to Massachusetts. Here’s the quote, from Channel 5 news reporting:
“‘The loss of federal funds will be significant to all segments of the budget,’ Mariano said.
When asked how he would prepare for it, Mariano said, ‘There’s not much you can do.’”
Gee, if only there were someone around here with control over our state's $62 billion budget!
Wouldn’t it be nice to have state leaders who go out of the way to protect their citizens’ best interests and provide, you know, leadership in times of crisis? Well, in Massachusetts, we’re still looking.
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