House sets rules
GOP minority leader said amendments providing more transparency were rejected.
Beacon Hill Roll Call records local representatives’ votes on five roll calls from the week of Feb. 22-26. All roll calls are from debate on the adoption of the joint House-Senate rules under which the two branches will operate in 2021-22. There were no roll calls in the Senate last week.
Beacon Hill Roll Call made repeated attempts to interview and get quotes from four of the members who supported Speaker Ronald Mariano and fought against amendments to the rules. Reps. Bill Galvin, D- Canton, Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown, Marjorie Deceker, D- Cambridge, and Tricia FarleyBouvier, D-Pittsfield, did not respond to the repeated inquiries.
Adopt joint rules package
The House, 128-31, approved a set of joint rules under which the House and Senate will operate in the 2021-22 session.
“The joint rules package that is before all of us will allow all of us to work more efficiently and will clarify some of our existing procedures,” Galvin said on the House floor during debate. “Our Legislature reviews thousands of bill every session. It is primarily our joint committees that are responsible for fully vetting these proposals and must give every bill they receive a public hearing. The joint rules help ensure each piece of legislation receives fair consideration.”
GOP Minority Leader Rep. Brad Jones, R-North Reading, said that amendments providing more transparency proposed by him and other members were rejected.
“None of the requested (amendments) were unreasonable, but they were all summarily rejected anyway,” Jones said. “Without these basic reforms to improve the committee process, I felt the underlying rules package was lacking, which is why I voted against it.”
(A “Yes” vote is for the rules package. A “No” vote is against the package).
Rep. James Arciero, Yes; Rep. Kimberly Ferguson, No; Rep. Colleen Garry, Yes; Rep. Thomas Golden, Yes; Rep. Kenneth Gordon, Yes; Rep. Sheila Harrington, No; Rep. Natalie Higgins, Yes; Rep. Vanna Howard, Yes; Rep. Meghan Kilcoyne, Yes; Rep. Michael Kushmerek, Yes; Rep. Marc Lombardo, No; Rep. Rady Mom, Yes; Rep. Tram Nguyen, Yes; Rep. David Robertson, Yes; Rep. Dan Sena, Yes; Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, Yes
‘The joint rules package that is before all of us will allow all of us to work more efficiently and will clarify some of our existing procedures.’
– Rep. Bill Galvin, D- Canton
Post committee roll calls
The House, 36-122, rejected an amendment that would require that committees make public how each legislator on the committee voted on whether or not to favorably report a bill to the House. This would replace a section of the proposed joint rules that would only post the names of legislators who voted against the bill and list the aggregate count, without names, of members voting in the affirmative or not voting. The amendment also requires each committee to make testimony on bills available to the public upon request but gives the committee the power to redact sensitive personal information that could jeopardize the health or safety of a person. Another provision would increase from three days to one week the time which the public must be informed of an upcoming committee hearing.
“I believe that that is an unfortunate and sometimes elitist argument to say that we cannot show our votes to our constituents and to our voters,” said amendment sponsor Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven, D-Somerville, in her maiden speech on the House floor. “We do not have a strong democracy by voting behind closed doors or being afraid of our voters for voting us out of office.”
During the debate, Peake responded to Uyterhoeven, saying she would “try not to be insulted” by Uyterhoeven’s comments and “not take what should be a policy argument that somehow turned into an attack on members of this body personally.”
“They are not elitist arguments,” Peake said. “They are shared experiences from experienced and yes, effective legislators.”
Peake said that despite her opposition to naming how each representative voted in committee, she feels the House is making progress and taking a step forward by listing the representatives who vote against a bill in committee. She said that there is a major difference between a committee vote and a vote by the entire House on the House floor. She argued that the most important vote that the House takes is not a committee vote but rather the vote on the House floor for or against the bill.
“Only then are we voting in favor of a bill or not in favor of a bill,” continued Peake. “Committees are incubators of ideas. It’s where we vet what is in a bill. It is where we sharpen our pencils, and we make changes. It is in the committees that we invite the public into the public hearing process to hear from them so that we can hone legislation into a more finely tuned bill. Or we can decide that although a bill is maybe a good idea in principle, a bill is not ready for prime time and should be committed to a study order.”
“It’s shocking that many of the arguments against the amendment blamed constituents for our lack of understanding of how the State House functions when that’s precisely what we are asking for: to stop being shut out of the legislative process,” said Ryan Daulton, campaign manager for Act on Mass. “This vote was a blatant signal that representatives care more about power than their constituents.”
“Speaker Mariano continues to be the problem on Beacon Hill, not the solution,” said Paul Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. “He may be new to the role of speaker but is employing old tactics to keep the status quo in place and prevent debate or scrutiny in the House. What’s good for the speaker is not good for Massachusetts. Rank and file lawmakers need to decide what side of history they want to be on, the side of transparency or at best, Mariano’s pawn.”
(A “Yes” vote is for the amendment. A “No” vote is against the amendment)
Rep. James Arciero, No; Rep. Kimberly Ferguson, Yes; Rep. Colleen Garry, Yes; Rep. Thomas Golden, No; Rep. Kenneth Gordon, No; Rep. Sheila Harrington, Yes; Rep. Natalie Higgins, No; Rep. Vanna Howard, No; Rep. Meghan Kilcoyne, No; Rep. Michael Kushmerek, No; Rep. Marc Lombardo, Yes; Rep. Rady Mom, No; Rep. Tram Nguyen, No; Rep. David Robertson, No; Rep. Dan Sena, Yes; Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, No
Give committee members two hours to vote
The House, 38-121, rejected an amendment that would give legislators two hours to vote electronically when casting a vote in committee on a bill.
“In recent years, the window to respond to committee polls seems to be shrinking at an alarming rate,” Rep. Todd Smola, R-Warren, said in a statement to Beacon Hill Roll Call. “When a committee polls out a 30-page bill and gives members 20 minutes to read and respond, that is a woefully inadequate amount of time for a member to be well informed on the substance. No legislator is omniscient, and this amendment asks for a reasonable two-hour opportunity to read, comprehend, analyze and consider a legislative proposal before responding. At a bare minimum, our constituents expect us to actually read and understand the bills that are before this deliberative body. It is impossible to do this when committees release polls with only minutes to respond.”
“Ninety-nine (percent of the time) or, I would say the great majority of time, there’s plenty of time for members to answer,” Galvin said on the House floor during debate. “But in those few times, emergency times that may be needed, that this provision would handcuff the Legislature. I think it’s unnecessary. It’s not a problem, and the business at hand needs to run at a reasonable pace. Even though this is well intentioned, I think it draws out the committee process even longer. And sometimes members may not be available, or the committee chairman may not know he’s not available because he’s out of the country whatever. And then they have to keep the thing open for two hours.”
(A “Yes” vote is for giving two hours to vote. A “No” vote is against giving two hours).
Rep. James Arciero, No; Rep. Kimberly Ferguson, Yes; Rep. Colleen Garry, Yes; Rep. Thomas Golden, No; Rep. Kenneth Gordon, No; Rep. Sheila Harrington, Yes; Rep. Natalie Higgins, No; Rep. Vanna Howard, No; Rep. Meghan Kilcoyne, No; Rep. Michael Kushmerek, No; Rep. Marc Lombardo, Yes; Rep. Rady Mom, No; Rep. Tram Nguyen, No; Rep. David Robertson, Yes; Rep. Dan Sena, No; Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, No
Post procurements on Open Checkbook website
The House, 34-125, rejected an amendment that would require all purchases by the House Business Manager or the Chief Financial Officer of the Senate totaling over $10,000 to be submitted to the state comptroller and posted on the state’s Open Checkbook website. The amendment would replace a rule that files be maintained on all procurements over $10,000 and be made available for legislators to review during regular business hours.
“The pandemic has essentially done away with ‘regular business hours,’” Jones said in a statement to Beacon Hill Roll Call. “This amendment would simply add another layer of transparency to the process by making sure this information is available and easily accessible to the public on the state’s Open Checkbook website.”
“This amendment is unnecessary because there’s already a system in place,” Galvin said during debate on the House floor. “Every time the House Business Office or the Chief Financial Officer of the Senate processes a transaction, it already automatically goes to the comptroller who posts it to the CTHRU website. This is because these offices use the state accounting system, as required by all state government agencies. I just checked this morning, and you can see what the House spends on everything and from whom the House purchases products and services. This is a redundant amendment and not necessary.”
(A “Yes” vote is for the amendment. A “No” vote is against it.)
Rep. James Arciero, No; Rep. Kimberly Ferguson, Yes; Rep. Colleen Garry, Yes; Rep. Thomas Golden, No; Rep. Kenneth Gordon, No; Rep. Sheila Harrington, Yes; Rep. Natalie Higgins, No; Rep. Vanna Howard, No; Rep. Meghan Kilcoyne, No; Rep. Michael Kushmerek, No; Rep. Marc Lombardo, Yes; Rep. Rady Mom, No; Rep. Tram Nguyen, No; Rep. David Robertson, No; Rep. Dan Sena, No; Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, No
Give legislators 72 hours to read conference committee reports
The House, 35-123, rejected an amendment that would give legislators 72 hours to read a conference committee report before voting on it. Current rules allow the conference committee report to be considered the next day.
“Conference committees often require weeks or even months of negotiations between the House and Senate to arrive at a compromise bill that can be presented to the membership for a vote,” amendment sponsor Jones said in a statement to Beacon Hill Roll Call. “The current process allows very little time between the release of the conference committee report and the vote to accept the report for members to review and understand what they’re actually voting on. Providing a 72-hour window would give both the public and legislators a better understanding of what’s included in the conference committee report before a vote is taken.”
“We are a deliberative body oftentimes debating issues for a half of the session,” Rep. Daniel Hunt, D-Dorchester, said during floor debate. “Over a year and a half we come together and have great debate over the bill. Amendments are filed. The Senate takes the same action. We might look at what the Senate did and further amend our bill. We then go to conference, where three members of each side sit in lengthy debate on our behalf and when the bill comes back to us it’s an up or down vote. I do appreciate the leader’s point where at the end of last session, because of necessity, because of the global pandemic, because of the extended session and the hour of the day, oftentimes reports were out in a 24-hour period. Previously in other sessions, it’s been our best practice to raise a bill on a Friday for debate on Wednesday. Chairman Galvin and I have been working with the speaker’s office over the course of the last six months on this rules package. While this is a floor and not a ceiling, bills will likely be put out for longer periods of time in the coming session. The speaker has committed to working with the different members in order to bring more transparency to the House.”
(A “Yes” vote is for giving 72 hours. A “No” vote is against giving 72 hours.)
Rep. James Arciero, No; Rep. Kimberly Ferguson, Yes; Rep. Colleen Garry, No; Rep. Thomas Golden, No; Rep. Kenneth Gordon, No; Rep. Sheila Harrington, Yes; Rep. Natalie Higgins, No; Rep. Vanna Howard, No; Rep. Meghan Kilcoyne, No; Rep. Michael Kushmerek, No; Rep. Marc Lombardo, Yes; Rep. Rady Mom, No; Rep. Tram Nguyen, No; Rep. David Robertson, No; Rep. Dan Sena, No; Rep. Jonathan Zlotnik, No.