If you have read news about the State House or seen advocacy alerts or legislative newsletters recently, you may have heard the term “Joint Rule 10 Day.”
In the Joint Rules governing the MA House and MA Senate, Rule #10 creates deadlines for committees to take action.The Senate has a deadline of December 3 (“first Wednesday in December”), and the House had a deadline earlier this week (“third Wednesday in December”).
To meet this deadline, committees can take one of our actions:
- The committee can give a bill a favorable report: that means the committee thinks the bill ought to pass. It then advances to the next stage of its journey from bill to law, typically moving to the Ways & Means Committee.
- The committee can give the bill an adverse report: that means the committee thinks the bill ought not to pass, and it is done for the session.
- The committee can send the bill to study: that means the committee does not plan to take further action on the bill. It is, in other words, a polite way to vote the bill down. No “study” results.
- The committee can give the bill an extension: that means the committee has not yet decided the fate of the bill and wants more time to decide or redraft/combine bills.
A few of the bills we care about got favorable reports in the past few weeks. So let’s take a moment to celebrate those wins, and since committee votes are now public, take a moment to thank the senators and representatives who voted to advance them.
- Local Option Real Estate Transfer Fee:Advanced 4 to 0 (with 2 reserving rights) out of the Senate Revenue Committee. Thank you to Senators Mike Brady, Jamie Eldridge, Pat Jehlen, and Becca Rausch for voting yes!
- Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act: Advanced 9 to 1 (with 1 reserving rights) out of the House Housing Committee and 4 to 2 in the Senate Housing Committee. Thank you to Representatives James Arena-DeRosa, Michelle Badger, Hannah Bowen, Rob Consalvo, Kip Diggs, Rich Haggerty, David LeBoeuf, Chris Markey, and Adrianne Ramos — and Senators Julian Cyr, Lydia Edwards, Paul Feeney, and Patrick O’Connor — for voting yes!
- Visitation Bill: Advanced 10 to 3 out of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee. Thank you to Representatives Dan Cahill, Michelle Ciccolo, Rodney Elliott, Homar Gómez, David Linsky, Bridget Plouffe, Amh Mah Sangiolo, Alan Silvia, Richard Wells, and Chris Worrell for voting yes!
- Preventing Gas System Expansion: Advanced 4 to 0 (with 2 reserving rights) out of the Senate Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee. Thank you to Senators Mike Barrett, Mike Brady, Julian Cyr, and Dylan Fernandes for voting yes!
What does it mean to “reserve rights”? When a representative or senator votes to “reserve rights,” they are typically indicating that they would like to see revisions to the bill before they would feel comfortable voting yes or want more time with it in committee.
