THE HOUSE AND SENATE: There were no roll calls in the House or Senate last week.
The debate over the rules on how the House and Senate will operate during the upcoming 2023-2024 session will soon begin, as it does every year at the beginning of a legislative session. The rules are important and have an effect on how much power individual members have compared to House Speaker Ron Mariano (D-Quincy), Senate President Karen Spilka (D-Ashland) and the rest of the Democratic leadership team.
A LOOK BACK: Here are some of the new rules that House Republicans proposed for the 2021-2022 session, the comments of supporters and opponents of the new rules and how your local representatives voted. The proposals were all defeated mostly along party lines with the vast majority of Republicans voting for the changes and the vast number of Democrats voting against them. These four rules are likely to be offered by the GOP soon in the 2023-2024 session.
TERM LIMITS FOR SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE (H 3930)
House 35-125, rejected an amendment that would reinstate a 2009 rule that prohibited any representative from serving as speaker of the House for more than eight consecutive years. The rule was repealed in 2015.
“The speaker holds the most powerful office in the House of Representatives, but all 160 Representatives stand as equals when it comes to representing their constituents,” said GOP House Minority Leader Rep. Brad Jones (R-North Reading). “Setting term limits on the speaker’s office is a...
A short video circulating widely on social media claims that US Representative Ilhan Omar referred to World War II as “World War 11” while discussing the Alien Enemies Act. The clip has been share...