BOSTON—State Senator Jason Lewis, House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr., and State Representative Richard Haggerty joined their colleagues in the Massachusetts Legislature to adopt new legislative rules to make lawmaking more transparent, efficient, and accessible to the public. These rules will govern the legislative process, joint committees, and interactions between the House of Representatives and the Senate for the 2025-2026 legislative session.
To increase public accessibility, legislative committees will now post plain-language bill summaries online, the public will have more advance notice of hearings, and committee votes and attendance will be made public. To increase legislative efficiency, the legislative calendar has been adjusted to allow more time to get meaningful policy accomplished, committees are allowed to act independently on bills from their respective chambers, and formal lawmaking will continue for the full two-year session.
“Building greater trust and confidence in government by improving transparency and accountability is critical for a healthy democracy,” said Senator Jason Lewis. “I have long championed efforts to improve the transparency of state and local government, including being the lead Senate sponsor of the last major update to the state’s public records law. These new rules will further open up the legislative process and make it easier for the public to see how we operate and to hold us accountable.”
“We have been calling for and supporting several of these changes for years and appreciate they are finally being embraced and included in the new joint rules,” said Representative Bradley H. Jones Jr. “Ultimately, though, the true test of how effective the new rules will be comes down to the people and personalities involved and making sure everyone is working cooperatively and collaboratively to get things done.”
“These reforms will help make our legislative process more transparent and accessible to the people we serve,” said Representative Richard M. Haggerty. “The changes will also help make the legislative process more efficient in moving legislation forward. The reforms reflect an ongoing commitment by the legislature to ensure that the voices of our residents are heard.”
Key provisions of the new joint rules include:
- Increasing public notice of joint committee hearings from a minimum of three days to 10 days and requiring a schedule of hearing dates to be posted each session.
- Instructing House and Senate chairs of joint committees to poll members of the committee from their respective branch on bills that were filed in that branch before returning bills to their respective branches, with certain exceptions including for budgets and constitutional amendments.
- Allowing the public to participate either in-person or remotely in joint committee hearings.
- Requiring joint committee votes and attendance to be posted on the Legislature’s website.
- Moving up the bill reporting deadline for joint committees by two months to the first Wednesday of December in the first year of the two-year legislative session to give the chambers more time to consider bills.
- Requiring plain-language summaries of all bills to be posted on the Legislature’s website in time for their public hearings and requiring written testimony on bills to be made publicly available after their hearings.
- Requiring the first meeting of conference committees to be open to the public and ensuring a minimum of 24 hours between a conference committee report filing and a legislative vote.
- Updating the Legislature’s formal lawmaking calendar to allow the Legislature to meet in formal session after July 31 in the second year of the legislative session to take up reports of conference committees formed on or before July 31, appropriation bills filed after July 31, and gubernatorial vetoes or amendments.
- Instructing the Joint Committee on Rules to conduct a comprehensive review of the joint rules at the end of each two-year session, including a public hearing to solicit feedback from the public.
In addition to these new joint rules, the House and Senate approved their own chamber’s rules in February to govern their internal operations.
