The editorial boards of both the Herald and the Globe are calling on the Legislature to repeal a misguided 1989 law that revokes the driver’s license of anyone who is convicted of a drug offense and imposes a $500 fee to reinstate a license after the suspension time (one to five years) has been served. The law was conceived in the fond hope that it would deter drug use. Thirty years later, we know that it doesn’t, and what’s worse, it steers those with drug convictions back toward recidivism by adding to the re-entry obstacles they face.
Last September the Senate passed a bill to repeal the law, and in January the House approved part of that bill. Both editorial boards greatly prefer the Senate version. The Senate repealed the license suspension law in its entirely. The House, on the other hand, kept the license suspension law for some drug trafficking crimes — it adopted an amendment to that effect that had been filed by a group of seven Republican representatives. One of those Republican representatives, State Rep. James Lyons of Andover, told the Globe that license suspensions should continue to be imposed on “thugs who are selling drugs to our family members.” The Globe disagreed with him, dismissing his argument as “a tough-on-crime sentiment that harks back to the original, 1980s-vintage view that led to the failed law.” The Herald, often a Lyons fan, parted ways with him on this issue and urged the House to agree to the Senate in conference committee negotiations on the bill.
For those not familiar with Rep. Lyons, he’s the Massachusetts chairman of the Cruz for President Committee, his legislative priorities include reducing the state income and sales taxes and requiring the Legislature to comply with the public records law in order to end the practice of lawmaking by backroom deal outside of public view.
You may be curious how Rep Lyons and his six colleagues succeeded in keeping a portion of the license suspension law in place. It has something to do with lawmaking by backroom deal outside of public view.
The morning of January 6, Speaker DeLeo expressed support for the proposal and acknowledged that it could restore the licenses of drug dealers as well as drug users. The House took up the bill around 3 o’clock that day. Four amendments were pending, all of them filed by Republican Representatives. One of the amendments was defeated on a voice vote without debate. Then the House stood in recess.
Legislative action in the House is punctuated by recesses, some brief and some lengthy. During the lengthier recesses, House members often return to their offices to tend to other business. When the House returns from a recess, often the first order of business is a roll call vote to ensure that a quorum is present. Often, but not always.
About a half hour after the recess began, the presiding officer (Rep. Paul Donato of Medford) called the House to order, but he did not ask for a quorum call. Instead he announced that an amendment was pending and asked the Clerk to read the amendment. While the amendment was being read, he asked the Clerk to dispense with the reading of the remainder of the amendment, then called for a voice vote, pronounced that the yeas had prevailed over the nays and that the amendment had been adopted. It all took one minute. No one spoke in favor of the amendment or in opposition to it. After the vote, a House member requested a quorum call. Rep. Donato said he could ascertain that a quorum was not present and instructed the court officers to summon the members.
The tape.
Thus, the GOP amendment was adopted (after some very minor tweaking that was definitely outside of public view) in the most opaque of ways. Ordinarily this peeves advocates of greater legislative transparency like Rep. Lyons.
The reasons why this happened must await another post. Theories always welcome.
…as a parliamentary one. The House member concerned about lack of quorum needed to be faster on his/her feet before a voice vote was taken AND discussion should have at least been called for. I wonder if a motion to reconsider would still be in order, or failing that, make a stink on the final passage phase.
permit leadership to recess indefinitely and then gavel amendments through without the courtesy of a quorum call, I’d call that a transparency issue.
A bigger problem, as the Globe and Herald editorials point out, is that the House is now defending this amendment in the conference committee process. And only 7 of the 160 reps are on the record in favor of it.
who do not lift a finger to organize an internal caucus to challenge the Leadership on matters like this. And I have lived through 6 hard fought internal struggles for Speakership.
Why are Democrats making power plays to adopt GOP-sponsored amendments, especially from a Cruz for President guy?
As always, I have less quibble with Rep. Lyons, who straightforwardly advocates a position with which I disagree, than I have with his abettors who pretend otherwise.
The shocking behavior you describe has been the way the Supermajority has conducted business for more than two decades now. DeLeo, DiMasi, Finneran….
What was it that captured your attention? A person from te WRONG PARTY getting a amendment passed rather than the smarmy footsoldiers your party has been accommodating for decades?
what captured my attention was the ease with which House leadership convinced members of the minority party (whose usual position is that the lack of transparency in the House is entirely the Democrats’ fault), to be complicit when complicity proved useful.
(PS – “smarmy footsoldiers” was pretty good.)
Long used to working with Republicans in this way, even to the point of using Republican votes to win the speaker’s chair.