BOSTON — He was a participant in the grueling and chaotic overnight session two years ago, but with the prospect of another one imminent, Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr on Wednesday offered words of caution about a repeat performance.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to be dealing with any complex matters as we go late into the evening,” Tarr said. “And I’ve said this repeatedly and I’ll continue to say it — we should be conducting business during regular business hours, or at the very least, when the average person has the ability to watch what we’re doing, understand it, and provide their input to us. And when we get into dealing with complex matters late into the evening, I think that opportunity is deprived.”
Wednesday is the last day under joint legislative rules for the House and Senate to hold formal sessions for this term, and top House and Senate leaders are locked into their positions on a broad slate of major bills, creating a logjam.
With about 10 hours left in July 31, around a dozen bills remained in conference committee. It’s unclear how many of those bills will surface in the next few hours, and which ones may die or get pushed into informal sessions where bills can only advance with unanimous consent.
Conference committee reports are not subject to amendment, so if accords are released the branches can often easily push them through during formal sessions, although legislators will have little time to read in close detail the bills they are voting on.