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Mass. House suspends rules, advances local personnel bills and adopts emergency preamble for sick-leave bill
Summary
The House suspended rules repeatedly to adopt scheduling orders, advanced multiple local personnel bills (including police age-waiver measures) to third reading, and adopted an amendment inserting an emergency preamble into a sick-leave-bank bill before passing it to be engrossed.
The Massachusetts House on Jan. 23 used a series of rule suspensions to adopt scheduling orders and advance several local and personnel bills, including measures directing city police departments to waive maximum age requirements for named applicants and an employee sick‑leave bank.
Speaker 3 reported recommendations from the committee on steering, policy and scheduling to place a package of local bills on the calendar. The package included bills directing the Boston Police Department to waive maximum age requirements for named applicants and local authorizations for civil service examinations and continued employments. Member Owens of Watertown moved repeatedly to suspend the rules to allow immediate consideration, and the House voice‑voted the suspensions and adopted the orders.
The House ordered multiple bills to a third reading and passed at least one bill to be engrossed. House bill 4254, a measure directing the Boston Police Department to waive the maximum age requirement for Rodney Alcindor, was read for third reading and passed to be engrossed. House bill 4888, establishing a sick leave bank for Marnie Jean Goldstein of the Department of Children and Families, was amended on the floor: Member Walsh of Peabody moved to insert an emergency preamble, the House adopted that amendment by voice vote, and then the bill was passed to be engrossed.
Separately, the rules committees acting jointly recommended suspending joint rule 12 on a petition by Mindy Dom concerning disclosure of consumer information related to tariffs; the House suspended the joint rule and referred the petition to the committee on consumer protection and professional licensure.
Most floor actions were handled by voice vote; the record reports "The ayes have it" for the suspensions, amendments and orders adopted. The session did not record individual roll-call tallies for those voice votes. Several other local bills were listed for scheduling or second reading (house numbers 4389, 4391, 4442, 4858, 4862 among others), with local approvals noted in the clerk’s reading.
The House also adopted an adjournment order to reconvene the following day at 11 a.m. and approved a special adjournment in memory of former Representative Robert S. Hargraves of Groton. The Chamber then adjourned.
