Committees signal plans for upcoming Beacon Hill agenda

Joint Rule 10 was made to be broken, or at least danced around.

The biennial deadline for almost all legislative committees to make recommendations on the hundreds of bills put in their tender care arrived on Wednesday, a wonk-a-palooza for Beacon Hill Kremlinologists giddy at the prospect of trying to read the tea leaves and suss out the agenda for the next six months.

As rules go, this committee reporting deadline has been one less susceptible to being suspended, or worse, ignored. But that doesn't mean it's hard and fast.

So while former Gov. Mitt Romney was making history on the Senate floor in Washington, becoming a trivia question answer as the only senator to ever vote to remove a president of his own party, Democratic committee chairs at his former work address were busy preparing extension orders.

Committees that needed or wanted more time to make a decision on bills simply asked for it. But they had to be specific.

Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante and Sen. Eric Lesser, for instance, filed an order seeking an extension until just Feb. 28 for their Economic Development Committee to make a recommendation on sports betting, breeding optimism for some that the issue could soon move off the back burner.

On the other hand, the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development - still lacking a House chairman - filed an order to take until June 5 to decide on wage theft legislation.

But while the clerks were busy processing extension orders, some committees did render verdicts. Hundreds, if not thousands, of bills were referred for further study, effectively killing them off until the next two-year session when they must be refiled and the process starts again.

Among those for which the bell tolled was Gov. Charlie Baker's often talked about "drugged-driving" bill, which presented a potential roadmap for police to deal with drivers behind the wheel and under the influence of marijuana, but who can't be tested like they can for alcohol impairment.

Baker has said impaired driving must be addressed before the Legislature considers authorizing social consumption at pot cafes, so maybe legislative Democrats were sending a message on both fronts.t wasn't all bad news for Baker's priority legislation, though.

The Transportation Committee was one of the few that showed itself to be ready to move forward, at least on the governor's $18 billion bond bill to fund road, bridge and public transit projects across the state for years to come.

"We're happy to report we stuck to the $18 billion number," Sen. Joseph Boncore said. "I think that was the most critical thing. The bond bill makes crucial investments in future transportation infrastructure projects that every one of our districts needs and it was the Senate's priority to ensure that bond bill remained at the same number as the governor, $18 billion."

He refused to say it outright, but this was not the first time Boncore strongly hinted that the House had tried to pare back the size of the bond bill, and people in the Senate and the Baker administration have been whispering for weeks about how the House might be trying to shrink the scope of bill as a way to help make their case for more tax revenues for transportation.

The Transportation Committee also recommended a bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a standard state driver's license, provided they can show certain documentation to prove their identity. Intended as a public safety measure, it's the first time it has ever advanced from committee, but Baker said he still can't support it, holding to his position from the 2014 campaign and one he has repeated over the years.

The news on his bond bill came after Baker earlier in the week gave a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce urging both patience with the MBTA and transit improvements, and then claiming to have none.

"But it will be disruptive and it will require a certain amount of patience," he said. "I don't have any patience for this. I would like it to all be here by tomorrow. But I've also learned to understand, when you're working on an operating system, it's a little more complicated."

It might have been a mixed message, but the point was made. To quote Sam Cooke: It's been a long time coming, but a change is going to come.

The governor demonstrated what he was talking about in that speech later in the week when he announced in Brookline that all five main MBTA lines and parts of the commuter rail will see shutdowns in 2020 to facilitate repair work, including month-long closures on both the Green Line's C and E branches.

One thing the transportation bond bill won't fund is East-West Rail. Certainly not if it costs $25 billion.

A report released by MassDOT estimated that extending rail service from Boston to Springfield could cost anywhere from $2 billion to $25 billion. And depending on how it's done, a train could shuttle passengers between the edges of the state in between two to four hours.

Some advocates, including Sen. Eric Lesser, were left disappointed by the report, believing that it low-balled the potential ridership demand for expanded service and failed to take into full account the positive economic impact it could have.

The report, however, won't be the last word on East-West Rail, particularly as regional equity figures to feature heavily in a looming transportation revenue debate.

Speaking of equity, Senate President Karen Spilka and Sen. Julian Cyr used their personal brushes with mental health challenges to make the case for a sweeping mental health care reform bill released last week.

For Spilka, it was her father who suffered after World War II and wouldn't get help. For Cyr, he said he struggled with depression and anxiety but had trouble getting insurance to pay for the therapy that worked for him.

While mental health parity has been the law of the health care land since 2000, Spilka and Sen. Cindy Freidman said the reality has been anything but equality in care.

The bill would, among its many provisions, give the state new ways to enforce parity and tries to remove insurance companies from mental health care decisions that should, senators said, be made between a patient and their doctor.

The Senate will debate the bill Thursday, the second of three major health care reform bills Spilka said she wants to pass this session following last year's prescription drug cost legislation.

The House hasn't taken up any health care legislation so far this session, but on Feb. 5 it did debate a request the Cannabis Control Commission has been making for explicit authority to review and enforce host community agreements between municipalities and marijuana businesses.

The request came amid complaints from some in the cannabis industry that cities and towns were extorting them for concessions on revenue and benefits unallowed by state law.

There may have been disagreement at some point over whether the legislature had intended to give CCC the authority it sought in the original pot law, but there's no question now where the House stands.

Another week and still no white smoke on the transportation revenue plan from House leaders, and if they wait much longer they may have a new member here in time to vote.

Melrose City Councilor Kate Lipper-Garabedian prevailed in Tuesday's special Democratic primary to succeed Melrose Mayor Paul Brodeur in the Legislature.

She remains the strong favorite now to win the seat on March 3, but her glide path became a little less smooth when a GOP challenger - Brendan Reid - appeared to have qualified for the ballot through a primary write-in effort.