Atkins earns leadership position

Mon Feb 23, 2009, 01:35 PM EST

Concord – State Rep. Cory Atkins, D-Concord, the newly appointed House vice chairman of the Joint Committee on Rules, joined her colleagues in the state House of Representatives in passing a broad rules reform package that will limit the speaker’s term to a maximum of eight years, institute mandatory ethics training and allow the speaker to unilaterally remove a member from a leadership position or committee if he or she receives a criminal indictment. These changes to the rules will help pave the way for the work the House has to do on ethics reform, pension reform and transportation reform.The rules changes will permit the Ethics Committee to bring forward bills and eliminate legislative or executive agents from giving gifts to members.

“It is a true honor to be appointed the vice chair of the Rules Committee,” said Atkins. “This is a culmination of having worked with the new speaker for months on rules reform for the House of Representatives. This long-term effort on my part to change the culture on Beacon Hill has resulted in new reform recommendations that will empower rank-and-file members and their constituencies, allowing for equal representation and influence over the affairs of the state and the House of Representatives.”

Through the work of Atkins and other members of the House, this package targets ethics reform, process reform and voting reform.

“Rules reform is the first step to a new era of openness in the House,” said House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, D-Winthrop. “Now, more than ever, it’s important that the public have confidence in the work we do here. These changes will be the first step in restoring faith. I thank Representative Atkins for taking this step toward change and transparency.”

A few highlights of the rules passed include the following:

Ethics reform

· Mandating ethics training for all members, officers and employees

· Allowing the speaker and minority leader to unilaterally remove members appointed to leadership positions upon their criminal indictment

· Allowing the speaker and minority leader to unilaterally remove rank and file members of committees upon their criminal indictment

· Limit the duration of advisory opinions from the House Committee on Ethics to the biennial session in which they were given

· Specifically prohibiting members, officers and employees from receiving gifts from lobbyists

· Allowing the Ethics Committee to initiate legislation

· Allowing the clerk to refer any ethics related legislation to the Committee on Ethics upon its report from Joint Standing Committee

· Requiring any violation of House Roll Call rules to be reported to the House Committee on Ethics

Process reform

· Limiting the speaker’s term to eight years

· Requiring the clerk to make all bills introduced and admitted for consideration to the House available to members electronically and to post on the Internet

· Requiring that when the General Appropriations Act is reported by the House Committee on Ways and Means that it be available to members electronically and to the public via the Internet

· Requiring notice of committee hearings to be posted on the Internet

· Requiring House Ways and Means redrafts that are to be voted on at an executive session to be made available to all members of the committee electronically

· Establishing a House Standing Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets

· Establishing a House Standing Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change

· Allowing the clerk, upon request of the speaker, to vote for a member upon the malfunction of the member’s voting machine

· Allowing the clerk to distribute paper copies of bills, resolves, summaries or other documents due to technical limitations or exigent circumstances

Voting reform

· Requiring the clerk to disable the voting system of any member who has notified the clerk that he will be absent for a formal session and also requires the clerk to disable the voting system of any member failing to answer the first non-quorum roll call

http://www.wickedlocal.com/concord/news/x1056820713/Atkins-earns-leadership-position