When the House and Senate chairs of a joint legislative committee began holding hearings separately rather than together in mid-June, House Speaker Ron Mariano dismissed the notion that the dispute was part of some broader battle between the two branches.

“Not to my knowledge. We have a couple of chairmen who have a disagreement,” he said. “Business goes on. There have been hearings, there’s been committee meetings.”

That business has hit several snags. Since Mariano’s remarks, the House and Senate couldn’t agree on which committee should hold a hearing on gun legislation put forward by Rep. Michael Day of Stoneham. The House on June 26 referred the bill to the Judiciary Committee, which Day co-chairs; the Senate on July 10 referred the measure to the Public Safety Committee, where a number of other gun bills are up for review.

With the branches refusing to budge, Day’s bill is stalled. Day called the bureaucratic standoff “a dispute between the chambers.”

To people not familiar with the workings of Beacon Hill, these types of disputes are hard to fathom. But they are part of the fabric of the Legislature, a place where messages often get sent using the arcane rules that govern the interactions between the two branches. That’s why there has been speculation that the dispute over gun control legislation may in fact be a Senate message to the House about the infighting over control of joint committees.

Joint committees are supposed to make the legislative process more efficient because they allow both branches to hold one hearing on a bill. On the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee, the House chair, Rep. Jeffrey Roy of Franklin, earlier this year sought to impose majority rule on key decisions about when to vote on bills instead of leaving that decision to mutual agreement of the two chairs. Majority rule is a big sticking point between the branches because House members outnumber Senate members on most joint committees by a 2-1 margin.

The Senate chair, Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, saw Roy’s push for majority rule as a violation of the rules governing joint committees and responded by breaking the committee in two. Now the House members of the committee hold their own hearings on bills and the Senate members do the same. Barrett has vowed to keep holding separate hearings until Roy agrees to new rules for the committee.

While Mariano sought to portray the dispute as a disagreement between Barrett and Roy, senators say there has been a coordinated effort in the House to move toward more majority rule in the joint committees, with many House chairs proposing identical rules changes.

 “It’s almost as if the House is done with the delicate power-sharing that enables joint committees to work,” Barrett said in May. “It wants either to dominate the joint committees due to the House’s sheer numerical advantage or drive us towards the Congressional model, in which the House and Senate handle bills separately. Either way, this is quite a turn in the road.”

Senate President Karen Spilka said in May that the policies of the Legislature on joint committees are clear and should be respected.

“As long as I have been a legislator, the joint committees have operated under the joint cooperation of the chairs on fundamental matters of order, such as scheduling hearings and votes,” Spilka said. “This understanding is firmly enshrined in our joint rules, which require scheduling ‘committee hearings and executive sessions upon agreement of the chairs.’ These joint rules were again agreed to in January of this year…. I expect all chairs to follow agreed-upon joint rules and to follow the long-established precedent of using committee rules from the previous session if unable to reach a new agreement on committee rules.”

No one has drawn a line between the rules dispute over joint committees and the decision about which committee should hear gun control legislation. But the lack of action on Beacon Hill – including a budget that is late yet again – is prompting a lot of speculation about why.

BRUCE MOHL

FROM COMMONWEALTH

Flood fallout: The Healey administration and United Way of Central Massachusetts on Thursday launched the “Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund” campaign to raise private donations to assist farmers who have been impacted by recent floods. The campaign aims to generate enough funding to compensate for the 2,000 acres of crops worth at least $15 million lost to the floods. Read More.

OPINION

New mothers need help: Wendy Davis of Postpartum Support International says women shouldn’t have to suffer in silence, urges passage of legislation giving mental health support to new mothers. Read more.

FROM AROUND THE WEB

BEACON HILL

Lawmakers from rural districts are pushing for $60 million plus a host of policy changes to shore up flailing rural schools. (The Enterprise of Brockton)

State watchdogs have only spent $187,643 of the $1.5 million the Legislature allocated in 2021 to fund audits, investigations and other oversight of COVID-19 spending. (Salem News)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS  

A Chicopee City Councilor is facing criticism after posting what a fellow city councilor called a “racially insensitive” meme to Facebook. (MassLive)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

Polling shows that less than half of New Hampshire Democrats support a state election law requiring the Granite State to hold its presidential primary first. The national Democratic Party made moves to change up its primary calendar earlier this year. (The Messenger)

ELECTIONS

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, first elected in 2011, is running for a sixth term. (New Bedford Standard-Times)

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Phone scams are spiking in Massachusetts, officials warn, with scammers pretending to be federal agents trying to collect fines. (MetroWest Daily News)

Under a Baker-era lease agreement for 15,000 acres on the Upper Cape, the Massachusetts Army National Guard has secured its use of Camp Edwards through the end of the century, a deal that preservation groups say lacked public transparency. (Cape Cod Times)

The Boston Licensing Board is weighing an uncomfortable situation – with the current manager of Monica’s Trattoria on the run and facing an attempted murder charge, the business’ license might be revoked, modified, or suspended. (Boston Herald) 

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

More than 70 Massachusetts beaches are still closed due to high bacteria levels caused by sewage runoff. (Boston Globe)

After some 19,000 trees were chopped down and replanted to cut off a beetle infestation in Worcester, a new study found homeowners have been underperforming when it comes to maintaining their new greenery. (Worcester Telegram)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

Chicago-based rapper Herbert “G Herbo” Wright III, indicted by a federal grand jury in Springfield in 2020, agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud and lying to federal agents. (MassLive)

Boston Police released body camera footage of the aftermath of City Councilor Kendra Lara’s car crash, in which the driver Lara claimed she swerved to avoid said she was driving “like a bat out of hell and just swerved.” (Boston Globe) 

MEDIA

Former Boston Globe and Washington Post editor Marty Baron’s forthcoming book is apparently “an impassioned argument for objective journalism” and depicts the Post’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos as committed to newsroom independence. (Media Nation)

PASSINGS

Tony Bennett, iconic crooner and champion of the American songbook over his 70-year career, died at 96 years old. (New York Times)