BOSTON – JULY 16: The Massachusetts State House in Boston, MA on July 16, 2020. (Photo by Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
The panel of Massachusetts lawmakers assigned to negotiate a final version of competing gun law reform packages is set to hold its first meeting.
Co-chairs Rep. Michael Day and Sen. Cynthia Creem are scheduled to gavel open the conference committee talks at 2 p.m. on Wednesday in Room 348.
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A top priority of both House and Senate leadership, lawmakers are moving forward on one of the session's most controversial matters without knowing exactly what Gov. Maura Healey wants; the governor has not outlined her own set of reforms.
The firearms legislation has moved in fits and starts. Twenty-six days elapsed last month between the Senate's vote to approve its bill and the House motion to ship the bill to conference. The committee was fully appointed Feb. 29.
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Day wrote the House's 129-page bill, which that branch passed last October, and Creem was the architect of the 49-page text approved by the Senate in February.
The six-member squad also includes Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, Sen. Joan Lovely, Rep. Joseph McKenna, and Sen. Bruce Tarr.
Conference committees are required to open their first meeting publicly and can opt to hold open negotiations, though senators and representatives routinely vote to immediately conduct all future deliberations behind closed doors.
