Effect of the End of a Council Period
According to Council Rule 418:
1. Any permanent bill that has not received final reading by the December 17th Legislative Meeting will lapse (or die) at the end of the Council Period and may be re-introduced later.
2. Any temporary bill that has received first reading by December 17th will roll over to 2025 and be considered for final reading in CP 26.
3. A measure transmitted by the Mayor or an independent agency with an associated ‘count’ that is pending at the end of a Council period shall be in the same status in the next Council period and assigned a new number. If notice required by these Rules has been given in the prior Council period, no additional notice shall be required before action on the matter.
4. Records of measures that died at the end of a Council Period may be incorporated by reference in the records of substantially similar measures considered in a later Council Period, including the record of any hearing or roundtable that was held in a prior Council Period.
Notice of Committee Meetings
Rule 430(a)(2) provides that during the last 2 months of the Council Period, when an agenda for a committee meeting contains more than 3 bills, a committee must file and circulate notice of the committee meeting at least 48 hours before said meeting. The notice must include a copy of the agenda and draft copies of the bills to be considered at the meeting.
CP 25 Committee Activity Reports
Rule 227 provides that each committee shall file an activity report before the end of each Council Period that details its oversight and legislative activities. These reports must be approved (i.e. marked-up) by each committee prior to the end of CP 25 and must be filed within 20 business days after the mark-up. You may review CP 24 activity reports on LIMS here.
If looking for suggestions and/or guidance for writing these reports, you may detail your top three legislative/oversight accomplishments for the Council Period, as well as the top three laws enacted (or passed by the last legislative meeting) by your Committee. Other points of discussion include any challenges that the Committee may have faced this Council Period as well as any issues identified that the Committee was not able to adequately tackle during this period.
Wrap up reports provide a great summary document for the public and may also serve as a roadmap document to a successor committee.
Committee Proceedings and Reports
All committee proceedings (i.e. hearings, roundtables and mark-ups) must be scheduled with OSEC and all notices must be e-filed via LIMS e-Filing portal. There are four designated hearing tracks; Track A will be live-broadcast on DCC (Channel 13) and the Council's website while Tracks B-D will be available on the Council's website.
All committee mark-ups must maintain a quorum and committee reports must be accompanied by Fiscal Impact Statements, Legal Sufficiency Memos and REIAs at the time of mark-up. All committee reports must be complete and timely filed by noon on the third day before a legislative meeting.
Congressional Transmittals and Review
According to the published Congressional calendar there are enough days to clear a 30-day Congressional review period (but not a 60-day review period) in this Congressional session. We intend to transmit legislation through late October or until it is no longer feasible to clear review.
All measures that do not become law prior to Congress’ adjournment sine die will be re-transmitted in January. At that time, we will update LIMS with the re-transmitted date and the projected law date count on each measure will start anew.
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