What you need to know as we approach the end of Council Period 26

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 15th 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 15th will roll over to 2027 and be considered for final reading in CP 27.

 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 the same or similar measure considered in a later Council Period, including the record of any hearing or roundtable that was held in the immediately 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 26 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 26 and must be filed within 20 business days after the mark-up. You may review CP 24 activity reports on LIMS here and CP 25 activity reports on LIMS here.

Great summary reports detail a committee's 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 the 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.

These reports are a fantastic summary document for the public and also serves 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 within 20 business days and 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 Congressional review in this Congressional session for measures transmitted in the month of July. We closely monitor Congressional activity and 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.