These committees include committees on the various appropriate subjects, sometimes consisting of eight men and sometimes in the case of busy and important committees of fifteen, and in the case of the two busiest, the joint committee on Ways and Means and on Judiciary, of sixteen.
Most of the business, naturally, is done by these joint standing committees and not by the standing committees of the separate branches. The committees on Rules and on Ways and Means seldom sit jointly. The committee on the Judiciary almost always sits jointly.[1] The House committees on Payroll and on Elections do not sit jointly with any committees of the Senate as each branch has jurisdiction only over its own membership in such matters. The same is true of the committees on Engrossed Bills and on Bills in the Third Reading, as they have jurisdiction only over bills which have gone to engrossment or to a third reading in the branch in which they sit.
We have already noted that the Senate has no standing committees on Elections or on Payroll and that the House does have such committees. In the Senate it has been customary for the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to present an order for the payroll, to be made up by the clerk. This procedure makes a committee on Payroll unnecessary. The pay of members, both for traveling and salary, is governed by statute; the provision as to travel is that each member receives $4.50 a mile. Only one journey to and from the State House is computed. Boston, however, is regarded as being five miles from the State House and every Boston member gets $21, while representatives from North Adams at the farther end of the State receive mileage amounting to a substantial sum. The salary of each member of the House and Senate is fixed at $1500, the presiding
- ↑ See Joint Rule 1.
