It’s the Last Month of the Formal Legislative Session. What’s Already Become Law?

As we head into the last month of the formal legislative session, let’s take stock.

During the 2025-2026 legislative session at the MA State House, 220 bills have been signed into law.

But of those 220….

  • 166 are home rule petitions about one city or town
  • 23 are administrative matters about sick leave for specific state or county employees
  • 12 are budgets or supplemental budgets
  • 4 are awareness days
  • 3 are routine bonding and financing matters (the timeline for bond issuance; Chapter 90 funding for local transportation projects)

So what about the other twelve?

Three of them will expire by next year, if not sooner:

  • Extending hybrid meeting access for public meetings through next June
  • Setting the primary date as September 1
  • Creating an opt-in, temporary municipal pilot program to extend last call until 3 am for the World Cup

So what are the other nine?

  • Strengthening protections for reproductive and gender-affirming care, a critical move in light of federal attacks (August 2025)
  • Making car rentals more affordable (November 2025)
  • Updating the collection of birth and death statistics (November 2025)
  • Protecting transit workers from assault (December 2025)
  • Reforming the Cannabis Control Commission (April 2026)
  • Updating outdated and offensive language in Massachusetts law related to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (June 2026)
  • Creating a statewide framework to help individuals with autism communicate important information to law enforcement officers during traffic stops and other interactions (June 2026)
  • Overhauling early literacy instruction (June 2026)
  • Creating a public online database and automated notification system tracking code violations related to welding, plasma cutting, and spark-producing construction (June 2026)

Various other policy changes have passed via the budget (e.g., banning tenant-paid broker’s fees, creating an immigrant legal defense fund), but the Legislature has increasingly used large, must-pass vehicles like the budget to pass policy rather than pass standalone bills with clear votes, accountability, and attribution of credit.

And there are many bills in Conference Committees existing or soon to be reformed.

The big takeaway of all of this should be clear: there’s a LOT for them to still do in this final month. And it’s important that our legislators hear from us about it.

Here’s What You Should Ask Your State Legislators If You See Them This Holiday Weekend

It’s the first week of July, and that means two things.

(1) We’re now in the last month of the formal legislative session, which tends to feature a flurry of activity as long-awaited priorities emerge, deals get cut, and more.

(2) Lots of July 4th activities, especially for the 250th.

So across this weekend, you might end up bumping into your state representative or state senator. Here’s what you should ask them.

(1) Protecting Our Immigrant Communities: Tell them to ask Legislative Leadership to ensure that the final version of the PROTECT Act contains a clean ban on new 287(g) agreements, without exception; contains strong and clear limitations on communication and collaboration with ICE; and bans courthouse arrests, including on courthouse grounds. Email Your State Legislators

(2) Protecting Our Privacy Rights: Tell them to ask Legislative Leadership to ensure that the final version of the Data Privacy bill completely bans the sale of sensitive data and location data, creates strong statutory limits on data collection and processing, and includes a private right of action to hold companies accountable. Email Your State Legislators

(3) Keeping Momentum for Rent Control: Urge them not to abandon the momentum for a rent control deal. Real progress was made to protect communities from displacement, and we shouldn’t let the SJC ruling on the ballot question to get in the way. Email Your State Legislators.