Statement about Beacon Hill’s Adjournment after a Dysfunctional, Unproductive Session

Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, released the following statement from the organization about the Legislature’s adjournment with key work left undone

“We are disappointed and appalled to see the ostensibly full-time House and Senate adjourn this morning after failing to take decisive action on so many key issues. 

Rather than advancing a robust shared legislative agenda throughout the past year and a half, our Legislature pushed so many important priorities off to the very end of the session, creating bottlenecks and setting themselves up for failure. 

It does not have to be this way. Why is it? Because of a State House Leadership that is overly deferential to corporate interests and lacking in vision, an autocratic internal structure, and the learned helplessness of too much of the rank-and-file. 

The Legislature ran out the clock on passing meaningful legislation on climate change, despite our living through a summer that continues to break heat records. The Legislature whittled away at the policy components of Governor Healey’s housing bond bill, caving to real estate interests and ignoring public opinion. We have a housing crisis and a climate crisis, and our Legislature is in clear denial about both. 

The list of bills left stalled or defeated through inaction is long and includes legislation that one or both chambers have passed overwhelmingly in past sessions. Next year, we fully expect many of these bills to be refiled, and the Legislature will hold hearings on them in which they will pretend to hear about them for the first time, an insult to the public’s intelligence and their own. 

Advocates have worked hard this session to build momentum for legislation on housing, climate, criminal legal reform, maternal health justice, health care reform, and countless other issues. Their voices, backed by robust public support for action, should be heard. 

The ongoing Veepstakes has highlighted the prolific legislating of narrowly held Democratic majorities in Michigan and Minnesota. When Democrats finally achieved governing trifectas, they immediately went to work to pass long lists of held-up priorities, showing what can be done when the government prioritizes the well-being of the public. Massachusetts likewise finally achieved a Democratic governing trifecta (despite long having the third largest Democratic supermajority in the country) and instead demonstrated dysfunction and lack of ambition. As Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to make the case to the American public that voters should give Democrats a trifecta in DC this November, our Legislature isn’t just failing the people of the commonwealth; they continue to fail the whole country.” 

The 193rd legislative session of the Massachusetts General Court has been historically unproductive. As of July 29, fewer than 230 bills had been signed into law across the two years of the session. By contrast, the last several legislative sessions saw 564 (2021-2022), 539 (2019-2020), 626 (2017-2018), 635 (2015-2016), and 701 (2013-2014) bills signed into law. 

Of the 227 bills signed into law this session as of Monday, 203 were about one city, one town, one person, or a combination of several towns. 

Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide, multi-issue, membership-based advocacy organization focused on shared prosperity, racial and social justice, strong democracy, and environmental sustainability. The organization was founded in 2013 and has 21 chapters across the Commonwealth. 

Wanted: Bold Climate Action

Last week, the House took up its climate omnibus bill. While the bill contains a number of important reforms, it lacks the ambition of the Senate’s recent bill, which did far more to accelerate the transition away from gas. And the Senate’s bill still hadn’t gone far enough to meet the moment, especially around environmental justice.

The process in the House was also emblematic of the chamber’s democracy deficit: of 107 amendments filed, 91 were withdrawn, and the handful that were adopted were watered down. What we see time and time again in the MA Legislature is that bad process leads to bad outcomes.

To read more about this, check out blog posts from Jess Nahigian at the Sierra Club and Dan Zackin at 350 Mass.

The Mass Power Forward coalition will be hosting rallies at the State House from through next Wednesday (7/31). You can sign up to join a rally here.

Better Late Than Never: House and Senate Pass Final FY 2025 Budget, Sending it to the Governor

At the end of last week, the MA House and Senate agreed to a final version of the FY 2025 budget. There are a number of big wins (but some disappointments) in it.

What We’re Excited About:

  • $170 million for universal school meals
  • $117.5 million for tuition-free community college
  • Major steps to deliver affordable, high-quality education and child care that will mean more stable funding for providers, better pay for educators, and more affordability for families
  • Continued funding for fare-free transit in Regional Transit Authorities
  • An access to counsel pilot program that will provide legal representation for low-income tenants
  • Increased cash assistance for families, seniors, and people with disabilities in poverty
  • Continued work to replace our state flag and seal

Click here to see how the full $1.3 Billion in new Fair Share revenue was allocated by the House and the Senate — new investments that you made possible by volunteering and voting for the Fair Share campaign in 2022.

What We’re Disappointed About:

  • That only $10 million was provided for the implementation of free calls in prisons and jails (No Cost Calls), well below the $35 million allocated in the Governor’s budget and the House budget
  • The exclusion of stronger reporting requirements for No Cost Calls implementation passed by the Senate
  • The exclusion of a key voting reform to delink the municipal census from voter registration passed by the Senate
  • The legalization of online lottery sales, which is an extremely regressive way of raising revenue

The budget now goes to the Governor to sign.

The Legislative Session Ends in Four Weeks. Here’s What’s Left

State House at night

Four weeks. 

That’s how much time is left in the current formal legislative session in the MA State House. The session will technically continue until the very beginning of January, but the Legislature is unlikely to take up any non-controversial bills after July 31. 

In 2024 so far (the second year of the legislative session), 122 bills have been signed into law. 116 of those 122 were about either one city, one town, one person, or–in one case–two towns. 

Here are the other 6: 

  • Becoming the 49th state to criminalize revenge porn
  • Passing a supplemental budget that imposed cruel limits on shelter stays
  • Authorizing the state to borrow $400 million over the next two fiscal years to finance improvements for municipal roads and bridges — and then establishing that said bonds shall be payable not later than June 30, 2059
  • Establishing a Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week and a Noah Fernandes Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Day
  • A short-term budget to address the fact that they haven’t passed a budget yet 

That means that there is a LOT left to do in this final month. 

What can you do now? 

You might be seeing your legislators at the local July 4th parade or festival. Make sure that they know you are paying attention and want the Legislature to take action on these many pending issues. And then after you enjoy the holiday, stay tuned for actions and events on how to build momentum in these final weeks. 

Where do things stand? 

The House and Senate have ongoing negotiations (“Conference Committees”) to finalize several bills: 

Added to that list soon will be the Affordable Homes Act, which the House passed in early June and the Senate passed last week. 

What else is still in play? 

Several bills have passed one chamber but not the other. Just over the past couple of weeks, the Senate recently passed a plastics reduction bill and a climate omnibus bill, and the House passed a maternal health bill as well as an economic development bill. 

The Senate has also passed bills to allow for gender-neutral state IDs, to make it easier for unhoused individuals to get state IDs, to require school districts that teach sex ed to use comprehensive, medically accurate curricula, to strengthen our child care and early education infrastructure (a fight also happening through the budget), and to control some prescription drug prices. The House also passed a hospital regulation bill and a long overdue update to parentage laws. 

Some important bills have gotten out of committee, awaiting further action. Here are a few: 

And others are sitting in committee, still alive but awaiting action, such as legislation to raise the age of criminal majority in order to keep teenagers out of adult prisons. 

What should you take away? 

What we should always remember is that we have a full-time legislature and the second largest Democratic supermajorities in the country (and a Democratic trifecta). Our Legislature can and should be ambitious and comprehensive in its policymaking, not procrastinating or playing catch-up. Everything mentioned in this email is something the Legislature can and should do, with the only limitations being those they impose on themselves. 

Statement on the Senate Redraft of the Affordable Homes Act

Massachusetts has a housing crisis, and voters across the state are calling for bold action. If only the Massachusetts Senate Leadership would care to listen.

While we are happy to see the bill preserve vital pieces of Healey’s bill like eviction sealing and accessory dwelling units, it in no way meets the urgency of our housing crisis. 

Rather than strengthening and building on Governor Healey’s housing bond bill, Senate Leadership has decided to cave to the real estate lobby, nixing the local option real estate transfer fee and relegating it to a commission that will likely never even meet.  

Let us be clear: the public wants to see robust action on the housing crisis. MA voters support a local option real estate transfer fee by 3 to 1 and routinely show strong support for a wide range of necessary policy solutions. 

Every day, more and more people are being displaced as they can no longer afford the crushing rents and sky-high housing prices. We need every tool in the toolbox, at every level. We can only tackle the housing crisis with investments from the federal level, the state level, and municipal level. Our State Legislature needs to stop preventing cities from playing their part. 

Around the country, right-wing Republican elected officials have been trying to prevent progressive cities from passing their own laws. Massachusetts Democrats, however, beat them to that by a century and—whether out of indifference, elitism, or plain-old corruption—uphold that system today. Our Commonwealth deserves better policy making than this.

Mass Voters Show Strong Support for Progressive Housing Action

A newly released UMass/WCVB poll shows strong support for progressive housing policies, showing yet again how out-of-touch the State House can be.

Rent Control: 72% of voters supported allowing local governments to set a limit on how much rents can be increased each year, with only 13% opposed.

Local Option Real Estate Transfer Fee: 62% of voters supported allowing cities and towns to tax real estate transactions above $1 million to help raise funds for local affordable housing, with only 21% opposed.

Accessory Dwelling Units: 66% of surveyed voters supported allowing homeowners to add small, add-on living spaces called accessory dwelling units to their property, with only 9% opposed.

And despite the buzz around opposition in a few towns, the MBTA Communities Act, which requires cities and towns with MBTA proximity to rezone near transit, had the support of 55% of MA voters, with only 18% opposed.

Statement on the House Redraft of the Affordable Homes Act

“Massachusetts has a housing crisis, and voters across the state are calling for bold action. If only the Massachusetts House Leadership would care to listen.

Rather than strengthening and building on Governor Healey’s housing bond bill, House Leadership has decided to cave to the real estate lobby, axing the local option real estate transfer fee, eviction sealing protections, and measures to increase affordability of new development. We need every tool in the toolbox, and at every level, to address our housing crisis.

Let’s be clear: members of House Leadership are being dishonest when they claim that they oppose a local option real estate transfer fee because it is a “piecemeal” solution that doesn’t help every city and town. Such concerns were nowhere to be found during the budget process, when those very same representatives had no problem stuffing the budget full of outsized perks for their own districts. Dedicated funding for dog parks in the North End don’t benefit even the full city of Boston, but giving Boston the ability to tame real estate speculation and preserve and expand affordable housing has benefits far beyond the city itself—not to mention the many cities and towns that want to take actions well.

The House is certainly not acting with an eye to public opinion. MA voters support a local option real estate transfer fee by 3 to 1. 

Last year, when state representatives passed tax cuts for the rich proposed by Governor Healey, many of them emphasized the importance of giving the Governor a “win.” Now that the Governor wants a “win” for working and middle-class residents across the Commonwealth, the House sings a different tune, showing that they care less about Healey’s legacy or their everyday constituents than they do about their donors.” 

Just over 100 Days into 2024: What Beacon Hill Has Accomplished

Now that we’re in mid-April, we’re just over 100 days into 2024 and just over 100 days until July 31, i.e., the last day of the formal period of the legislative session.

So what’s happened in 2024 so far?

74 bills have been signed into law in 2024:

  • 44 are about just 1 town.
  • 17 are about just 1 city.
  • 12 are about just 1 person

That totals 73 out of the 74 being about 1 town, 1 city, or 1 person. (Some are about 1 person in 1 city or 1 person in 1 town, or 1 person in 1 county, of course.)

And that 1 bill left over? Perhaps something promising?

It’s about 2 towns.

We have a lot of work to do.

Universal School Meals: Good Politics and Good Policy

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were able to offer meals to all students at no charge through the pandemic-related child nutrition waivers offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). 

Massachusetts chose to extend it and then last year voted to make it permanent, using funding from the Fair Share Amendment.

A new report by the Food Research and Action Center highlights the positive impacts of universal school meals. As the report notes, the research is clear: participation in school meals improves academic achievement, attendance, and student behavior at school; decreases childhood food insecurity; leads to children eating more fruits, vegetables, and milk; and reduces visits to the school nurse.

As the chart below shows, breakfast participation in Massachusetts went up by 25% from 2018-2019 numbers, and lunch participation went up by 16% from 2018-2019 numbers.

We will continue to see these benefits from universal school meals — a reminder that they are both good politics and good policy.

Happy Sunshine Week! (Don’t Mind the Clouds…)

Happy Sunshine Week!

Sunshine Week is an annual collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, government, and private sectors that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government. We could use some of that sunshine in Massachusetts.

We are supporting two bills this session that would advance such a vision of open government:

  • H.3040 / S.2024: An Act to Modernize Participation in Public Meetings, which would phase in a requirement for hybrid meeting access for state and local public meetings and provide grants to municipalities to boost technical capacity
  • S.1963: An Act to provide sunlight to state government, which would promote transparency in state government by removing the Governor’s exemption from public records law and requiring committee votes and legislative testimony (with appropriate redactions) to be public

Find out if your legislators are currently on board with these bills, and then write to them to urge them to support such basic measures to expand civic participation and promote good government.

Email your legislators
 
Sunshine Week Statistic: Roll Call Votes This Session

Has the legislative session felt somewhat slow to you? Well, one statistic that stands out is the sharp decline in roll call votes (i.e., formal yea / nay votes during a debate): in the MA House, state representatives have taken only about half the number of recorded votes this session as in recent ones.

So much of the legislative process occurs behind closed doors, and recorded votes are a critical opportunity for legislators to show the public where they stand. When the House refuses to bring up votes until they are unanimous and when legislators withdraw their amendments without discussion or debate, we lose out on opportunities to make progress on the many critical challenges facing the commonwealth.


Total Number of Roll Call Votes by Session

Line Item Veto Override: a vote taken by the Legislature to reject the Governor’s veto of a specific budget appropriation. Since veto overrides require a 2/3 vote, this recorded votes are mandatory; the Legislature cannot take a voice vote (i.e., call of yea’s and nay’s).

Quorum call: a vote that is simply a call of the roll for attendance reasons and to ascertain if sufficient legislators are present