Happy Saturday,
Do you live in one of the 59% of state legislative districts that will feature just one candidate for election this November?
Without the pressure of an election, are you wondering how you can hold your legislator accountable? How can you ensure that they’re committed to transparency and good government policies?
Well, you came to the right place. A few months ago, Act on Mass got together with some of our progressive allies to develop the “Every District Accountable: Good Government for Mass” pledge. It includes 5 simple commitments that we’re asking legislators and prospective legislators to make:
- Vote in favor of bills you have co-sponsored on committee and floor votes
- Host at least two in-person constituent town halls per year in your district
- Support legislation to provide public funding for elections
- Vote to reinstate 8-year term limits for Speaker and Senate President
- Uphold the will of the voters on legislative reform ballot initiatives, including public records law and election-day voter registration
Do you know who’s up for election in your district? Have they signed the pledge?
To find out who’s signed the pledge so far and how you can mobilize in your district, join Act on Mass for our pledge launch this upcoming Wednesday, July 15th at 7 pm on Zoom. We will also walk through the rationale for each of these commitments and how you can use them to push for transparency from your representative—competitive election or not.
JOIN OUR LAUNCH ON WEDNESDAY>>
If you can’t make it next week, you can find more info about the pledge and a script to contact your legislator at this link.
Hope to see you next week!
State House Scoop
As session draws to a close, a peek into the black box of “conference committees”
A few headlines from this week in legislative watchdog work: “July is here, and that means it’s busy season again on Beacon Hill” and “Massachusetts lawmakers, promising a tidier close to their session, still have a lot they want to get done.” Under new rules passed last year, bills need to be passed by both chambers and moved into negotiations by July 31 to become law. Although this was intended to result in a smoother end-to-session, the writing is on the wall: we’re facing a legislative pile-up.
First, allow me to complain for a second. Unlike 40 other states, we have a full-time legislature. Our lawmakers are paid full-time salaries to debate and then rule on policy changes in the form of new laws. With 200 legislators and 791 full-time staff, they’re not exactly students cramming for an exam: there’s no reason they couldn’t be passing laws around the clock. And yet, since January of 2025, legislators have passed just 12 new policy laws that apply statewide, with many, many crucial priorities outstanding—including on time sensitive issues.
This pile-up is in part because legislative leaders are still choosing to do the lion’s share of policymaking via massive “omnibus bills” that combine many different policy initiatives into one bill. This is a tool of concentrated power, as committee chairs and members of leadership compile the language of these massive bills in committee, and then control the amendment process on the floor of each chamber. For most individual policy priorities these days, supporters have to hope they’ll tacked onto a larger bill—with leadership’s approval.
As the 194th session winds to a close, several of these large omnibus bills have already been approved by both chambers of the legislature, meeting the July 31 threshold. Instead of facing limbo in, say, House Ways & Means (where individual bills go to die), they’re in closed-door negotiations between House and Senate known as a “conference committee.” Here’s some background on just a couple of those bills:
1. The PROTECT Act: This week brought reports of a massive surge in ICE detentions around the country, as well as the shocking murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at the hands of ICE agents in Houston, TX. Despite the intense urgency of the threat faced by immigrant communities and those supporting them in our Commonwealth, the legislature’s “PROTECT Act” immigration reform package is still in negotiations between different House and Senate versions, two months later. The conference committee members are Representatives Cahill, Vargas, and Vaughn and Senators Friedman, Payano, and Fattman.
2. The Massachusetts Data Privacy Act: Data privacy has come to the forefront as the Trump administration has repeatedly cracked down on free speech online, including threatening “warnings” delivered to citizens for negative social media posts about ICE. Last month, it was reported that ICE is considering purchasing digital ad data from big tech companies to track down immigrants. The MA Data Privacy Act would protect Bay Staters’ data from these intrusions by protecting sensitive data, including immigration status, and banning the sale of precise geolocation data. The conference committee members are Representatives M. Moran, Farley-Bouvier, and Vieira and Senators Creem, Finegold, and O’Connor.
3. The Energy Affordability bill: Energy affordability has been a hot-ticket item this legislative session, as Bay Staters struggle to afford some of the highest energy costs in the nation. After stalling for a year, the MA House and Senate passed wildly different versions of a bill to address those costs, with the House voting (controversially) to cut $1 billion from the state’s energy efficiency program, Mass Save, and the Senate taking aim at a program that allows utility companies to charge ratepayers directly for spending on new pipelines. This bill was contentious all around, with the Senate debate featuring a rarely-seen phenomenon in our legislature: a 19-20 vote on an amendment, with leadership split! A conference committee has yet to be appointed to sort out the differences, but we hope they’ll get to work soon to provide crucial cost relief.
In the meantime let’s review: what exactly is a “conference committee”?
Conference committees are convened when the House and Senate pass different versions of the same bill. They consist of three senators and three representatives, each hand-picked by the leadership of each chamber to negotiate a final version of the bill.
The conference committee process is, unfortunately, another checkpoint where concentrated power imposes itself on the democratic process. After 160 legislators and 40 senators have amended and approved a piece of legislation, the ultimate language of the bill is hammered out by just six people. These members have full range to alter the language and content of the final bill. After an initial public meeting, negotiations take place completely behind closed doors.
This process has huge implications for the public’s ability to influence legislative outcomes. Once a conference committee has been convened, your own legislator is excluded from the decision-making process (unless they’re one of the lucky six!) You can lobby your rep for a particular outcome, and they can talk to the conference committee members about it, but they have no formal power. And once the conference committee produces a final bill, called a “conference report,” it cannot be amended or changed by members of the full legislature. It does emerge for a final vote, but members can only vote “yes” or “no.”
Conference committees have another feature that makes them undemocratic. By practice, a conference committee is made up of two members of the majority party and one member of the minority party from each chamber. Although Republicans fill just 12.5% of seats in the Senate and 15.6% of seats in the House, they make up 33% of negotiators in a conference committee. This means that Republicans get outsized formal control over the final language of bills in our state house.
Conference committees are only convened when the House and Senate version of the bill differ significantly from each other. Therefore, as more and more policy changes are passed in massive, complicated “omnibus” packages, more policy changes have to go through conference committees. It’s a vicious cycle in which concentrated power begets more concentrated power, while the voice of constituents continues to get lost.
With one month left for bills to pass both chambers, are any of your legislative priorities currently in conference committee? As your elected representatives, which conference committees are your legislators working to influence this July? Are they pushing for particular aspects of the PROTECT Act, the Data Privacy Act, the Energy Affordability Act, or others? Reach out and ask them!
ASK YOUR LEGISLATOR: 1 MONTH LEFT, WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?>>
Isabel’s Vol Call!
Happy Saturday!
I just wanted to use today’s Vol Call to thank everyone who helped us collect signatures to get stipend reform on local ballots across the Commonwealth! Despite a heatwave, torrential rain, and a holiday weekend Act on Mass volunteers and allied transparency groups turned out in force. Through this effort, we are sending a message to the Legislature that just because they struck stipend reform from the state-wide ballot (via an atypical back-door legal maneuver might I add) doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten how unequal pay limits the freedom and responsiveness of rank-and-file legislators.
Keep an eye on future Scoops to see if a stipend reform question will be on your ballot this fall!
Dropping off signatures in Cambridge this week!
What we’re reading this week
Great reporting and writing from around the Bay State this week!
- What one Mass. blueberry bush tells scientists about climate change by Bianca Garcia for WBUR
- Mass. health care faces ‘crisis’ after Supreme Court ruling ends TPS for Haitians by Liz Neisloss for GBH
- Mass. House seeks to regulate e-bikes in $425 million economic development bill by Anjali Huynh for Boston Globe
- New blog post by local filmmaker and Act on Mass ally Aaron Singer: Want Medicare for All in MA? Here Are the Six Bottlenecks
Missed a Scoop or two? You can find a full archive of all past Saturday Scoops on our blog.
Take Action
Join Act on Mass for some exciting upcoming events!
- July 15th, 7 pm: official launch of our “Every District Accountable: Good Government for Mass” leigslator pledge, featuring allies from Indivisible and Progressive Mass. Sign up HERE.
- July 21st, 7 pm: a State House 101 workshop, featuring Act on Mass organizing intern Oscar Gillette (and me!) Join us for a review of the basics of life in our state house, in all its untransparent glory! Sign up HERE.
Thanks for reading and for supporting Act on Mass! Have a great rest of your weekend.
Scotia
Scotia Hille (she/her)
Executive Director, Act on Mass