Good evening,
There are just two weeks left until the end of formal sessions in our legislature! Under new rules, major bills need to be approved by both chambers and entered into negotiations by July 31st.
Last week, we talked about conference committees: the tiny, opaque, 6-person committees where the final language of most bills in our legislature is hammered out behind closed doors.
As we discussed, a major reason that so many bills end up in conference committee these days is the legislature’s habit of bill-making by “omnibus”: massive, sprawling bill packages that combine many different policies into one. This week we’re going to dig a bit more into that practice and its consequences by looking at a bill on the move this week: the mother-of-all omnibus bills, the economic development bill (H.5562).
The “economic development” bill, which is usually passed at the end of the two year session, is ostensibly a bond authorization bill to allow borrowing by the executive branch to channel investments towards specific state priorities.
In practice, as State House News put it, “it tends to become a vehicle for representatives’ end-of-session priorities that they haven’t been able to move into another piece of legislation.” This year, House representatives filed 688 amendments to the bill, which were combined into five consolidated amendments that “the House adopted with little floor discussion.”
Almost two years ago, the legislature finalized last session’s economic development bill and I wrote a Saturday Scoop about it: “Processing Econ Dev & the Disappearance of the Standalone Bill in MA.” This turned out to be one of my favorite Scoops I’ve ever written. With the new “catch-all” bill on the move, I decided to return to it and revamp it for the current session!
Still, there’s only so much we can boil down in a single Saturday Scoop. If you’re looking for a more in-depth review of our legislative process and why popular legislation repeatedly dies without a vote, join Act on Mass for a State House 101 workshop next Tuesday at 7 pm, led by our wonderful intern Oscar Gillette.
State House Scoop
Processing Econ Dev & the Disappearance of the Standalone Bill in MA: 2.0
First, let’s start with a review of how our legislative process is supposed to work: the School House Rock version, if you will.
Step 1: Representatives introduce bills—11,111 in this legislative session alone. Most of these bills propose a minor change or addition to the language of Massachusetts’ General Laws, which govern all aspects of life in our Commonwealth, in order to improve a small aspect of our state law or respond to an emerging policy need.
Step 2: Bills are assigned to committees based on the issue they respond to. Committees hold public hearings on bills and then vote to approve a bill or not. Bills approved by their committee might move to another committee, which can approve or reject them.
Step 3: Once approved by all relevant committees, the bill is brought to the House or Senate floor for a vote by the full membership. Members are forced to take a position on the specific language the bill deals with, voting yes or no. Bills approved by the majority of members of both chambers are passed, and move on to the governor’s office to be signed into law.
In a functional democracy, the above system offers many opportunities for the public to understand their representative’s position on a particular issue. Constituents can see their reps’ positions on bills in committees they are part of. They can hear their rep make arguments on the floor of their chamber, and see recorded roll call votes. Come election time, they can use these details about their legislators’ positions to make an informed choice of representative.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t been how things work in Massachusetts for a while. We’re going to zero in on two main pieces of what isn’t working: individual bills and the floor vote.
Passing standalone bills: a historical relic in Massachusetts
In Massachusetts, individual policy bills have increasingly come to mean almost nothing on their own. As we reviewed last week, we’ve been keeping track of the bills passed so far this session. Despite the more than 11,000 bills filed this session, just 13 individual policy bills have actually been passed into law. Few other policy changes have been made; those that have were “outside sections” tacked onto budget and appropriations bills.
Passing everything through omnibus bills and outside sections on spending bills is certainly one way to run a democracy. It does occasionally produce results we want, such as the long-awaited closing of the “consent loophole” for teenage students which finally passed via an outside section on the Fiscal Year 2027 budget. However, it turns the democratic system on its head.
For advocacy organizations, it weakens the grassroots. In a functional democracy, groups can advocate for individual bills through the committee hearing process and by building numbers among the rank-and-file, for which it helps to have many supporters across multiple districts. Instead, the omnibus process forces advocacy groups to focus their efforts on currying favor with the few members of leadership responsible for putting these omnibus bills together, in hopes that their bills’ language might be included.
This empowers corporate lobbyists and groups with the money to build and maintain relationships with leadership—which often involves well-timed donations to such leaders’ campaign accounts. It’s no coincidence that House Ways and Means chair Aaron Michlewitz, the one-stop-shop for outside sections in the House budget, has the largest campaign account of any legislator ($1.6 million cash!) despite never facing a challenger. As the campaign accounts of leadership fill up, corporate interests are allowed near-veto power over the movement of legislation.
The omnibus process also disempowers rank-and-file reps who, rather than building support among their colleagues, are forced to jockey for proximity to leadership in hopes of getting the language of their priority bills included on one of the “big bills.” As we discussed last week, these enormous bills have their final versions hammered out in closed-door conference committees, are released mere hours before the vote, and cannot be further amended at that point. This leaves rank-and-file legislators with hundreds of pages to sort through in a matter of hours, full of proposals they might agree with or disagree with, yet which all must be approved or rejected with a single vote. Unsurprisingly, it results in a system where 85% Democratic reps vote with the Speaker on 100% of roll call votes.
Votes on the floor: does it mean anything?
Thus, this system also has major consequences for transparency: it muddies the waters of representative’s positions, so the public is left guessing about what pieces of new law their representative does and does not support. This makes it extremely difficult for advocacy groups, constituents, and the wider public to either thank representatives for supporting legislation that is beneficial (and re-elect them!), or hold representatives accountable for pieces of legislation that are harmful (and challenge them!).
Let’s use the “econ dev” bill as an example.
The House passed its version of the bill last week. Leadership’s draft was released from House Ways & Means on Monday July 6th and numbered 82 pages. In the amendment process, 143 pages and $136 million were added to the bill. The 225-page bill ultimately passed the House 148-2. What policies were those reps voting for? We were left to pore through the pages after it was finished.
Let’s recap: in a functional democracy, advocates and representatives are clear on exactly what law changes are in a bill before it passes, and are able to advocate or vote accordingly. In Massachusetts, however, giant bills are assembled behind-the-scenes by leadership, contain a range of law changes, and undergo a convoluted amendment process with less than 48 hours notice, leaving advocates (and, likely, representatives) to retroactively examine what legal consequences the laws may have—with only the hope of influencing the opaque conference committee, or petitioning the governor for a line-item veto.
Here’s a few policy changes contained in the “kitchen sink” House economic development bill, several of which came to light in the last week, once the bill was already passed:
- A popular housing policy known as “tenant right of first refusal,” which would give tenants in a multifamily building the first chance to purchase their building if it is going to be sold. This was previously passed by the legislature in 2021 (in an econ-dev bill!) and was vetoed by Charlie Baker.
- Legalization of gaming machines that allow players to bet on videos of horse races that have already happened, which critics argue are basically slot machines
- Exempting minor league baseball players from the state’s wage labor laws, following a successful bargaining agreement on their part
- Creating a 5-year pilot program for the administration of psychedelics for mental health care, just two years after voters voted down a ballot question to legalize it
- A $500,000 grant created for employers to help current or former workers who were authorized under the federal Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, which is under attack by the Trump administration
- Allowing multifamily housing by-right on land that is owned by religious institutions, also known as the “Yes in God’s Backyard” Act
- And more!
All these policies were tacked on to a bill that authorizes $75 million in spending to boost the development of artificial intelligence in Massachusetts and $100 million in investments to support the defense industry, constituting almost half of the money authorized.
In a functional democracy, the above policy provisions would have been passed (or not passed) as individual bills on a roll call vote, with representatives expressing their support or disapproval based on the feedback they’d gotten from constituents throughout the bill process and their own personal convictions. Then, voters would be given the chance to respond accordingly.
Instead, we’re left with a convoluted soup of warring provisions: should we call our reps to thank them for voting in favor of tenant rights? And supporting immigrants under attack by the Trump administration? Or criticize them for voting to use public funds to support the defense industry and AI? All within the same bill, which is theoretically about “bond authorization”?!
One thing certainly is clear: a functional democracy, Massachusetts is NOT.
Senate leadership released their version of the economic development bill to be debated next Thursday (S.3178). It contains another laundry list of legislative priorities, including new regulations for AI companies, new laws regulating e-bikes and scooters, and changes to municipal liquor license allocation. You can see what amendments your senator is pushing for and follow along the progress of the bill here. Once the two versions are passed, we will return to this in a future Scoop.
What we’re reading this week
Great reporting and writing from around the Bay State this week!
- A zoning reform was sent to study by its committee. Somehow, a lobbyist managed to get it passed in the state budget anyway. A win for action on housing (maybe), but an L for public process—Zoning changes in state budget came from lawyers brainstorming about housing crisis in Boston Globe (paywall)
- The Senate voted last week on their version of a bill to curb social media addiction in Massachusetts. Big Tech is paying attention—Complicated decisions ahead as lawmakers crystallize Big Tech response by Chris Lisinski for Commonwealth Beacon
- A race for Governor’s Council in MA, the elected body which advises Governor Healey and approves judge appointments, received national attention this week for the disqualification of a young trans candidate—Democrats in Massachusetts and Michigan Are Trying to Disqualify Trans Candidates. Here’s How in Closeted Media
Take action
Support Act on Mass’ endorsed candidates!
Take action by signing up to knock doors, phonebook, or get a yard sign for one of our endorsed candidates this weekend!
- Michael Lachenmeyer, 12th Hampden: sign up here
- Ravi Simon, 13th Middlesex: sign up here
- Evan MacKay, 25th Middlesex, sign up here
- Alison Leary, 10th Middlesex: sign up here
- Lorena Betts, 16th Middlesex: sign up here
- Daniel Lander, Suffolk & Middlesex: sign up here
- Persis Yu, Norfolk & Suffolk: sign up here
- Mike Zullas, Norfolk, Plymouth, and Bristol: sign up here
Every District Accountable: Has your Rep signed the pledge?
We had a great launch event for our “Every District Accountable: Good Government for Mass” pledge this week! Here are some resources about it:
- Click here to see if legislative candidates in your district have signed the pledge yet
- Activist toolkit: check this document for details on the five commitments in the pledge and a script to contact your legislator about it
- Part of an org that’s interested in co-sponsoring the pledge? 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