In recent years, The Massachusetts Legislature has increasingly relied on large omnibus bills to advance policy changes, bundling multiple, often unrelated, policy proposals into a single piece of legislation.

Negotiations over these legislative packages take place behind closed doors, leaving lawmakers and the public with limited insight into how individual provisions are changed, combined, or removed. Proposals that receive public testimony early in the legislative process can look substantially different by the time they reach a final vote.

This approach makes it harder for advocates, journalists, and constituents to track legislation, weigh in on specific policy proposals, and hold elected officials accountable for their votes.

Massachusetts should join the 43 states with single-subject requirements by adopting a rule that generally limits each bill to one subject. This would promote transparency, strengthen public participation, and make it easier to hold legislators accountable for individual policy decisions.

• Read more about how omnibus bills have limited our legislative efficiency over time in the Commonwealth Beacon:
  • Omnibus bills enable opaque lawmaking by Scotia Hille (Act on Mass Organizing Director)
  • Rather than a defense of their productivity, the Legislature’s reliance on omnibus bills should be an indictment by Jonathan Cohn (Progressive Massachusetts Policy Director)
  • Complexity isn’t the issue. The Legislature’s dysfunction is. by Jay Kaufman (former State House Representative)

• The problem: Massachusetts legislators can allow bills to die without a recorded committee vote by running out the clock. By “sending bills to study” aka the polite way to kill a bill, committee members don’t have to take a public stance on substantive policy priorities
• How the loophole works: The 2025 Joint Rules reforms established new public-transparency requirements, including public committee votes. However, House Rule 27 allows a bill that has timed out to be sent to study without a committee poll. This procedural loophole undermines the transparency the reforms were intended to advance.The problem: legislators can avoid taking a public stance on bills by running out the clock and “sending them to study”
• Examples from the 2025-2026 Session: The State House Staff Union Act, the Safe Communities Act, the Right to Strike Act, the Abortion Access Act, the Same Day Voter Registration Act, the Voter Rights Restoration Act, the act to Raise the Age of Criminal Majority to 21, and the act to End Life Without Parole
• Read more about the loophole here:
  • Un-rig the Legislature: the Massachusetts Legislature Needs Real Public Committee Votes by Act on Mass intern Oscar Gillette

Once the Speaker of the House decides to take up a bill, it is often rushed through the final vote in less than 24 hours. This is after languishing in commitee for months (sometimes years, or even decades.)

This strengthens reliance on House leadership to know what’s in the bill and how to vote on it. There is rarely sufficent time for rank-and-file legislators to draft amendments, confer with collegues, and hear from constituents.

• The EDAC is once again taking up the House Rules amendment Act on Mass introduced In 2021, requiring at least 72 hours to review legislation before coming to a vote. The amendment never came to a vote and was killed by leadership.
  • Read more about the People’s House Campaign here
  • Learn more about the 72 Hour Amendment here

Also committment #4 on our Every District Accountable Pledge, term limits both empower rank-and-file legislators and promote a healthier democracy at the state level.

The House removed speaker term limits in 2001, reinstated them in 2009, and then removed them again in 2015. Then-Speaker Robert DeLeo was a strong proponent of term limits, until he changed course when his 8 years approached. In the Senate, 8-year term limits were in place since the 1990s. The 2023 vote to repeal it will allow President Spilka to serve beyond her 8 year tenure coming up this July.

Term limits are one of the tried-and-true democratic methods of preventing the consolidation of power. When rank-and-file legislatures know leadership members won’t hold their office in perpetuity, they have more freedom to speak, and vote, in opposition to them.