02/05/22 Saturday Scoop: Hundreds of bills just got “sent to study”

We’ve officially begun the home stretch of the 2021 - 2022 legislative session. Wednesday marked a major deadline for our reps, whittling down the number of active bills in the legislature from 7,000 to low triple digits. This is when the Senate President and Speaker’s priorities come into sharp focus, and advocates watch the bills they’ve been advocating for, sometimes for a decade or more, get sent to study, yet again.

Groundhog day, indeed!

State House Scoop:

Joint Rule 10 Day

Happy belated Joint Rule 10 Day to all who celebrate! According to the rules, all joint committees had until Wednesday (2/2) to decide what to do with their bills. A committee can report a bill favorably, adversely, or, as they do more often than not, send it to “study” (i.e. kill it). However, as with any other legislative deadline, it’s more of a suggestion. Committees can also issue extensions, which they often use to punt decisions for the more high-profile bills. Watch Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz’s helpful breakdown on Joint Rule 10 day.

A few things are unclear as of the writing of this newsletter Wednesday afternoon. (All right, who am I kidding, it’s Friday at midnight.):

For one, the legislature has yet to update the bill pages to reflect the new statuses of the bills. What happened to Medicare for All, the Safe Communities Act, or Universal Pre-K? Did they get killed or are they advancing to the next committee? The answers are floating around the halls of Beacon Hill, but the public is still in the dark. We'll be keeping an eye out and updating the statuses of our priority bills on our website as soon as we have them.
Second, what committee votes, if any, will we get to see? During the Transparency is Power campaign, we fought for public committee votes and got the concession that at least the “no” votes would be published online, but these new rules haven’t taken effect. The Joint Rules, debated almost exactly a year ago, are still in conference committee. I’m not saying it’s cursed, but I’m not not saying it: two of the six members appointed to this conference committee have left the legislature since being appointed.

COVID relief bill grows to $101 million, passes during informal session

Nearly doubled in size since initially passing the House two weeks ago, a $101 million COVID relief spending bill landed on Governor Baker’s desk Thursday afternoon. Instead of forming a conference committee to hammer out the differences between the House and Senate versions, the final bill was ironed out by just two legislators, and was passed in a lightly-attended informal session without a roll call vote.

Baker proposes tax breaks in his 2023 annual budget

Gov. Baker unveiled his 2023 budget proposal last week, which included $700 million in tax breaks. Along with tax relief for low-income families (great), the budget includes slashing estate and capital gains tax rates (not great). State House leadership has yet to take a clear position on this and other elements of the Governor’s budget. Remember -- while the Governor can propose a budget, the legislature ultimately controls the state’s purse strings.

After shutting its doors for nearly two years, President Spilka hints that the State House may reopen soon

The MA State House has been closed to the public since March 2020 (happy almost two year anniversary!) making it the only state house on the continent that has yet to reopen. According to Spilka, this two year streak may finally end later this month. While there's no definitive timeline or rollout plan, it seems likely that visitors to the State House will have to show proof of vaccination and wear masks while inside.

Commission studying DOC funding says increased staffing is justified

After two years of study, the commission tasked with reviewing appropriate levels of funding for the Department of Corrections has filed their final report. Their big takeaway: it’s fine that correctional staffing and spending have increased while incarceration numbers have declined. As critics of the report have already pointed out, nearly half of the 19-person commission were law enforcement officials who stand to benefit from increased DOC spending.

Housekeeping

1/20 Prison Moratorium forum recording available on YouTube

Missed the virtual event on the Prison Moratorium bill we sponsored a few weeks back? We’ve got you covered! Watch the recording of the event here.

Joint Rules Petition delivered to conference committee

On Monday we delivered our petition to release the Joint Rules from conference committee to the remaining members of the committee, plus Speaker Mariano and President Spilka. If you haven’t yet, take a second to sign our petition to remind leadership that we’re paying attention.

Take Action

Email your rep about their vote on Same Day Registration

Last Thursday, the House voted 93 - 64 to have the Secretary of State study the cost of Same Day Registration instead of actually implementing it. If you haven’t already, please take a moment to either thank your rep for voting the right way, or express your disappointment:

EMAIL YOUR REP >>

The bill has just landed in a freshly appointed conference committee where House and Senate members will go head-to-head about whether SDR will be included in the final bill. The House reps on the committee, Mike Moran, Dan Ryan and Shawn Dooley, all voted against SDR. Let’s make it crystal clear to them how incredibly unpopular their position is.

Youth Forum for Anti-Racist Education Bill, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022, 6:00 PM

REGISTER FOR THE FORUM >>

For more information about the legislation and the CARE Coalition, please visit https://www.care4eduequity.org/

And last, a not-so-fun-fact to kick off your weekend

Massachusetts is one of only four states in which the Legislature has exempted itself from Public Records Law. That means information and materials that would be uncontroversially available to the public in 46 states, such as emails, meeting schedules, agendas, and receipts, are not available to us here in the Bay State.

That's all for now, friend. Stay tuned for updates as we learn which bills were reported favorably out of committee, which were sent to study, and which were extended to fight another day.