The 192nd legislative session ended more with a whimper than a bang after a 23-hour final session that bled well into Monday morning. But because of their negligent procrastination, the Democratic supermajority handed our Republican governor final say on a number of critical, progressive bills. Because of them, the prison moratorium and No Cost Calls are dead, and the climate bill hangs in suspense.
And it’s only the beginning of veto season; Baker has another week or so to act on the 60+ bills on his desk.
And none of this is to mention all the popular, progressive, and desperately needed bills that never even made it to the floor for a vote, like Medicare for All, Ending Wage Theft, and Safe Communities Act, to name a few. Hell, we’re in the middle of a devastating housing crisis, and our legislature took no significant action on housing affordability this entire session. And during an era in which trans youth are increasingly under attack, “deep blue” Massachusetts couldn’t even pass the Healthy Youth Act, requiring that sex education be LGBTQ+ inclusive??
But hey, at least we’re probably going to legalize sports betting.
State House Scoop
Awaiting Baker’s signature or veto
- Climate action: This legislation would invest in the state’s transition to net zero emissions by 2050. Upon his initial review of the bill, Baker returned the legislation with sweeping amendments, only some of which the legislature incorporated in the final version. It's a toss up whether he signs or vetoes the whole thing.
- Mental health access:A priority of President Spilka’s, this bill to expand mental health access emerged at the last minute, likely in exchange for the passage of Speaker Mariano’s big priority…
- …Sports betting: After months of stalled closed-doors negotiations, the House and Senate finally reached a compromise on Speaker Mariano’s white whale, his raison d’être: making sports betting legal in Massachusetts.
Vetoed
- Prison Moratorium: Despite excellent and persistent organizing from criminal justice reform advocates and enactment by both chambers, Governor Baker vetoed the 5 year Prison Moratorium with the stroke of a pen on Thursday afternoon. If they had left themselves more time, the Democratic supermajority could have easily overridden this veto, and stopped plans for the new women’s prison. But they didn’t.
Never made it to Baker’s desk
- Economic development bill: The major tax relief bill that passed both chambers just weeks ago (think: slashing the estate tax, $250 rebates that excluded low-income taxpayers) was shelved by lawmakers after the discovery of a 1986 law that appears to require that the state return even more revenue to taxpayers than they had planned. I’m not sure how a legislature managed to be caught off guard by 40-year-old law, but if any legislature could pull that off it would be ours.
- No Cost Calls: In the biggest outrage of the end of session crunch, a policy to make phone calls to incarcerated individuals free of charge was deliberately tanked by the Senate, who opted instead to play into the Baker administration’s racist fear mongering. The House, very much to their credit, rejected Baker’s incarceration-expanding “dangerousness” amendment to No Cost Calls. However, the Senate passed a version of Baker's amendment, effectively killing the language entirely. See how your senator voted on tanking No Cost Calls here. (To read a more detailed account of this debacle, I highly recommend this excellent article by our friends at Progressive Mass.)
An entire session without Joint Rules
In direct response to the Transparency is Power campaign, both the House's and the Senate’s proposals for the Joint Rules at the start of the session were improvements on last session's rules; both would guarantee more committee votes would be public than before. But because the two proposals were different, a conference committee was appointed to negotiate a compromise. That was in February of 2021.
They never released a compromise version of the Joint Rules*.*** The full legislative session came and went without a final version of the Joint Rules, which govern the publishing of committee votes and so much more.
This unprecedented disregard for process is a slap in the face anyone who cares about government accountability, the 90% of Bay Staters who believe they should get to see how their reps vote in committees, and to all of you who took time last year to advocate for your right to access the legislative process that deeply impacts your lives.
Angry? Me too. But we knew this fight was never g-oing to be over in one session. Nothing that challenges power is ever that easy. Only after sustained, relentless advocacy (catalyzed by electoral victories) will we achieve our goal of a State House that actually works for the people. And we're just getting started.
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Speaking of which
WE'RE ON THE BALLOT
Three months and 15,000+ signatures later, thanks to the hard work of dozens of Act on Mass and Mass-Care volunteers across the state, our non-binding transparency question will be on the November ballot in 20 state rep districts! PLUS Mass-Care’s question about single payer healthcare will be on the ballot in 21 districts! That’s 800,000 constituents who will have a voice on these issues in November. If 2020’s results are any indication (our transparency question passed with an average of 90% in 16 districts), they’ll have a lot to say.
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Take Action
Demand the Legislature call a special session to finish the job!
We're joining Families for Justice as Healing & National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls in their calls for a special session in September to override Baker's veto of the Prison Moratorium bill and finish all their unhandled business - including passing No Cost Calls:
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Formal sessions are ostensibly done for the rest of the year. So what’s next? Well, five months of informal sessions, and a lot of time for our incumbents to campaign (despite only a fraction having challengers).
And us? We’ll continue to monitor the legislature and churn out our analysis of the session. But for now, we turn our focus to campaigning for our amazing candidates. There’s just one month left to make the difference between incumbents sailing to reelection and our cohort of progressive challengers sweeping the primary.
I’ll see you on the doors,
Erin Leahy Executive Director, Act on Mass