🎵 Oh the state of our democracy is frightful 🎵
🎵 But the fire of the will of the people is so delightful 🎵
Take it away, friend!
Ok, I’ll admit I’m no song parodist, but the snow flurry earlier this week (the first of the season for the Boston area?) has me feeling festive.
Maybe my good mood also has something to do with the fact that the State House passed their second major bill of the session this week, and this one wasn’t a tax giveaway to the wealthy. It’s a Christmas miracle!
That’s right – the Legislature has officially closed the books on the least productive year in decades, and only 34 days later than required by law. On the agenda in 2024: the long-awaited gun control bill, Healey’s housing bond bill, and some competing healthcare priorities (a drug pricing bill which passed in the Senate, and a long-term care industry bill which passed in the House). With formal sessions ending on July 31st, and a whole new budget process swallowing up May and June, it’s all but guaranteed that some bills on the agenda will get left behind.
And that’s not even to speak of the popular, needed, progressive bills that aren’t on leadership’s agenda, like Medicare for All, enabling rent control, medically accurate sex ed, stopping wage theft, fully funding public higher education...
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State House Scoop
Budget bill, including shelter funding and pay raises, finally passes
Turns out the fourth time was the charm. To refresh your memory on the fiasco from last week: the Democrats in the House and Senate were unable to pass a major supplemental budget bill before the end of formal sessions on November 15th, meaning the bill would then need to be passed during an informal session. In informal sessions, legislative leaders can pass bills with just a few members present. How? A loophole: if no one there doubts the presence of a quorum (i.e. calls out the fact that there aren’t at least 81 of 160 reps present) they can proceed as if there were a quorum.
Yep. This is how most of our laws are passed.
But since all it takes to stop the proceedings is for someone to stand up and say “I doubt the presence of a quorum” (I like to imagine it’s incredibly dramatic, like someone bursting in and shouting “I object!” at a wedding, followed by gasps and fainting), any single lawmaker can put the kibosh on a bill during informal sessions. Which is exactly what the Republicans did to this bill, with their newfound power, three times in a row.
After days of decrying Republican obstruction, the Democrats finally decided it was time to act like the supermajority they are: they ensured there was actually a quorum in the chamber on Monday, and passed the long-awaited bill 105-14. The Senate quickly followed suit, and Governor Healey signed the bill a mere 18 minutes later. After all, she had been waiting for the Legislature to take action on this bill since she filed it in September. This bill was needed to close out the state’s budget for 2023 (although they blew past that October deadline), and included funding for emergency shelters, which have started turning away migrant families due to lack of resources, and pay raises for tens of thousands of public employees.
It’s better to have this critical funding late than never, but why did the Legislature make public workers and vulnerable unhoused migrants wait? Why aren’t they addressing these (or seemingly any) issues with the urgency with which the need is felt on the ground?
They say a broken clock is right twice a day. Well, here are a couple of broken clocks, being pretty damn right: “‘If you want to see why this didn’t happen in a timely fashion, grab a mirror and look at it,’ Minority Leader Brad Jones said of the majority party. ‘Maybe we should,’ House Speaker Ron Mariano replied when asked by a reporter about the remark.”
Months after passing $1 billion in tax cuts, state announces tax revenue shortfall
Well, I can’t say I didn’t see this one coming (it’s not like we’ve been trending this way since April or anything), but once again reports are showing lower than expected tax revenue for the month of November, bringing our total shortfall to a whopping $627 million so far for FY24.
Revenue Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder lays it out: “November collections decreased in non-withheld income, sales and use tax, corporate and business tax, and ‘all other’ tax in comparison to November 2022 [...] The decrease in ‘all other’ tax is mostly attributable to a decrease in estate tax.” Let me get this straight: we’re worried that revenue from the estate tax is down? Just wait until next year when the new estate tax cut takes effect!
It bears repeating: Beacon Hill passed $1 billion in permanent tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy and corporations, despite knowing that tax revenue was falling. In the same session, they are claiming we don’t have adequate funds to house migrants past the spring.
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Missed a Scoop or two? You can find a full archive of all past Saturday Scoops on our blog.
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Take Action
Fight for your Rights Lobby Day: January 23rd
It’s finally happening: we’re going under the golden dome! Join Act on Mass and Indivisible Mass Coalition on Tuesday, January 23rd at 10:30am, for our first ever Lobby Day! We’ll be meeting with our legislators to lobby for a slate of pro–democracy bills, including the Sunlight Bill, S.1963.
What: Lobby Day
Who: Indivisible Mass & Act on Mass
When: Tuesday, January 23rd, 10am-2pm
Where: State House, Room 428
Intern with Act on Mass!
The time has come to bring new friends aboard the Act on Mass team — we’re hiring interns to help with our digital communications and political organizing next semester! Our internship program is designed for high school and college students (though we welcome folks of all ages and backgrounds) who are passionate about civic engagement and grassroots organizing. Our internships are fully virtual and unpaid.
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And last, a not-so-fun fact to kick off your weekend
As if it wasn’t hard enough to pass the Work + Families Mobility Act into law (and subsequently defend it on the ballot last year), it turns out that obtaining a driver's license is still difficult for immigrants in Massachusetts. According to reporting from Nirvani Williams, the hurdles immigrants face in obtaining a driver’s license are myriad: the RMV website is only available in English, and users have to navigate the English menus in order to find the translated resources. And costs add up quickly; there’s a $30 fee for taking the exam to get a learner’s permit, and some people have had to take the exam up to five times due to issues with the website crashing, costing them $150. If your birth certificate isn’t in English, you will need to obtain a certified translation, which can also be costly. All of this is to say: passing the law to enable Massachusetts residents without federal status to receive driver's licenses was enormous. But now, we must make it more accessible.
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That’s all for now! And since the Legislature is in a holiday recess, our Scoops might take a little recess, too. Never fear–we’ll still be sure to let you know of any big news or events that crop up between now and the new year.
Until then, have a happy Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, solstice, and any other celebration that helps fill these dark, cold days with some warmth and light.
Yours,
Erin Leahy
Executive Director, Act on Mass