Happy New Year!
I hope that you had a relaxed and rejuvenating holiday week(s). There’s nothing like this time of year: the day feels about 4 hours long, absolutely nobody can be reached by email, and the world seems to actually rest for a minute.
Except, of course, the Massachusetts state legislature, who in blowing past their July 31st deadline and making snail-pace progress in informal sessions left a fair amount of work for themselves to do this week. About 20% of the total legislation passed in the last two years, to be exact.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I want to take a second to acknowledge another deadline that passed with the New Year: Act on Mass' end of our end-of-year fundraiser!
We owe a HUGE thank you to everyone who supported us this year: with your generosity, we were able to reach our fundraising goal of $7,000. With the matching funds we received, this means that we raised our full $14,000, which is a huge boost for our little organization. From the bottom of my heart: thank you for supporting our work.
These funds allow us to stay on the ball for weeks like this one, where we could hardly keep up with the activity coming out of the legislature. With the end of one legislative session and the immediate beginning of another, I’m actually going to split this into two Scoops! This week will cover the end of the 193rd session.
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State House Scoop
This was a week like no other. In the past, the July 31st deadline at the end of session has provided a bit of a buffer between the two sessions. Lawmakers went around this deadline during the COVID-19 pandemic and last session to finish up a few key pieces of legislation.
However, this past week’s events were (as far as I know) unprecedented: the House and Senate passed 95 (!!) pieces of legislation on Monday to close out the 193rd session, took a single day off, and showed up back to work on Wednesday to be sworn in for the 194th session. Today we’ll talk about what went down on Monday.
Not with a whimper, but with a bang: the end of the 193rd session
For most folks in the Bay State, December 31st is the big Late Night Out of the year’s end. Not so for the very few lawmakers who closed out the 193rd session on Monday, December 30th into the early morning of Tuesday: the House gaveled out at 1:11 A.M. and the Senate at 1:25 A.M.
This marathon final session was initiated by compromises (finally) reached on the two outstanding major priorities remaining: prescription drug pricing and the hospital oversight bill that we discussed in our last Scoop. If passed by Healey, the prescription drug pricing bill will cap the price for name-brand treatments for chronic illness at $25, including insulin for diabetes, and make generic alternatives free, among other drug price related provisions. The hospital oversight bill, compiled in response to the Steward Healthcare crisis, would give state regulators greater scrutiny over the involvement of private equity and real estate entities in healthcare.
These compromise bills were passed easily on Monday and shipped off to Healey’s desk. Then, lawmakers seized the opportunity to pass a range of outstanding bills before they expired on December 31st.
The total number of bills enacted on Monday? 95! Ninety-five! State House News Service points out that this constituted about 20% of the total bills passed in the entire 193rd session. For comparison, our legislature passed 21 bills during the entire first year of session in 2023*.*
Most of the bills passed Monday were small in scope, applying to a single town or individual. However, several were state-wide provisions. Transit advocates and parents expressed surprise and excitement that two bills authorizing camera enforcement of bus lanes and stopping for school buses were passed Monday. Lawmakers also passed a handful of animal welfare bills and new regulations on cash-transfer apps like Venmo.
The passage of the prescription drug pricing bills and the hospital oversight bills also marked a major milestone for the legislature this session: all 9 major priorities that were outstanding on July 31st– provoking major criticism– went on to see legislation enacted this session. In comments, legislative leadership took hits at reporters and watchdog groups with an “I told you so” stance, touting the “incredibly productive” results of the session.
Okay, sure. Legislators deserve some credit for reversing course on what seemed in July to be a catastrophically unproductive end-of-session. Many of the provisions contained in these bills will go on to do genuine good for Bay Staters. However, passing 9 major bills by the end of a full-time, two year session shouldn’t be a massive accomplishment: that’s their job. They’ve got a 200 person caucus (not to mention hard-working staff) and 2 years to do it!
Additionally, relying on informal sessions and the last week of the year to pass major legislation comes with a load of drawbacks.
For one, sending things to Governor Healey’s desk on the second-to-last day of session leaves the legislature no time to override a veto (in the case of a conflict with the governor) and makes legislation susceptible to die by pocket veto. Now that the legislature has adjourned, Governor Healey could choose not to sign these bills and they would have to go through the legislative process again next session. This was a problem at the end of the 191st session in 2021, when the session’s sweeping climate omnibus bill was passed in the final days of session and met a veto from Governor Baker, forcing legislators to restart in the 192nd.
Furthermore, informal sessions do not require a vote of the full legislature and are sparsely attended– meaning democratic representation is equally sparse. The final marathon session this Monday was even more so, with only 5 House members present and just a handful of senators to crank through 20% of the legislative output of the entire two-year session. This took place with almost zero debate and few roll call votes, leaving the public with nary a clue as to how the majority of legislators felt about these critical issues. This is precisely the reason that major lawmaking has previously been discouraged during informal sessions.
What little debate there was (in the Senate) included remarks that took aim at exactly this feature of informal session lawmaking, from Republican Sen. Bruce Tarr:
"These are matters that are extremely significant, they are extremely complex, and they are extremely impactful, And it is unfortunate that we are considering them in an informal session, Mr. President, and that we were not able to consider these in the formal session so that they could have the debate and the recorded votes that they deserve."
Well, I might be motivated by different reasons than Sen. Tarr, but I’m glad that comment made it into the legislative record– if little other conversation did.
Lastly, the gravity of some of the issues at hand here also raises questions about the pace of legislating throughout the two year session. It is certain that there was legislation passed on Monday that will improve the lives of people in our Commonwealth. However, these types of critical legislation can also be passed in the first year of session. Or, for that matter, the first 11.9 months of the second year!
Although careful deliberation is important, leaving lawmaking on so many critical issues until the end of session is not mere procrastination: it forces Bay Staters to wait months for legislation that could change their lives, today. A balanced and efficient legislative pace will be all the more essential with the incoming federal administration this year, who are sure to act swiftly to pass policies that threaten the values shared by many in our Commonwealth. We cannot wait until July 2026– or, if this week is any guide, December 2026– for new action to protect our most vulnerable.
The 194th session began this week. We'll be telling our legislators exactly how we expect them to do lawmaking this session: early and often.
Sneak peek for next week: incoming session!
Next week, we’ll get into some exciting developments from the beginning of the 194th legislative session. Spoiler alert: both Senate President Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano were re-elected easily, and both made *explicit overtures to transparency reforms in their opening remarks!*
Notably, however, neither made any mention of Question 1 (for a legislative audit), which by their own timeline entered into effect this week. So, are they turning over a new leaf on transparency, or just turning a new page in the same playbook? Keep an eye on your email next Saturday for a deep dive!
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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
Progressive Mass - Beacon Hill 101 - Jan 15, 7 pm
Looking to brush up on the inner workings of the Golden Dome and how to best enact change there in preparation for the 194th session? Our friends at Progressive Mass are hosting a back-to-basics Beacon Hill 101 webinar on Jan 15th at 7 p.m. Sign up today!
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That's all for Part 1! Tune in next week for a full dissection of the beginning of the 194th session of the MA legislature. If you need me, I'll be taking a breather!
In solidarity,
Scotia
Scotia Hille (she/her)
Executive Director, Act on Mass