Happy Saturday,

While all eyes nationwide will be on Monday’s inauguration, we in the #MApoli world marked the passing of a key state milestone this week: the bill filing deadline on Friday.

As of Friday January 17th at 5 p.m., the vast majority of the legislation that will be dealt with during the 194th session was filed with the House and Senate clerks. Filing a bill after this deadline is possible but very difficult– most filers respect the January deadline. The website is not updated automatically, but currently shows 6,668 bills filed for this session.... and we’re off to the races. 

Of course, we know that most of these bills will never see the light of day. Most will linger in committee, be advanced or thrown out on a secret vote, and meet their fate with a “study” order or a lack of action by Ways and Means, to be re-introduced in 2027. A lucky few might see their language included in increasingly-cumbersome omnibus bills, following closed door, back-room deliberations by members of leadership. If trends of the decade-long decline in roll call votes continues, no more than 300 will actually see a vote of the membership.  

Actually, when I think about it, I should be appreciating this moment. The 6,668 bill pages now available on the website is about the most transparent moment in the 2 year legislative session: we know and can publicly access the language they'll be working on this session! From this point on, everything gets a lot murkier. 

But aside from being the most transparent week in the legislative session, it was also a busy one– especially for the executive branch. Let’s get to the Scoop.

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State House Scoop

An Update On Emergency Shelters and Right-To-Shelter from Sydney! 

With the Trump administration mere hours from taking control over our national immigration policy, we’ve been outspoken among those calling upon our state leaders to take swift action to protect immigrants. As a progressive state and the only state with a mandated right to shelter [paywalled], Massachusetts has long served as a safe haven for those fleeing persecution in other states, especially during the first Trump administration. 

Instead, Governor Healey chose this week to ask the legislature to approve of her plans to “overhaul” the state's right-to-shelter law, with new requirements that would essentially dismantle it. The right-to-shelter, established in 1983, requires the state to provide access to emergency shelter and necessities to migrants, pregnant women, and homeless parents and their children. This law is part of the reason that, despite having the fifth-highest rate of homelessness in the country, Massachusetts has the third-lowest rate of unsheltered homelessness.

However, dealing with an influx of need in recent years– the homeless population in MA increased by 53% in 2024 alone, the third-highest increase nationwide– many of these shelters were not originally intended to be used as such. As a state that promises to help and protects immigrants coming into the country, it appears that our government is not doing a great job of ensuring the safety of some of our most vulnerable populations. 

Healey has made it clear that she believes the original right-to-shelter law is outdated and does not address the current state of crisis. In response to controversy over safety in the shelters recently, the governor has ordered for “more thorough” background checks and an investigation led by former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis to be conducted in an effort to ensure the safety of the shelters. She has also asked the legislature for $425 million from a reserve account to keep emergency shelter programs funded for the next 6 months while considering the slow end of using hotels as emergency shelters. 

This week, Governor Healey caved to right-wing backlash, sending an appeal to the legislature for changes that would bar countless families from accessing the program [paywalled], effectively ending the state’s right-to-shelter law. Healey’s proposed plan also includes: 

  • Requiring proof of eviction from within the state of Massachusetts (rather than from other states)
  • Imposing a residency requirement on who can access beds in the shelters
  • Conducting background checks on all individuals who are seeking shelter
  • Requiring that all program applicants have an “intent to remain in Massachusetts” 
  • Ending presumed eligibility, which requires applicants to provide documentation of eligibility upfront that shows they meet state requirements for involvement in the program
  • All individuals must demonstrate they are a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident or are here legally– previously, only one individual in the household had to demonstrate this 
  • Limiting the time in which families can remain in a shelter

These changes would not only drastically limit the availability of shelter and add onerous requirements as winter temperatures make it deadly to sleep outside, but deliberately punish immigrants. Let’s remember: this law has stood on the books for nearly 50 years, 24 of which were under Republican governors. It now stands to be unraveled under a Democrat governor.

So far, there hasn’t been much of a response from the state legislature in this new legislative session. 

However, we’ve been left questioning how the state plans to assist people who are currently in the emergency shelter system while carrying out their goal of decreasing the 7,000+ families currently in the program down to 4,000 by 2026? Killing the shelter system and the right-to-shelter law will do nothing more than further the crisis and leave more individuals and families within the state homeless as housing and basic necessity costs continue to rise in the state and country. 

As of right now there doesn’t seem to be a set idea of what the fate of the right-to-shelter law and the emergency shelter system will be, but we will continue to update you on these important issues as the new legislative session begins.

In the meantime, let your legislators know we want to preserve the state's right-to-shelter law.

TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT RIGHT-TO-SHELTER >>

Healey’s MBTA plan will use Fair Share funds

Few state agencies are as beleaguered as the MBTA. In recent years, most conversations about Massachusetts’ public transit agency have been accompanied by a tone of gloom and doom: a swath of safety incidents raised public concern, federal officials launched an investigation and raised questions about a federal takeover, and most recently– even after the appointment of Phil “Train Daddy” Eng has led to marked improvements in MBTA service– reports of a fiscal cliff left the MBTA’s financial stability in question.  

Last spring, Sydney did a great deep dive into the MBTA’s funding problems and how our legislature was involved. Read the full blog post here: The MBTA’s Failing Funding Structure and Its Origins. In short, the legislature of the early 2000s created major financial problems for the T by A) altering its funding structure so that it was no longer funded via the state budget but by a designated percentage of the state’s sales tax and B) saddling the MBTA with $9.2 billion of debt and interest from the Big Dig, a roadway project. 

The anticipated growth of the designated tax turned out to be poorly calculated and insufficient, while the debt payments from the Big Dig placed enormous cost burdens on the MBTA. Since, the legislature has refused to take action on meaningful debt relief for the MBTA or setting up a long-term funding structure, relying on stop-gap measures that did not meet the public’s need. 

Faced with the need for much greater investment in public transportation than the legislature was willing to provide, advocates resorted to the ballot in 2022, passing the Fair Share Amendment. This amendment levies a new tax on MA residents making over $1 million a year, the revenue of which must be used for education and transportation spending. This was intended to provide funding for new capital projects, including repairs to existing transportation infrastructure. 

Enter the Governor’s Transportation Funding Task Force. Governor Healey convened this task force early last year with a goal of “identifying new, more sustainable sources of public revenues for the MBTA and other statewide transportation programs.” In an unsurprising finish, this task force ran past its deadline for a finalized report at the end of last year. They convened this week to announce the findings of their study. 

Rather than designate any new funding source for the MBTA (such as taxes or tolls), the task force proposes to leverage close to $1 billion of Fair Share funding to immediately stabilize the MBTA’s budget. 

On the one hand, this funding being available to solve this major public problem is a huge victory for progressive revenue. Advocates fought long and hard for the ultra-wealthy in our Commonwealth to pay their fair share (™) to support the public resources that we all benefit from. The new tax is set to more than double revenue projections, bringing in about $2.5 billion of new revenue. 

However! This is not sweeping structural change to provide long-term funding to the MBTA or to correct past policy mistakes that have led to the T’s financial ruin: it is picking the pocket of a people-backed initiative for another short-term, stopgap funding measure. Governor Healey has already faced criticism for using Fair Share funds– intended to seed new spending– to merely fill holes in the existing budget. 

In an op-ed addressing this week’s proposal, former MA transportation secretary James Alosi writes: “Preventing the MBTA from experiencing an operating budget shortfall is important, but the T needs more money than just enough to prevent a shortfall… The T can’t deliver on what we all want and expect it to do with a status quo budget.” Especially with the state's climate goals in mind, this is a bad time for leaders to kick the can down the road on funding for transportation. 

One thing is clear: if the T makes it through this fiscal crisis, it will be due not to bold leadership on the part of Massachusetts’ politicians, but rather to the progressive values of its everyday citizens.

Also worth reading!

If you have a Boston Globe subscription (or are still within your monthly limit of free articles), I highly recommend reading this week’s op-ed by Sens. John Keenan and Bruce Tarr on the subject of transparency in the Senate. They provide key insider testimony on what this session was like from the inside– and some interesting recommendations. 

And another interesting piece from the Globe– on the irony of lawmakers having conversations about transparency in closed-door, tight-lipped meetings. 

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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

Take Action for Right to Shelter

With the Trump administration just days away from having full control over the country’s immigration policy, and temperatures in Massachusetts hovering below 32ºF, denying the right to shelter to needy families is unconscionable. Governor Healey’s proposal now goes to the legislature to produce next steps. What do you want your legislator to have in mind while they consider her proposal? Tell them here: 

TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT RIGHT-TO-SHELTER >>

PDM Forum - MA Legislative Dysfunction: How It Affects Us All - Jan 31, 10 AM

At the end of this month, Progressive Dems of Massachusetts is hosting a virtual forum on legislative dysfunction, featuring Act on Mass' own Scotia Hille (aka me) as moderator! Join us to hear from expert panelists Alan Palm of the Better Future Project and Mark Martinez of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute about the myriad of issues slowing progress in our legislature and what we can do about it. 

REGISTER HERE>>

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Thanks for reading! Until next time. 

In solidarity,

Scotia

Scotia Hille (she/her)

Executive Director, Act on Mass