Good morning,
Nearly 5 months into a legislative session that started with promises to be “efficient and transparent,” our fearless legislative leaders took a swing at both this week, with a meeting on Joint Rules and the passing of… drumroll please… the third law passed this session!
The lack of finalized joint rules has led to some procedural snafus in the last few weeks that spotlighted tension between House and Senate. More details on that later.
The passing of the session’s third total law (anyone want to sign my petition banning the use of the word “lawmaker” to describe members of the Massachusetts General Court?) puts us in at about 7 laws behind the legislature’s slowest start in over 40 years– last session. I’ll take “Least Efficient Legislature in the Country” for… well… 3.
All three laws passed so far also share something in common. “Hand-crafted in advance to prepare and protect Bay Staters for the worst of the Trump administration?” you might ask? Unfortunately, no: all of these laws were passed just before a hard deadline, whether for a funding gap or an expiring policy. This week’s new law was no exception, although legislators actually missed the deadline due to– by all appearances– procrastination and pettiness. Maybe politicians are just like us after all!
Except, of course, if I blow past a deadline, it doesn’t put the health insurance of 460,000 state employees in jeopardy. Let's get into it.
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State House Scoop
House & Senate proxy war on state insurance funding
Quick breakdown on the law passed this week. In April, Governor Healey requested time-sensitive funding for the state’s insurance agency among other requests in a supplemental budget. House Ways & Means has been sitting on it ever since. Recently, the agency made it clear that they would run out of money to pay claims this Monday May 12th.
Never one to do today what can be left for tomorrow, House Ways & Means waited until May 12th to vote out a bill containing just the insurance funds. Less than an hour later, the House approved it in informal session, passing it on to the Senate.
Although the Senate held a 9-minute informal session on Monday, they elected to adjourn until Thursday, ensuring that the agency would miss its deadline for funding. President Spilka’s statement took obvious aim at House procrastination: “We are glad that the House decided to take action on this bill, which was filed five weeks ago on April 2. The Senate looks forward to taking up the legislation in three days, at our next session on Thursday.” Spicy!
The Senate ultimately took up the bill Thursday and passed it; it was signed by the Governor hours later. Still: though the House and Senate’s feud can be entertaining, they are gambling with the needs of Bay Staters when they prioritize procrastination and political spats over policy expediency. Unfortunately, that’s a theme for the week.
Without written joint rules, Senate and House animosities take center stage
The second meeting of the Temporary Conference Committee on Rules, on Thursday, came at a ripe time for political animosity between House and Senate. This included not only the insurance-related spat, but a conflict directly related to joint rules that bubbled up in a joint committee hearing this week.
One key difference between the House and Senate joint rules proposals is that the House proposal would set expectations for legislator attendance in-person, including restricting their ability to attend hearings virtually. This language was obviously aimed at members of the Senate. Due to the smaller number of senators (40 Senators vs. 160 House members for the same 34 committees), Senate members are often assigned to several joint committees. They also have larger districts. They end up, therefore, with more schedule conflicts and rely more often on remote attendance for committee participation.
On Monday, this disagreement on rules came to the forefront in a hearing of the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure, which was considering several bills related to liquor licensing. Senator Jacob Oliveira had registered to testify virtually from his Western MA district. However, the House co-chair, Rep. Tackey Chan, refused to recognize Sen. Oliveira and did not allow him to testify virtually, citing the House version of the joint rules. Rep. Chan later said“It is the position of the house chair to have folks actually show up for work.” SPICY!
Senate members expressed displeasure with Rep. Chan’s move, with Sen. Oliveira going so faras to compare it to current attempts to “undermine our democratic institutions… in Washington, D.C.” Senators pointed out that the 2019 rules by which the legislature is, technically, currently operating make no distinction about testifying virtually.
No matter who was in the wrong here, it’s clear: working without finalized joint rules is not only confusing for constituents and advocates, but makes the business of legislating harder for legislators themselves. Trying to be effective without clear expectations for how to run joint committees is exacerbating existing tensions. And… as I mentioned at the beginning, all these issues coalesced at this week’s long-awaited meeting on Joint Rules.
Agreeing to disagree: A first-hand account of the second public meeting of the Temporary Conference Committee on Joint Rules
After the first meeting of the Joint Rules conference committee, legislators made much of the fact that the meeting was public. Co-chair and Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem admitted that she had never seen a conference committee meeting open to the public. So, I was excited to attend the second meeting, once it was finally set for this Thursday.
To be honest: it was a little underwhelming at first. The House and Senate members took their places at a long dais. At the previous meeting, they had identified 52 points of difference between House and Senate versions of the joint rules. They were happy to report that they had reached an agreement on 24 of them. Co-chairs Senator Creem and Rep. Mike Moran then took turns reading from a list of all 52 and noting what decision had been reached. So, although this meeting was technically “public,” it was more like a glorified press conference reporting on conversations that had been had behind closed doors.
For most of the points of difference, the decision made was to agree to disagree. Almost all of the changes have been “tabled for further discussion.” Notably, one of the only points of agreement was that a long-standing rule that bans legislators from purchasing stocks from companies with business before the legislature should not apply to immediate family members. Somehow, they were able to reach an agreement on that very quickly!
Almost all of the key transparency changes that we advocated for are still under discussion. On public committee votes, it seems they will adopt the House language, which was not our preference because its provisions are slightly more vague. However, we did appreciate that the House language requires posting of the votes within 48 hours, which they appear to have agreed to.
A fascinating and exciting change that both chambers were behind was a change to the rules process itself. Instead of having an extended rules discussion at the beginning of every session, they propose to host discussions towards the end of each session about how the rules worked, in order to inform potential changes. House and Senate also agree that the rules should be subject to a hearing with public comment!!
This change is a huge credit to our movement for transparency and the public pressure that has been built around the rules debate for years. Legislators used to treat the rules as a procedural privilege that the public had no business with. Yet, through our years of mobilizing folks to push for accountability from their legislators, hosting conversations with representatives, and making noise in the public square about legislative transparency, we have made it clear that the rules by which the legislature governs itself is a matter of public interest.
Still, Thursday’s meeting demonstrated that we are still a far cry from having finalized joint rules. The Senate and House members pledged to “continue to talk offline”– aka, out of the public eye. At the end, Senator Creem and Representative Moran took questions from reporters, at which point the tension between the two sides was more apparent. The incident with Senator Oliveira and Representative Chan was addressed. At more than one point, voices were raised.
Another issue raised by reporters: Senate members of the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity voted out a series of data privacy bills this week [paywall] using only Senate votes. This was made possible by a rules reform introduced this year to allow Senate members to vote on Senate bills and House members to vote on House bills in joint committee. The catch: joint rules, obviously, haven’t been finalized, so this reform doesn’t officially exist.
Senate Majority Leader Creem explained that the votes taken this week were made possible by a “verbal agreement” between the House and Senate co-chairs to adopt the proposed rules change. A reporter asked if the two leaders think that, without finalized joint rules, “individual committee chairs using their own interpretations or reaching verbal agreements to lay out an untraditional process is a good way for lawmaking to unfold.”
I had to laugh when House Majority Leader Moran replied: "I think you know the answer to that.” Here's hoping that means they'll get right to work!
Other stories this week
It was a busy week! Here's a couple other things to keep an eye on that we didn't have room for in the full Scoop.
- NIMBYs outnumbered: a new poll this week found that the majority of Bay Staters support building more homes in their own neighborhoods, even if it changes "neighborhood character"
- Citing economic uncertainty amid federal cuts, Governor Healey announced a hiring freeze of the executive branch.
- Gun rights advocates are preparing a referendum for 2026 to repeal last session's sweeping gun law. This week, gun control advocates launched a campaign to keep the law on the books.
- After months of discourse, Governor Healey unveiled new legislation designed to target energy affordability to mixed reviews from advocates
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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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Syd's Sprinkles: More on the House Budget
With the House’s passing of their $61.5 billion budget, we have seen $81 million of these funds go toward individual local projects. And to nobody’s surprise, the majority of the funds were approved for Democratic leadership via earmarks.
But how was all of this funding approved by a Legislature that is notoriously incapable of approving important legislation?
Well, the funding doesn’t actually need approval from the House at large. Each earmark only needs the approval of Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, the House Committee on Ways and Means Chair, and his staff, who then put earmarks into consolidated amendments.
Our own Scotia Hille, as well as other advocates and activists, have clarified that funding is not given out need- or program-based, but rather popularity among Democratic leadership. So those who are closest to House Leadership, like Rep. Adrian Madaro, get among the most earmarks approved, while those who are not on leadership’s good side – e.g. Republican Rep. Kelly Peace – receive little to no funding.
Thanks to WBUR’s reporting, you can also see the individual earmarks, including who requested them, who receives the funding, and how much funding they receive here.
House leadership like Speaker Ron Mariano argue that the budget process creates opportunities for Representatives to be heard. However, seeing as they are not being heard by all members of the House, just leadership, wouldn’t that ensure that people do not actually have their voices heard? It is hard to understand the direness of certain issues that need adequate funding when members cannot sell their constituents’ cases to all members of the House– and certainly not on the House floor.
This is especially apparent given that only 10% of requested earmarks were approved.
So how can the House come to an agreement on funding for different programs and legislation that addresses important issues when the Committee on Ways and Means only approves a tenth of the requests that are presented?
There doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer, but bringing more transparency to the Legislature seems like a great place to start.
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Take Action
We protect us: make sure your rep takes a stand on ICE raids!
Recent violent ICE arrests in communities around Massachusetts have left residents fearful. Governor Healey has come out with more sympathy for ICE than her detained residents and their families. We need legislators to step up and address this. Do you know where your rep stands and what they're doing to protect our communities? Use our form to send them an email!
Organizing Fair in Salem, May 19 6-8 PM
Looking for ways to get involved and organize against what's happening at the federal level? Some of our allies are hosting an organizing fair in Salem on Monday May 19th. Act on Mass will be there, and we're counting it as our first stop on the transparency tour. Join us find out how you can get involved!
Transparency on Tour Collaborative Launch: May 26th, 7 pm
Finally, a reminder that we'll be officially launching our Transparency Tour in a few weeks on May 26th! Join us to learn more and have your role in shaping this project!
RSVP TO HELP US HIT 40 DISTRICTS THIS SUMMER>>
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And that's all for this week! Enjoy your weekend.
In solidarity,
Scotia
Scotia Hille (she/her)
Executive Director, Act on Mass