Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, released the following statement from the organization about the Legislature’s adjournment with key work left undone
“We are disappointed and appalled to see the ostensibly full-time House and Senate adjourn this morning after failing to take decisive action on so many key issues.
Rather than advancing a robust shared legislative agenda throughout the past year and a half, our Legislature pushed so many important priorities off to the very end of the session, creating bottlenecks and setting themselves up for failure.
It does not have to be this way. Why is it? Because of a State House Leadership that is overly deferential to corporate interests and lacking in vision, an autocratic internal structure, and the learned helplessness of too much of the rank-and-file.
The Legislature ran out the clock on passing meaningful legislation on climate change, despite our living through a summer that continues to break heat records. The Legislature whittled away at the policy components of Governor Healey’s housing bond bill, caving to real estate interests and ignoring public opinion. We have a housing crisis and a climate crisis, and our Legislature is in clear denial about both.
The list of bills left stalled or defeated through inaction is long and includes legislation that one or both chambers have passed overwhelmingly in past sessions. Next year, we fully expect many of these bills to be refiled, and the Legislature will hold hearings on them in which they will pretend to hear about them for the first time, an insult to the public’s intelligence and their own.
Advocates have worked hard this session to build momentum for legislation on housing, climate, criminal legal reform, maternal health justice, health care reform, and countless other issues. Their voices, backed by robust public support for action, should be heard.
The ongoing Veepstakes has highlighted the prolific legislating of narrowly held Democratic majorities in Michigan and Minnesota. When Democrats finally achieved governing trifectas, they immediately went to work to pass long lists of held-up priorities, showing what can be done when the government prioritizes the well-being of the public. Massachusetts likewise finally achieved a Democratic governing trifecta (despite long having the third largest Democratic supermajority in the country) and instead demonstrated dysfunction and lack of ambition. As Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to make the case to the American public that voters should give Democrats a trifecta in DC this November, our Legislature isn’t just failing the people of the commonwealth; they continue to fail the whole country.”
The 193rd legislative session of the Massachusetts General Court has been historically unproductive. As of July 29, fewer than 230 bills had been signed into law across the two years of the session. By contrast, the last several legislative sessions saw 564 (2021-2022), 539 (2019-2020), 626 (2017-2018), 635 (2015-2016), and 701 (2013-2014) bills signed into law.
Of the 227 bills signed into law this session as of Monday, 203 were about one city, one town, one person, or a combination of several towns.
Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide, multi-issue, membership-based advocacy organization focused on shared prosperity, racial and social justice, strong democracy, and environmental sustainability. The organization was founded in 2013 and has 21 chapters across the Commonwealth.