A scorecard tells a story. So what story does our 2018 scorecard of the House tell? : A guide to the 2018 Scorecard

Criminal Justice Reform: After several months of negotiations in Conference Committee, the House passed landmark criminal justice reform legislation. The bill both did far more than advocates had expected at the start of the session and–as is usually the case–not enough (and with a few actively bad provisions thrown in). Celebrating wins is important, but they should be treated as fuel for future demands.

We chose to score the House vote on the conference bill (148-5, 24h) instead of its original bill because the conference bill, on most issues, was more progressive.

Immigration: The House managed to beat back Republican assaults on immigrants’ rights but failed to do anything to expand protections, a necessity given the cruel and xenophobic policies coming from the White House. A budget amendment to allow state and local law enforcement agencies to arrest and hold without a warrant a person suspected of immigration violations–a clear violation of constitutional rights that makes everyone less safe–failed 10-145 (25h), as even a majority of Republicans refused to back it. The House later tabled a xenophobic amendment to block local aid to communities that have adopted ordinances or policies restricting local police from cooperating with federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents (136-19, 26h).

However, the House resisted efforts to include vital immigrant protections in the budget. When the budget belatedly passed in July, with the immigrant protections passed by the Senate stripped out, there were only 6 dissenting votes (three from the left: Reps. Mike Connolly, Juana Matias, and Denise Provost, protesting this abandonment of the immigrant community) and three from the right-wing of the Republican caucus (38h).

Revenue: We began the session with the expectation that the Fair Share amendment (“millionaire’s tax”) would be on the ballot this November. Conservative justices on the Supreme Judicial Court torpedoed those plans, striking the question from the ballot in June.

Anti-tax ballot initiatives from 1998 to 2002 have created a longstanding revenue crisis in this state, as vital programs are cut and the rainy day fund is regularly drained to fund basic budgetary needs. The Legislature did not improve matters this session. They passed a new round of tax breaks for the clearly-not-struggling biotech industry (145-3, 27h) and embraced the failed gimmick of a sales tax holiday, which has been proven to drain revenue and do little to increase net sales (124-18, 36h).

Public Safety: Massachusetts has some of the strongest gun laws in the country, but as we here at Progressive Mass stress, the question is not whether we’re doing better than other states, but whether we’re doing as much as we can.

The Legislature, learning from other states’ successes, passed legislation creating a kind of court order (Extreme Risk Protection Order, or ERPO) to temporarily restrict a person’s access to guns because they pose a significant danger to themselves or others, which can be requested by family members and law enforcement (139-14, 30h). Empowering family members, who are able to see early warning signs, to act in this way can prevent gun violence, whether mass shooting or suicide. House Democrats, with a handful of defections, defeated multiple Republican attempts to weaken the bill (28h, 29h).

Health Care: In June, the House rushed through a modest health care reform bill. The hallmark of the bill was a one-time assessment on insurers and large hospitals to fund community hospitals for three years—although these assessments were cut by 25 percent (without debate) before final passage. The bill also contains steps to curb exorbitant costs, such as the elimination of out-of-network billing for emergency situations. Amendments that would have facilitated the move toward a single payer system (which would accomplish the goals of both equity and efficiency) were withdrawn without debate.

Given the House’s aversion to debate, we commend outgoing Rep. Cory Atkins (D-Concord) for forcing a vote on her amendment requiring surgeons intending to operate on multiple patients at once to seek informed consent of the patients. Recent studies have shown that double-booked surgeries put patients at extra risks. The amendment, unfortunately, failed 49-100, with a mix of stalwart progressives and hardline conservatives voting in favor (31h).

In the modest opioid bill passed in July, the House succeeded at blocking a Republican effort to reinsert language giving physicians and other clinical professionals the power to involuntarily hold, for 72 hours, individuals suffering from addiction (111-36, 37h). People who undergo involuntary treatment in Massachusetts are twice as likely to die as people who undergo treatment voluntarily.

As the Supreme Court gets ever more conservative, shoring up reproductive rights here in Massachusetts is vital. The House voted 138 to 9 to repeal outdated and unconstitutional laws limiting reproductive rights that are still on the books (39h).

Democracy: Massachusetts has some of the highest voter turnout in the country due to the affluence and high education rates in the state. But those rates are hardly impressive by international standards and mask significant inequality within. In a win for democracy, the House passed Automatic Voter Registration (AVR), a reform first adopted by Oregon in 2015 (131-20, 35h). Eligible voters who interface with the RMV or MassHealth would be automatically registered to vote unless they decline. With more than 700,000 eligible citizens in MA unregistered, AVR would increase the accuracy, security, and comprehensiveness of voter rolls.

LGBTQ Rights: Did you know that “conversion therapy,” a fraudulent homophobic and transphobic practice, is still legal in Massachusetts? The House voted 137-14 to change that (34h) and defeated, in a party line vote, a disingenuous amendment that pretended that such a ban would be an infringement on First Amendment rights (33h). Unfortunately, however, the bill soon after got caught up in end-of-the-session infighting between the House and Senate.

Housing: There had been much talk about the House doing something “big” on housing. That did not materialize, although the House did pass important legislation creating a tax and regulatory framework for short-term rentals like Airbnb, which have exacerbated the affordable housing crisis by taking units off the market and turning them into investment properties (119-30, 41h).

But don’t celebrate yet. Republican Governor Charlie Baker has sought to make industry-friendly changes to the law (surprise, surprise), and given how late the Legislature passed it, they haven’t had the time to respond.

Economic Fairness: How grand was the “Grand Bargain”?

The Legislature and the Governor wanted to avoid seeing three questions appear on the ballot: a $15 minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, and a reduction of the sales tax. Progressive Mass members were major players in signature collection for the first two. Hostile retailers put the third on the ballot to give themselves a bargaining chip.

Unfortunately, the Legislature let the retailers and business lobby set the terms of the debate. The “Grand Bargain” weakened the $15 minimum wage and paid leave proposals, authorized the elimination of time-and-a-half on Sundays, and created a guaranteed sales tax holiday each year.

Was the “bargain” worth taking? That’s a question worth debate, and the Legislature decided not to have the debate–or let the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition have it either. They moved the “grand bargain” forward before advocates even had the time to weigh in (112-37, 32h).

The Legislature was, thankfully, less deferential to the wishes of the Governor on several other issues. They overrode his veto of a bill requiring that the hiring, promotion and termination of employees in custodial, maintenance, and other non-teaching positions in public schools be conducted in accordance with any governing collective bargaining agreement (116-34, 40h).

They also overrode his veto of language that would prevent his administration from effectively denying vulnerable children needed welfare benefits, by unilaterally counting a parent’s Social Security Income (afforded to disabled adults who are low-income) to determine children’s benefits eligibility (118-30, 42h). And they voted down 37-114 a proposal of his to make the adoption of a more stringent calculation of benefits (counting a parent’s Supplemental Security Income in determining their children’s eligibility for welfare benefits) a precondition of lifting the punitive “cap on kids” (43h). Unfortunately, this battle happened so close to the end of formal sessions on July 31 that when Baker vetoed the provision the Legislature had insisted on (rejecting his alternative proposal), the Legislature was conducting only informal sessions, in which roll-call votes (required for veto overrides) do not take place. Massachusetts will remain one of the only states that still denies benefits to children who were born while a family is receiving state assistance…for now.

About the Scorecard

A scorecard serves its purpose if it tells a story and informs advocacy.

As such, we prioritize votes that are contentious over those that are unanimous: unanimous votes neither tell a story nor inform advocacy. We prioritize bills and amendments that relate to our Progressive Platform and Legislative Agenda over those that do not.

Since legislators’ jobs are to vote, we count absences the same as votes against the progressive position when calculating scores. HOWEVER, when legislators submit letters to the Clerk detailing how they would have voted had they been present, we will count these intentions, so long as their vote would not have decided the outcome of a bill or amendment. This helps us better achieve one of our main goals — informing advocacy — and acknowledges that there are extenuating circumstances behind some absences.

A guide to the Mid-session Scorecard

The 190th legislative did not have a very auspicious start.

Both House and Senate fast-tracked a bill to give pay increases to the Senate President, Speaker of the House, judges, the governor, and other constitutional officers; raise stipends to appointed committee chairs and select other legislative leaders; and increase the number of legislators eligible for stipends (1h).

Here at Progressive Mass, we understand that it is important that elected officials be paid well for the work that they do (especially so that they don’t seek more lucrative work that leads to a host of conflicts of interest), but the bill reflected the endemic problems of Beacon Hill.

• It lacked any semblance of deliberative, democratic process, and its ultimate effect was to centralize power further in Leadership, creating a more hierarchical and less democratic Legislature.
• It also left out woefully underpaid staffers from the pay increase—and the countless workers across the Commonwealth facing stagnant and sub-livable wages. In short, we deserve better from our Legislature.

It’s unfortunate that, in the House, Republicans tend to be the only ones calling for transparency and a more democratic process (Would they if they were in control? Probably not). Republicans pushed an amendment at the start of the session requiring committee roll call votes be published online. This would help citizens better hold their elected officials accountable. Accordingly, it was voted down by the Democratic majority (2h).

Apart from the restoration of line-item-vetoed budget programs and earmarks (most of which were worthwhile), the pay raise remains the only time the Democrats of the Legislature used their overwhelming supermajority to override Governor Baker’s veto.

That budget also left much to be desired, as it largely continued the austerity that hamstrings our ability to invest in our future:

Budget season in the House tends to follow a particular script. Amendments from progressive representati ves proposing new revenue or creative new ideas will be withdrawn, often without floor debate. Amendments from Republicans will be debated on the floor and then “sent to further study,” i.e., tabled indefinitely. And the leadership will decide behind closed doors which line item increases will get into the final budget, bundling them into large, omnibus amendments. Votes, including that on the final budget, will mostly be either party-line or (nearly) unanimous (with occasional splits in the Republican caucus or defections from the likes of Colleen Garry of Dracut or James Dwyer of Weymouth on the Democratic side).

The amendments sent to study (studies that will never happen — and shouldn’t) sought to stymy the state’s ability to collect revenue (3h, 4h) or prevent people from accessing the benefits that they need and deserve (5h, 6h).

Later in the spring of 2017, the Fair Share amendment (or “millionaire’s tax”) secured its place on the November 2018 ballot, as both houses overwhelmingly voted to support it in its second Constitutional Convention (7h). The Fair Share amendment, which would impose a 4% surtax on income above $1 million and allocate the revenue to a designated education and transportation fund, is an important start to counteracting the chronic underinvestment described above.

Speaking of ballot initiatives, the Legislature decided to rewrite Question 4, the marijuana legalization ballot initiative that passed in 2016. The House bill, which violated the spirit of what citizens had voted for, would have more than doubled the tax on marijuana, creating the conditions for black market to flourish; eliminated the ability of voters to have a direct say over local marijuana policy; and created new law enforcement agencies with broad and poorly defined powers. Important racial equity provisions were added via the amendment process (9h), but did not counter the fundamentally flawed nature of the bill. In addition to overwhelmingly passing this bill (10h), the House voted down an amendment to make sure that the funds from the bill don’t end up flowing to the cities and towns that ban marijuana (8h).

On the health care front, both the House and Senate beat back a terrible proposal from Governor Baker to drop more than 100,000 individuals from MassHealth and impose other restrictions on coverage (13h), as well as his proposals to freeze employer contributions to the unemployment insurance trust fund (12h). Despite Baker’s claims to moderation, his proposals would make his Republican colleagues in Washington proud. Thankfully, they failed last year, but we must be vigilant because Baker has not given up hope of passing it.

The House had strong bipartisan support for committing Massachusetts to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement (14h) and guaranteeing access to birth control without copay (15h) — although it’s important to note that Massachusetts is already committed to the Paris goals by way of the Global Warming Solutions Act.

Criminal justice reform dominated the rest of 2017. As is often the case with the budget, many Democratic amendments were withdrawn or bundled and rewritten. Republican amendments were often sent to further study (which, given how bad they are, is better than passage). Democrats thankfully dispensed with Republican amendments to undermine the recent Lunn court ruling on immigrants’ rights (16h), double down on a punitive approach to the opioid epidemic (17h, 23h), and violate individual privacy rights by expanding state surveillance (18h).

Some good amendments did pass. The House voted to increase the threshold at which larceny gets prosecuted as larceny from the current $250 to $1,000 (lower than the Senate bill, but better than the status quo) (20h, 22h). Massachusetts, despite our liberal reputation, has the third lowest such threshold in the country. The House also voted to strengthen to strengthen juvenile justice reforms (18h).

Not every roll call vote involved in improving the bill or fending off efforts to weaken it. The House also voted overwhelmingly to expand the witness intimidation statute to cover more people and transactions and have higher penalties, opening up possibilities for police and prosecutorial abuse given the lack of requirement for an empirical foundation for such charges (21s).

Note: If legislators were not present for a vote but submitted a letter to the Clerk about how they would have voted, we recorded the intended vote in the scorecard. Relevant references here are available upon request. If a legislator was absent but did not make his/her intent clear, that absence was scored equal to a vote against the progressive position.

A guide to the Mid-session Scorecard

The 190th legislative did not have a very auspicious start. Both House and Senate fast-tracked a bill to give pay increases to the Senate President, Speaker of the House, judges, the governor, and other constitutional officers; raise stipends to appointed committee chairs and select other legislative leaders; and increase the number of legislators eligible for stipends (1s). Here at Progressive Mass, we understand that it is important that elected officials be paid well for the work that they do (especially so that they don’t seek more lucrative work that leads to a host of conflicts of interest), but the bill reflected the endemic problems of Beacon Hill. It lacked any semblance of deliberative, democratic process, and its ultimate effect was to centralize power further in Leadership, creating a more hierarchical and less democratic Legislature. It also left out woefully underpaid staffers from the pay increase—and the countless workers across the Commonwealth facing stagnant and sub-livable wages. In short, we deserve better from our Legislature.

The pay raise remains the only time the Democrats of the Legislature used their overwhelming supermajority to override Governor Baker’s veto, aside from the restoration of line-item-vetoed budget programs and earmarks (most of which were, granted, worthwhile programs and earmarks).

The base of that budget also left much to be desired, as it largely continued the austerity that has been harming our ability to invest in our future. That said, several of the amendments for which we had advocated did pass unanimously (2s, 3s, 4s).

One of those amendments (4s) would have established a schedule for implementing the 2015 recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission, which found that the Commonwealth is underestimating the cost of K-12 education by $1-2 billion each year due to outdated assumptions regarding the costs of special education and health care as well as of closing the achievement gaps for low-income students and English Language Learners. This mirrors one of our priority bills — Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz’s S.223. Unfortunately, it did not make the Conference budget, although the fact that S.223 was reported out favorably by the Joint Education Committee offers hope.

Almost every single budget vote in the Senate last year was unanimous — adding extra funding to an array of important programs and blunting the overall austerity. The one contested vote was on eliminating the use of student standardized test performance in teacher evaluations (5s). Although testing can provide valuable information to teachers and administrators, the use of student impact ratings in teacher evaluation ignores the many other factors, both individual and social, that affect a student’s performance, and creates problems in subjects where standardized tests are not given, such as in art, music, and gym.

Later in the spring, the Fair Share amendment (or “millionaire’s tax”) secured its place on the November 2018 ballot, as both houses overwhelmingly voted to support it in its second Constitutional Convention (6s). The Fair Share amendment, which would impose a 4% surtax on income above $1 million and allocate the revenue to a designated education and transportation fund, is an important start to counteracting the chronic underinvestment described above.

Speaking of ballot initiatives, the Legislature decided to rewrite Question 4, the marijuana legalization ballot initiative that passed in 2016. The Senate’s bill (unlike the House’s) and, thankfully, the final Conference Committee legislation remained faithful to the will of the voters and contained some valuable social justice and public health improvements (7s, 9s).

Criminal justice reform and health care reform dominated the rest of the session. These votes counted for half of the votes scored in the first half of the 190th session (13s-30s).

Unfortunately, the awareness of the importance of reducing fines and fees did not hold when the Legislature passed its “no texting while driving” bill, as senators voted down an amendment to reduce the fine scale in the bill (8s).

On the health care front, both the House and Senate beat back a terrible proposal from Governor Baker to drop more than 100,000 individuals from MassHealth and impose other restrictions on coverage (12s). Despite Baker’s claims to moderation, his proposal would make his Republican colleagues in Washington proud. Thankfully, it failed last year, but we must be vigilant because Baker has not given up hope of passing it.

During the summer, the Senate also passed the Healthy Youth Act, which requires schools that teach sex ed to uses medically accurate, age-appropriate, and comprehensive curriculum–and beat back efforts to weaken it (10s, 11s).

In the fall, the Senate passed its own version of health care reform, and although it did not go as far we would have liked (single payer, anyone?), it contained many valuable improvements — from a public option to greater cost controls for prescription drugs and hospital bills to the authorization of dental therapists to increase access to dental care, among many other provisions that will improve the health and well-being of the Commonwealth (36s). The Senate beat back several efforts to weaken the bill (31s, 33s, 34s), but also one to improve it (32s). The bill also included a modified version of the so-called “benchmark” bill, which requires the establishment of a “single payer benchmark” and annual reports that compare the actual health care expenditures in the commonwealth for 2016, 2017, and 2018 with those under a single payer system. If the “single payer benchmark” outperforms actual costs, then the Health Policy Commission has to propose a single payer plan.

Note: If legislators were not present for a vote but submitted a letter to the Clerk about how they would have voted, we recorded the intended vote in the scorecard. Relevant references here are available upon request. If a legislator was absent but did not make his/her intent clear, that absence was scored equal to a vote against the progressive position.