Four weeks.
That’s how much time is left in the current formal legislative session in the MA State House. The session will technically continue until the very beginning of January, but the Legislature is unlikely to take up any non-controversial bills after July 31.
In 2024 so far (the second year of the legislative session), 122 bills have been signed into law. 116 of those 122 were about either one city, one town, one person, or–in one case–two towns.
Here are the other 6:
- Becoming the 49th state to criminalize revenge porn
- Passing a supplemental budget that imposed cruel limits on shelter stays
- Authorizing the state to borrow $400 million over the next two fiscal years to finance improvements for municipal roads and bridges — and then establishing that said bonds shall be payable not later than June 30, 2059
- Establishing a Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week and a Noah Fernandes Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Day
- A short-term budget to address the fact that they haven’t passed a budget yet
That means that there is a LOT left to do in this final month.
What can you do now?
You might be seeing your legislators at the local July 4th parade or festival. Make sure that they know you are paying attention and want the Legislature to take action on these many pending issues. And then after you enjoy the holiday, stay tuned for actions and events on how to build momentum in these final weeks.
Where do things stand?
The House and Senate have ongoing negotiations (“Conference Committees”) to finalize several bills:
- Pay equity legislation passed by both chambers last October
- Gun safety legislation passed by the House in October and the Senate in February
- The Fiscal Year 2025 budget (which is late….as it has been every year for over a decade — Reminder: A lot of policy gets done through the budget)
Added to that list soon will be the Affordable Homes Act, which the House passed in early June and the Senate passed last week.
What else is still in play?
Several bills have passed one chamber but not the other. Just over the past couple of weeks, the Senate recently passed a plastics reduction bill and a climate omnibus bill, and the House passed a maternal health bill as well as an economic development bill.
The Senate has also passed bills to allow for gender-neutral state IDs, to make it easier for unhoused individuals to get state IDs, to require school districts that teach sex ed to use comprehensive, medically accurate curricula, to strengthen our child care and early education infrastructure (a fight also happening through the budget), and to control some prescription drug prices. The House also passed a hospital regulation bill and a long overdue update to parentage laws.
Some important bills have gotten out of committee, awaiting further action. Here are a few:
- Strengthening data privacy protections
- Guaranteeing hybrid meeting access for public meetings
- Putting a moratorium on new prison and jail construction
- Creating a pilot program for overdose prevention centers
- Strengthening visitation rights in prisons and jails
- Regulating facial recognition technology
- Ensuring access to full-spectrum pregnancy care
And others are sitting in committee, still alive but awaiting action, such as legislation to raise the age of criminal majority in order to keep teenagers out of adult prisons.
What should you take away?
What we should always remember is that we have a full-time legislature and the second largest Democratic supermajorities in the country (and a Democratic trifecta). Our Legislature can and should be ambitious and comprehensive in its policymaking, not procrastinating or playing catch-up. Everything mentioned in this email is something the Legislature can and should do, with the only limitations being those they impose on themselves.
