“Letters: Mass. lawmakers need something: a shove? a prod? a heave-ho?,” Boston Globe, August 31, 2024.
That ‘special session’ can’t come soon enough
Massachusetts is one of the few states that has a full-time, year-round legislature. So why does that elected body repeatedly leave everything for the last minute? Perhaps it’s that the hyper-centralized power of the leadership means that everything gets decided by such a small number of people that things move very slowly. Perhaps it’s that the Legislature’s rules make it almost impossible for the public to know what is going on in committees, so inter-chamber negotiations are able to stall in the shadows. Perhaps it’s because the power brokers in each chamber place the securing of leverage over the other above getting needed legislation passed.
It’s good that there will probably be a “special session.” Hopefully lawmakers, in addition to the long-delayed economic development bill to improve our competitive position, will also pass measures to help keep juvenile offenders who are the age of high school seniors out of adult prisons and to strengthen our public health infrastructure. We also need to see the climate bill pass: Mother Nature doesn’t wait, and neither should the Legislature. We need robust legislation that centers environmental justice and includes a clear plan to transition away from gas.
Come on, lawmakers, do your job!
Steven E. Miller
Cambridge
Give lawmakers deadlines, spread over the session, for each bill
The conclusion of the Legislature’s formal session a month ago left me in some distress. So many good bills were left unfinished. The Legislature failed to complete its actions on climate (clean energy development), economic development, hospital oversight, and drug prices.
Although majorities in both the Senate and House wanted the bills to pass, differences between the versions passed by the Senate and House had to be hammered out in conference committees.
Usually the existence of a deadline, like July 31, would concentrate legislators’ minds and be a spur to action for getting the bills passed. In this case there were multiple bills, all with the same deadline, and with only two main decision-makers, the Senate president and the speaker of the House. It was impossible for the bills to make timely progress through these bottlenecks.
To avoid this, it would be sensible to assign each bill an individual deadline. Bills go through several stages before they become law, including committee hearings and three separate readings in both the House and Senate. The assignment could be made when the bill is first reported out of committee, when the complexity of the issue and possible points of conflict will have been identified.
Each deadline should be reported publicly, and residents, advocates, and lobbying groups could push the legislators to meet that deadline. Deadlines should be spread out so that the Legislature has a good chance of meeting them all.
Martin G. Evans
Cambridge
