Beacon Hill 101
Key Dates for the 2025-2027 Legislative Session
- Start of Session: January 1, 2025
- Bill Filing Deadline: January 17, 2025
- Committees Assigned: Mid-Feb 2025
- Committee Hearings: March 2025 – February 2025
- FY 2026 House Budget Debate: April 2025
- FY 2026 Senate Budget Debate: May 2025
- Deadline for Passage of FY 2026 Budget: June 30, 2025
- FY 2027 House Budget Debate: April 2026
- FY 2027 Senate Budget Debate: May 2026
- Deadline for Passage of FY 2027 Budget: June 30, 2026
- End of Formal Session: July 31, 2026
- End of Session: January 5, 2027
Even though, in most years, there is not much legislative action in the final months of the year, the fall and early winter are still an important time for advocates and coalitions to start brainstorming and strategizing for the next legislative session, as well as to reflect on the recent session (what worked, what didn’t, etc.)
As an Individual
- Figure out how your priorities fared in the session just ended.
- Reflect on which actions and strategies worked well in the last session and which did not.
- Start having conversations with returning legislators about priorities for the next session.
As a Group
- Work with coalitions to reflect on the last session, share information, and strategize.
- Set priorities collectively because there will always be greater power with an organized, cohesive coalition.
- Consider events you could host (a webinar, a book talk, a listening session) that can raise the profile of your issue in this legislative down period.
- Assess legislative support and connections that exist within your coalition or organization and reach out to these legislative contacts for informative meetings. Invite these legislators to any events you host.
(or any other odd-numbered year)
The legislative session begins on the first Wednesday of the year following an election (i.e., each odd-numbered year). After the session begins, legislators file bills. Most bills are filed during this early period, although bills can still be introduced later (“late files”). Legislators are given positions (member, vice chair, or chair) of committees to handle different areas of work (e.g., Education, Health Care Financing, etc.), and bills are assigned to relevant subject matter committees.
At this point, each chamber also votes on a set of rules to govern their functioning for the session, and the two chambers vote on a set of joint rules as well.
There are 33 joint committees in the Legislature, as well as 11 Senate-only and House-only committees. Given that each body has its own rules and its own budget process, the Rules Committee and Ways & Means Committees often operate independently rather than jointly (even though they exist as both).
This means that the House Speaker and Senate President each have 41 chairs and 41 vice-chairs to assign. Because chairs and vice chairs come with extra staff, space, pay, and resources, the roles create a dynamic in which legislators can easily drift toward seeing the Leadership in their respective chamber as their “boss” (rather than viewing their constituents, who elect them, as their boss).
This competition for leadership positions also illuminates one distinction between the House and the Senate. In the 40-member Senate, every member of the majority party can chair at least one committee. In the 160-member House, state representatives vie for positions in a state of scarcity–not everyone can get one. That scarcity breeds centralization: 88 chairs and vice chairs, a Majority Leader, and a Speaker Pro Tempore (setting aside any other Leadership positions) gives a Speaker more than enough votes to stay in power.
NB: Members of the House and Senate Leadership teams typically refrain from co-sponsoring bills. They still need to hear from you.
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- As an Individual
- If you have an idea for a bill you don’t believe has been addressed yet, reach out to relevant advocacy organizations and friendly legislators about filing it. You can find your legislators’ contact info here.
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- Contact your legislators about co-sponsoring bills that are important to you — and explain why they’re so important. Co-sponsorship is the most basic step a legislator can take to show support of a bill. You can — and must — ask more from them, especially as some legislators sign on to bills publicly to appease constituents and then lobby against them behind closed doors. (And make sure to follow up!) Learn more about our current Legislative Agenda here.
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- Want to make sure that committees are representative of the Commonwealth or aren’t stacked with industry allies? The Speaker (Ron Mariano of Weymouth) and Senate President (Karen Spilka of Ashland) determine who chairs and sits on each committee. Get some friends in their districts to contact them.
- Lobby your legislators about the rules. You can find suggestions throughout this guide. Although the Legislature tends to vote on the rules once, it’s never too late to work on changing culture and norms.
- As a Group
- Be in touch with coalition partners and legislative allies to learn about which bills are being filed and by whom, and to add your ideas.
- Host a lobby day at the start of the session to drive attention to your priority legislation.
- Host educational events about your priority legislation to both inform legislators and mobilize activists.
- Share calls to action about the individual steps listed above.
- Track the co-sponsors of your priority bills. (You can do this throughout the session!)
- Elect committee chairs. If the monetary perks of committee chairmanship are determined only by the Speaker and the Senate President, legislators are more likely to fall in line in order to rise up the ranks. Electing committee chairs, as is done in the US House, isn’t a silver bullet for addressing the centralization of power, but it enables all legislators as well as advocates and the public to weigh in.
- Make co-sponsorship mean something. For example, the House and Senate could each require that any bill co-sponsored by the majority of the chamber gets a floor vote. This may lead to fewer legislators co-sponsoring a bill, but that would also lead to a clearer picture of where it stands.
- Bill Number and Committee Assignment: When a bill is assigned to committee, it receives a bill number, starting with S if it is a Senate bill or H if it is a House bill. The legislature uses “joint” committees that have both House members and Senate members on them.
Once a bill number has been assigned, the website for that bill’s docket number will redirect you to the page with the new bill number. [Example: Senate docket No. 926 (SD.926) in the 191st session became Senate bill No. 1401 (S.1401). The website for https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/s1401 thus leads to the same page as the page for SD.926.]
- Co-Sponsorship: Each bill has a lead sponsor, or petitioner, whose name is attached to it. Any other legislator can co-sponsor the bill as well as a way of indicating support up until the time the bill gets reported out of committee. The House used to have a much tighter window for co-sponsorship but changed that in 2021.
- Docket Number: When a bill is filed, it receives an initial number (preceded by SD in the Senate or HD in the House) before being assigned to a committee. The website for any bill at this point will be https://malegislature.gov/Bills/ + the Session Number + the Docket Number.
Example: the Safe Communities Act in the 191st session (2019-2020) had the docket number of SD.926; the corresponding website was https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/sd926.
- Filing Deadline: Each new legislative session starts on the first Tuesday of the year after the election (i.e., odd-numbered years). 6,000+ bills will be filed between this day and the third Friday of the month, the deadline for filing bills of the session. [This deadline was extended to 2/19 in 2021.] The Governor can file bills at any time.
- Floor Division Chair: A member of the House Leadership team in charge of overseeing the floor votes for one of the four divisions of the 160-member chamber.
- Late-File Bill: Some bills can still be filed after the filing deadline, but they need formal approval from the Rules Committees of both chambers.
- Senate President / Speaker Pro Tempore: The second in rank in the respective chamber and a part of the chamber’s Leadership team. The Senate President / Speaker Pro Tempore is in charge of presiding over the chamber in the President / Speaker’s absence (“pro tempore” being Latin for “the time being”).
- Steering & Policy: The committee in charge of determining which bills not related to the state’s finances make it to the floor for debate and a vote.
- Third Reading: The committee in charge of making any final changes to a bill before passage.
- Ways & Means: The powerful committee in charge of the annual budget and any legislation that involves state finances. Most bills must pass through Ways & Means before making it to the floor.
- Whip: The member of a caucus’s Leadership team tasked with bringing members of the caucus around to the Leadership’s recommended position on upcoming votes.
Every bill that is filed will receive a hearing from the relevant subject matter committee, and the committee will not vote on whether to advance the bill until after the hearing. Organizations and members of the public are invited to submit testimony. In a number of other states, this testimony is made available to the public (with appropriate redactions). Massachusetts should join them.
Committees have until the first Thursday in February of the second year of the session (“Joint Rule 10 Day”) to take action on a bill. That means that hearings will happen before then, and the earlier the hearing, the better odds of avoiding a bottleneck around the deadline. Note, of course, that “action” by the committee can include an extension order which provides the committee more time to discuss the bill.
You can find video footage of some past hearings here.
You can view the composition of House, Senate, and Joint (House-Senate) committees here.
Making it out of the subject matter committee (Housing, Judiciary, Health Care Financing, etc.) is only step #1 for a bill. Many bills get reported favorably out of the subject matter committee and then die in the graveyard that is the Ways & Means Committee (through which any bill involving money must pass) or the Committee on Third Reading (which “perfects” bills before the floor–eliminating errors, ensuring constitutionality, and making other changes as they see fit) rather than ever making it to the floor.
Committees can drastically rewrite a bill before sending it to the next step — indeed, the most moneyed interests always find a way to pry behind the closed doors where text is negotiated. Always check the language.
Although the Legislature goes into recess after November 15 during odd-numbered years for an end-of-year break, committees can still hold hearings then. There are just no floor votes during the end of the year.
The Legislature also goes into recess after July 31 on even-numbered years, even though the session technically extends through the rest of the year. Committees can still report out bills in the remaining months of the session, but they can only pass if there is unanimous consent (i.e., no one present objects to their passage).
As an Individual
- Ask for an early hearing. The earlier the hearing, the better the odds of not getting bogged down by inertia.
- Show up in person (when it’s safe!) to testify in favor of a bill — or show up virtually (when it’s allowed).
- Submit testimony in support of a bill.
- Recruit friends, neighbors, and fellow activists to show up with you and submit testimony of their own.
- If your legislators are supportive: Contact them about lobbying their colleagues on the committee, the chairs of the committee, and House/Senate Leadership. It’s good to ask them to send a letter to the chair – and then ask for a copy!
- If your legislators are not supportive: Keep up the pressure! It’s not too late for them to sign on!
- Host a forum in your community about the bill.
- Write a letter to the editor about the bill.
As a Group
- Organize a panel for testimony or provide panelists if allies are organizing.
- Share a call to action — whether for co-sponsorship or for an early hearing date — in advance of the hearing to raise the profile of priority legislation with the legislators on the hearing. (Consider calling/texting members to take action!)
- Prepare for possible opposition talking points so that you have responses ready. (This is ongoing work!)
- Send out a press release in advance of the hearing to help drive media attention.
- Find someone to live-tweet the hearing! If your group did a lot to prepare, make sure that others can see. Since not everyone can attend a hearing, social media is a great way to democratize space.
- Start your organizing and media before the hearing and continue after! Maintain a steady drumbeat of attention to your priority legislation to avoid the trap of legislative inertia.
- Be on the lookout for legislative vehicles to advance your priority legislation. If an omnibus bill is under discussion, think about whether your bill is relevant enough to be included.
- Stay in touch with the committee after the hearing to suggest ways to improve a bill, forestall opposition, or group similar bills in what is called an “omnibus” package.
- Publish committee roll call votes. Massachusetts is in the minority of states that do not make committee votes public. Twenty-six states make such committee roll call votes available electronically on the page for the corresponding bill: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. It’s time for the Massachusetts legislature to join them.
- Create reader-friendly bill summaries. You shouldn’t have to be well-versed in the ins and outs of the Massachusetts General Laws — or go down a rabbit hole figuring them out — to find out what a bill does. The state legislatures of Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia all provide thorough and reader-friendly descriptions of legislation in committee reports, identifying changes made in committee as appropriate.
- Show how a bill changes. A committee markup is how a committee makes changes to a piece of legislation. In Massachusetts, committees produce new text of the bill (with a new name and a new bill page), instead of clearly showing exactly what language was changed. In addition to (or in lieu of) summarizing the changes made in committee to a bill, several states identify the line edits made to the bill. The website of the California legislature contains a “compare” function that enables citizens and legislators to compare/contrast the language of a bill as it proceeded through the legislative process. Even better: Make sure that all of these changes (and the bill text itself) can be presented in plain language, rather than the arcane language of Massachusetts General Law.
- Publish testimony from supporters and opponents. Any bill that passes does so because somebody wants it to, and any bill that dies does so because somebody wants it to. But who are those interests seeking to influence the outcome? Numerous states provide lists of the organizations and individuals who testified in favor or against a piece of legislation. Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia, and Wisconsin all provide such information. Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Ohio, Oregon, and Wisconsin take the additional step of including links to the submitted testimony.
- Make all hearing videos available and easily searchable online. Not everyone can show up in person.
- Joint Rule 10 Day: The Joint Rules of the House and Senate state that joint committees (with the exception of Health Care Financing) must make a decision on every bill by the first Thursday in February of the second (i.e., even-numbered) year of the session. Every bill must either be given a favorable report (“Ought to Pass”) and sent to the next committee (often but not always, Ways and Means), given an adverse report (“Ought Not to Pass”), or sent to study (see below). Committees, like procrastinating college students, often give themselves extensions if they want more time.
- Reserve the Right: When a recommendation for a bill is brought before a committee, members can choose one of three options: vote yes, vote no, or reserve their right (“to object”). Reserving the right means that you are not yet supportive of a bill’s passage but do not seek to oppose it: you are expressing a willingness to change your mind on the floor.
- Study Order/Send to Study: Most bills do not pass, but they are never formally voted down either. Out of a mix of cowardice and courtesy, most committees prefer to “send bills to study” instead. The studies never actually happen; if a committee actually wanted a study, they’d create a commission. This can also happen in floor debate on amendments. An amendment can be redrafted as a study order so that legislators can vote it down without having to admit to voting it down.
- Omnibus Bill: A piece of legislation that consists of a number of smaller related bills combined into a larger package.
The Governor must submit their budget no later than the fourth Wednesday of the year—unless it is the first year of said Governor’s first term, in which case the budget must be submitted no later than the ninth Wednesday of the year. The House then takes up consideration of the budget in April, and the Senate in May, with the goal of passing a consensus budget by the end of June. The Ways & Means Committee in each chamber is in charge of drafting the budget.
Your legislators will probably say that there “isn’t enough money” to invest at the level that we need to. They’re wrong.
Your legislators might tell you that they can’t pass policy through the budget. They do it all the time.
As an Individual
- Contact your legislators about your priorities for the budget—like raising progressive revenue (!).
- Write a letter to the editor to bring awareness to the needs in your community and the importance of raising progressive revenue.
As a Group
- Start your advocacy early! By the time that the amendments get filed to the budget, most decisions have already been determined. Budget advocacy is most effective if there is early planning and coalition organizing.
- Partner with fellow advocates or organizations in your community to hold a forum to highlight the needs of the community.
- Eliminate the consolidated amendment process. This process (see “Terms to Know”) dates back to Speaker Tom Finneran (1996-2004) and has been embraced by Speakers since. The budget is a statement of the Commonwealth’s values, and the Commonwealth shouldn’t be left out of it. The reason to include–or exclude–any amendment deserves a public airing.
- Amendment: When you think of amendment, you might think of minor technical corrections, but amendments range from minor changes in funding levels to the text of an already-filed bill to striking out full sections. Legislators use amendments to improve or weaken a bill on the floor and to force ignored issues into debate, and it is often during the amendment process where the real ideological splits are seen. For more on this, see the Floor Debate section.
- Consolidated Amendment: If many amendments are filed to a bill (ex: the budget), House Leadership can choose to organize groups of them into consolidated amendments by subject matter. Most of the actual amendment content gets hollowed out in the end. If you are tracking an amendment, be sure to read the actual text of the consolidated amendment it was folded into.
Rather than consolidation, the Senate tends to “bundle” amendments into “yes” piles and “no” piles, with members retaining the right to pull their amendments out of the bundles.
When a bill finally makes it out of committee and is set to be debated on the floor, legislators have a brief window to file amendments to add, eliminate, or rewrite parts of the bill.
Which of these amendments will actually make it into the bill is often predetermined–decided by Leadership before the floor debate begins.
The actual debate on the floor of either chamber is rare (and especially rare in the House), and House and Senate Leadership often directly or indirectly pressure legislators into withdrawing their amendments.
When you see the House or Senate go into a quick recess during floor debate, that’s because negotiations are happening about how to ensure the smooth passage or rejection of an amendment in line with Leadership’s intent. These “quick” recesses can sometimes be hours long.
Most amendments do not receive an actual recorded vote. In some cases, this is okay (if everyone supports your amendment to increase the parks budget, do we really need a vote?), but in many cases, it obscures the process and prevents the accountability of knowing support and opposition.
Never assume your legislators will vote the way you expect. Legislators have at times voted against bills or amendments they sponsored or co-sponsored due to pressure from Leadership.
As an Individual
- Notice a problem with the bill at this stage? Contact your own legislator or an allied one about filing an amendment to fix it.
- Contact your legislators in support of key amendments or in opposition to dangerous ones (and get some friends to join you!). Even though much of what happens is predetermined, life is still full of surprises. Pressure for good amendments and against bad amendments can be critical.
- Ask the sponsors of an amendment about their strategy for it and whether they are seeking a vote on it. Empower them to do so for important amendments. If they plan to withdraw, gauge whether advocacy meaningfully moves the ball forward on the issue, or if it’s better to save your breath.
- Contact your legislator after the vote to thank them (if they voted the right way) or express disappointment (if they voted the wrong way). We keep track of votes on our social media pages (Twitter, Facebook), our blog, and – at the midpoint and end of the session – on our scorecard page. Your legislators won’t know what you think about their votes unless they tell you. Indeed, research shows that both liberal and conservative legislators tend to think their constituents are more conservative than they really are.
- Let others know how your legislator voted – via social media or a letter to the editor. Positive reinforcement helps stiffen the backbones of our allies, and many bad votes happen because legislators think no one is watching (prove them wrong!).
As a Group
- Share intelligence with allies in advance. When you work in coalition with other groups and stay in contact with legislative allies, you can have a better sense of when a bill is about to move.
- Share calls to action about the bill itself or amendments to it.
- Provide more time to read bills. This allows legislators, advocates, journalists, and the public time to thoroughly read a bill before a vote, which can enable them to identify any possible red flags. Track-changes version of bills and reader-friendly bill summaries, as mentioned above, can help address the time crunch as well, especially when a bill is coming out of Conference Committee (and members have a good sense of what is or could be in it). More time to read bills doesn’t mean that better bills will pass, but it can help stop bad bills or poison pills from advancing.
- Do lobby for rules reforms that empower rank-and-file legislators and the public.
- Don’t allow your legislators to use the excuse of “not enough time to read it” for a vote against something they would have voted against anyway.
- Post roll call votes more quickly and in a more accessible format. We shouldn’t have to make a whole guide for this, you know?
- Stand for something. In the 2019-2020 session, progressive legislators showed a greater willingness than in the past to stand for votes. That trend needs to continue.
- Enactment: Final passage. A vote on enactment occurs when both chambers have agreed upon a version of the bill to be sent to the Governor.
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- Engrossment: Initial passage. After a bill makes it out of the Committee on Third Reading and onto the floor, it receives a vote on engrossment before being passed to the next chamber for a vote. The bill number typically changes at this stage.
- Formal Session: When the members of a chamber are asked to be present for votes and debate.
- Further Amendment: A redraft of an amendment during the debate on the floor that precludes further consideration of the original amendment text. This often takes the form of converting the text of an amendment into a study order. Occasionally, it takes the form of fully replacing the amendment with the text of another amendment. Always read the text.
- Further Amendment: A redraft of an amendment during the debate on the floor that precludes further consideration of the original amendment text. This often takes the form of converting the text of an amendment into a study order. Occasionally, it takes the form of fully replacing the amendment with the text of another amendment. Always read the text.
- Informal Session: When members are not asked to be present and non-controversial matters can be taken up by unanimous consent (i.e., no one present objects). The Legislature cannot override a veto while in informal session.
- Present: A legislator votes present if they don’t want to be on record for or against a piece of legislation. Occasionally, this is due to a conflict of interest. Usually, it’s due to cowardice.
- Present: A legislator votes present if they don’t want to be on record for or against a piece of legislation. Occasionally, this is due to a conflict of interest. Usually, it’s due to cowardice.
- Roll Call Vote: A vote where each legislator is asked to put their support (YEA), opposition (NAY), or abstention on record. In the House, a member must have the support of 15 colleagues (totaling 10% of the chamber) to request a roll call vote during floor debate. In the Senate, the threshold is 20% or the number of members in the minority party, whichever is fewer.Some roll call votes are necessary (e.g., a suspension of a rule, an override of a veto). Some roll call votes are merely for show (e.g., a unanimous vote on a non-controversial item that the sponsor wanted to send out a press release on). But many roll call votes are useful accountability tools: they show you whose side your legislator is on.
- Roll Call Vote: A vote where each legislator is asked to put their support (YEA), opposition (NAY), or abstention on record. In the House, a member must have the support of 15 colleagues (totaling 10% of the chamber) to request a roll call vote during floor debate. In the Senate, the threshold is 20% or the number of members in the minority party, whichever is fewer.Some roll call votes are necessary (e.g., a suspension of a rule, an override of a veto). Some roll call votes are merely for show (e.g., a unanimous vote on a non-controversial item that the sponsor wanted to send out a press release on). But many roll call votes are useful accountability tools: they show you whose side your legislator is on.
- Standing Vote: On occasion, a legislator will request a standing vote, meaning that legislators need to formally stand up to register their support or opposition but that no record exists. This is a cowardly move.
- “Taking a Walk”: If a legislator does not want to go on record on a bill or amendment — or if their colleagues would prefer them not to — they sometimes simply leave for the duration of the vote. This is recorded the same as if they were not in the building at all, although it is very different from being home sick.
- Voice Vote: Most votes, however, do not receive a formal roll call. The most common practice is a voice vote, where the YEAs and NAYs are called and a determination made. This process typically takes less time than it took you to read this sentence. The outcome is predetermined.
If the House and Senate pass the same version of a bill, then it goes to the Governor.
If they pass different versions of a bill, one chamber can choose to just pass the other’s text. If there is gridlock instead, the two chambers appoint a Conference Committee — a committee of six members (3 from either chamber, 2 from the majority party and 1 from the minority party) to negotiate a consensus version of the bill. Conference Committees operate like a black box, with no public record of their meetings or the state of negotiations, although you can still try to influence them.
When the Conference Committee produces a report, it gets scheduled for a vote. [See “Floor Debate.”] However, the House and Senate can only choose to vote yes or no on the Conference Committee report; they can no longer amend it.
When the bill gets sent to the Governor, the Governor can choose one of five steps:
- The Governor can sign the bill, and it becomes law.
- The Governor can veto the bill, which the House and Senate can override with a ⅔ vote.
- The Governor can do nothing. If the Legislature is in formal session, the bill would become law without the Governor’s signature after ten days. If, however, the Legislature is not in formal session, then the bill fails; this is called a pocket veto.
- The Governor can issue line item vetoes, rejecting specific parts of an appropriations bill. The Legislature, again, can override with a ⅔ vote.
- He can send back amendments, requesting specific changes to the bill text. The Legislature can choose to accept or reject them.
As an Individual
- You can still contact members of a Conference Committee even if you don’t live in their district, but they just won’t care as much. Lobby your own legislators (on the committee or not) and ask them to make their case to the Conference Committee and House/Senate Leadership for the most progressive bill possible. Calls, emails, letters to the editor, meetings, forums, etc., are still needed!
- Call the Governor’s Office at 617-725-4005 or email them here — and get your friends to as well.
- If a vote was narrow, you’ll need to keep up the pressure on legislators too in order to have the support to sustain a veto.
- Share an action alert with your network encouraging people to contact their legislators and the Conference Committee, or the Governor.
- Follow the implementation of the bill! Getting a bill passed is only Step 1. There is a lot of work afterwards.
- Get the Legislature to stop delaying policymaking until the last minute. The last-day crunch every legislative cycle creates a bottleneck effect that leaves too many important bills unfinished.
- Conference Committee: A group of six legislators (3 senators and 3 representatives; 4 Democrats and 2 Republicans) appointed to negotiate the final details of a bill when the two chambers pass different text.
- Line Item Veto: A veto of a specific part of an appropriations bill. The Governor can veto individual line items while not vetoing the full bill.
- Pocket Veto: A method by which the Governor can defeat a bill via inaction. After the Legislature passes a bill, the Governor has ten days to sign it. If the clock runs out and the Legislature is not in session, the bill dies.