The Massachusetts state budget is sitting on Governor Charlie Baker's desk. Now the big question: what's he going to do with his veto pen?
Sam Hudzik, NEPR: State lawmakers were well late, but they finally delivered a budget to Baker last week. He has until the end of this week to figure out what he likes and what he doesn't. Is he dropping any hints on that?
Matt Murphy, State House News Service: He hasn't yet so far. I mean, the clearest signals he sent was that he was unwilling to sign a controversial immigration policy rider that the Senate had attached to the budget.
But legislators left that on the cutting-room floor, which drew a number of protests last week from advocates and more liberal Democrats who were very disappointed in House leadership that that wasn't able to get done. But the governor now, as you mentioned, has until Saturday to review this budget and issue his vetoes, which gives the legislature very little time to consider those before the end of the session.
So they really will just have -- if he uses up that full time -- three days to make any veto override votes?
That's right. And in past years, these bill overrides have been voluminous. The governor has a history of using his veto pen to strike out hundreds of earmarks.
The interesting thing to watch for is how much spending the governor is comfortable with. After strong FY18 revenues that came in well above estimates, he kind of signaled to the legislature that they had some extra money to play with -- maybe in the neighborhood of $200 million, with some additional funds on top of that going into reserves.
But lawmakers came out of their conference committee adding over $600 million to this budget. So I think we'll be watching to see how much he tries to rein in the spending in this nearly $42 billion budget now.
The governor also has to make some decisions on bills raising the tobacco purchase age to 21, rolling back a defunct law banning abortion and putting a tax on car rentals to pay for police training. Will any of those bills give the governor some pause?
It's interesting. The first two you mentioned, we're expecting the governor to sign them -- both the tobacco purchasing age -- lifting that to 21, and eliminating the old and what some would call antiquated anti-abortion laws that are still on the books here. The governor said he is comfortable with that concept as well. So while he's reviewing the details of those bills, we expect him to sign them.
The big question is the municipal police training legislation that you mentioned. The governor is all for spending money to improve training for municipal police and help these local police departments cover that expense. But the legislature has proposed to pay for it by adding a new $2 fee on all rental car transactions in Massachusetts.
The governor, of course, campaigned on a no-new-fees platform. He's tried to hold to that with a few minor exceptions for new services that have come online that they've taxed. But this really puts him in a bit of a bind between the police and the fees. And we don't really know what he's going to do.
And finally, I want to talk about supervised injection sites. These would be the spots where opioid users could take their drugs, but a nurse or other health professional would be nearby with overdose reversal medication. A state Senate proposal included a pilot program for that. But the U.S. Attorney, Andrew Lelling, said that's not going to fly. Does Lelling's statement put an end to this debate?
Yeah. Lelling's statement basically did end this debate -- unlike when he put out a similar statement on marijuana, which is also against federal law. But he suggested that there were going to be a narrow window of issues he was going to look to enforce the federal ban on marijuana, and it shouldn't affect marijuana sales. He basically said that he didn't see how federal authorities could turn a blind eye to these safe injection sites.
And that came hours before an opioid abuse prevention bill hit the Senate floor. And they were forced to backtrack -- both with Lelling, and the governor threatening to veto this measure. And what they opted to do instead was to impanel a commission that would study whether or not these safe injection sites could be effective in Massachusetts, and what state, local and federal ramifications would be. And I think they're biding their time to see whether or not some things change on the federal level or if there's a window to maybe try and start trying these things. But for now, that issue appears to be dead.
