Around this time last year, the Massachusetts legislature was well into its budget hearing process. But not this year.
Carrie Healy, NEPR: Governor Baker introduced his budget a month ago, and nothing's moving yet at the Statehouse. As lawmakers begin looking at Baker's proposal, are they going to focus on controversial tax proposals?
Matt Murphy, State House News Service: Everything is a little pushed back to start this session, in part, because it's the first year of a two-year session, and these things are always a little slow to ramp up. But it's also been delayed because both House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka had to name new Ways and Means chairmen, who in turn are trying to get settled.
They spent this past week — which was school vacation week — trying to get settled in their new offices, getting their staff up to speed, getting themselves up to speed. And the House is really on an a tighter schedule, because they need to write a budget by mid-April so they can debate that, and pass it, and kick it over to the Senate, which typically takes their turn in May.
So we are expecting that these things will start happening more rapidly.
The speaker, when he appointed Rep. Aaron Michlewitz of Boston to chair this committee this session, noted that they have about 10 weeks to get this budget done. The budget committee hearings need to start immediately, and they need to dig into the governor's budget.
On the issue of taxes, which could be a big focal point — particularly as state revenues have been somewhat disappointing for the first half-plus of the current fiscal year — they will be looking at proposals that the governor put forward to tax real-estate fees to pay for climate change investment. They're going to be looking at some taxes on opioid manufacturers to help pay for treatment, and things like that. Both new chairs have said that they're keeping an open mind on taxes, but there is an appetite among some of the more liberal and progressive Democrats to really take a hard run at new sources of revenue this session.
Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz lost her spot atop the legislature's Joint Committee on Education. Chang-Diaz is the only woman of color in the Senate, and she was recently replaced by Senator Jason Lewis, who is white. This led to groups representing communities of color stepping forward with a number of concerns. Why are Beacon Hill leaders saying Chang-Diaz lost that job?
No one's really coming right out and saying it, but certainly, Senator Chang- Diaz has been the face of that committee for the Senate for several years now. She has tried multiple times to try and address the education funding system, and to strike a deal with House leaders to rewrite the funding formulas.
These efforts have come up short each and every time, and there's also politics at play. But obviously Senator Spilka felt like it was a good time for a change, as the House and the Senate are making a really concerted effort — it looks like, this session — to get something done on school funding immediately. And the issue of diversity is certainly an issue on that committee, and one that's hard to get away from for the Senate, where there's really just a lack of [racial and ethnic] minority members in general.
In the House, a couple of leadership positions that were previously held by minorities are now held by white men. Are Massachusetts Democrats concerned with how this is looking? Especially as it seems there's a lot of focus on race and diversity right now at the national level.
Yeah, I think there is some concern, and I think there's certainly a recognition that this is a problem. And the legislature itself — I think with something like 10 percent of the legislature, around there, being represented by people of color, this is a problem for both the House and the Senate.
But it's not something that they can fix overnight, and just snap their fingers. I mean, if you look at the House in particular, a number of prominent minorities, like Jeff Sanchez and others who had positions of leadership, were defeated or retired or left their seats. And in a lot of cases, they were replaced by new members of color, new black and Hispanic lawmakers and people of Asian descent. But these are freshman lawmakers now coming in, who are going to have to work their way up the ladder just like everybody else did.
So really, this is probably a longer-term problem for the Democratic Party — and the Republican Party, for that matter, as well — to address in recruiting candidates, and getting them to run not just in these districts that are traditionally held by minorities, but also standing out and running in other districts.
