Before Massachusetts House and Senate lawmakers left the State House for their traditional, unofficial summer recess, they passed some major bills. State House News Service reporter Chris Lisinksi explains which measures Democrats approved and sent to the governor for signing.
Chris Lisinksi, SHNS: A few different things got final approval all on the same day. The highest profile of those is perhaps legislation that aims to further shield reproductive care, including abortions and transgender healthcare in Massachusetts from legal attacks elsewhere, including by the federal government under President Donald Trump. This has been pitched by Democrats as a way to build on a 2022 state law with a similar intention, and close some gaps that they didn't really anticipate three years ago could pose a potential problem.
They also approved a spending bill with money for rental aid, elder home care services and new raises for private attorneys known as bar advocates, who represent indigent defendants. That, of course, is something that's been a crisis for more than two months at this point, as many of those attorneys have refused to take new cases in protest of their low pay.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: That's a phased raise for bar advocates in that supplemental budget. Previously, Governor Maura Healey said that she'd leave it up to the Legislature to address the court appointed work stoppage by public defenders. But defense attorneys rallied at the State House last week, and they're pushing for Healey to reject it and demand higher wages. So, Chris, are you expecting the governor to stick to neutrality or to take a stand if she sends it back for higher bar advocate pay, and [if so] will lawmakers come back from recess early to act fast?
You know, I don't want to say anything definitively because the governor has not signaled one way or the other if she's on board with this exact pay increase. As you noted, she's tried to stay away from supporting one number over another.
I would be a bit surprised if … I'm just putting on my prognosticator hat… If she held up these raises to try and get even bigger raises, rather than sign it into law with a goal of at least alleviating the crisis if not outright stopping it. [I say this] because if she were to send it back, who knows when or even if lawmakers would approve a bigger pay increase, and that could just perpetuate the same situation.
So, I would largely expect her to sign off on it with a goal of making things better, if not perfect in the short term. But you know, I've been wrong before!
Pivoting here, Boston stands to gain over $11 million from visitors with the National Conference of State Legislatures [gathering] kicking off today. It attracts lawmakers from across the country. So, [there’s] one positive revenue number there. And it's been a month now since the state budget passed. Are officials still confident in the Commonwealth's economic outlook?
For the most part, we're getting close to the time when the Healey Administration has said it hopes to have a better sense of the fiscal implications from the so-called ‘big, beautiful bill’ that's going to cut food aid, Medicaid and many other sources of federal funding to Massachusetts.
We should, in the coming days, maybe in the next week or so, get a better look at how we ended the last fiscal year that ended June 30th. The governor is getting ready to file a so-called closeout budget, a spending bill really needed to complete the bookkeeping for the year that ended June 30th. So that will give us some indication of what the most recent mile marker was. And going forward, the uncertainty is still there.
Finally, Chris, Wednesday represents a major deadline for those pushing potential ballot questions. What should we know?
What we know so far is more about who is not filing a ballot question than who is filing a ballot question.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) had been weighing whether to go to the ballot and get legal authorization for teachers to strike. We have seen teacher strikes in recent years. They are technically illegal under state law, but the MTA decided that it's not going to pursue a ballot question this cycle.
We also know that the group Raise Up Massachusetts, responsible for the (high-earner) surtax is not pursuing a ballot question this cycle. So, once that deadline arrives, we'll know what's in the mix. For now, it's pretty significant what's not in the mix.
Noting here that some NEPM employees are members of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. That affiliation doesn't affect how we cover the news.
