World Cup play comes to Massachusetts in just a few weeks. Lawmakers see that as a hard deadline for passing a unified, legally durable immigrant protection bill before global attention hits our region. State House News Service reporter Colin Young explains where negotiations currently stand between the House and Senate passed versions, and what specific constitutional or geographic sticking points have to be resolved to finalize that deal.
Colin Young, SHNS: Well, we're still waiting for those negotiations to really, truly get underway. Certainly, there have been informal talks between the House and Senate sides to this point, I'm sure. But so far, each side has really been kind of organizing its thoughts and its arguments.
The House last week held feedback sessions with members. I'm sure similar conversations have been happening on the Senate side, and I would expect probably this week, those talks will get going in earnest as far as the differences go.
The real big [difference] is where the state will restrict these civil immigration enforcement actions. The House bill protects courthouses. The Senate went further to protect courthouses, but also houses of worship, child care centers, health care centers and the like. So, that's going to be one of the biggest issues the two sides will need to resolve exactly how far to extend these protections.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: The Massachusetts House overwhelmingly passed a handful of bills last week, including a weaponized robotics ban featuring steep civilian penalties, law enforcement guardrails and defense contractor carve outs backed by near unanimous bipartisan support. The package now advances to the state Senate. So, given that Massachusetts generates roughly a quarter of all U.S. robotics patents, do you expect any Senate push back on this 'killer bot law,' or is it expected to sail right through?
I would expect this one to mostly sail right through. The Senate backed a similar idea a couple years ago in an economic development bill that was left on the cutting room floor. So, I think there is interest in the Senate in doing something like this. They may have a slightly different approach, but I think the fact that tech companies like Boston Dynamics and [other] robotics groups and the ACLU all had at least a hand in the crafting of the bill that the House passed. I think the Senate will try to preserve that balance and not upset the apple cart there.
Finally, Colin, Senate Ways and Means Chair Mike Rodrigues positions himself as the master communicator. During last Monday's session, he said that leadership had, quote, 'found a way to make an "eggless omelet"' to describe their budget crafting. And that prompted Senator Bruce Tarr to switch metaphors, questioning whether the spending plan was built on a consensus revenue estimate. By comparing the process to, quote, 'germinating the budget like a sunflower.' Look, is all this quirky 'wordsmithing' just every day statehouse theater, or are they employing metaphors to lighten the mood while they're pushing a massive $63 billion budget through?
It's a little bit of both!
The Senate has always had a little bit of a sort of theatrical flair, so that's somewhat par for the course. But I think what we heard last week was Democrats and Republicans alike see that this is going to be a difficult budget year, and they see that state budget writers are going to be constrained in what they can do.
And it did seem like at least there was an agreement that a good faith effort was being made to do the best for as many people as possible.
Now, of course, the actual contours of that budget were largely drafted behind closed doors. Most of the decisions on amendments were made behind closed doors, and it totaled $63.4 billion. But by the end of the week for for all of the issues people pointed out with the budget saying it doesn't do enough for this or that, it was passed unanimously.
So there was still at least that agreement that this might be the best they can do, even if it is imperfect.
So, Colin, with the House and the Senate budgets passed, what are the main differences that lawmakers will now go into negotiations over with the intention of passing by July 1st?
Structurally, the two budgets are very similar.
The House spent about $50 million more than the Senate. So, there'll be a little bit of trading, I'm sure, going on between House and Senate earmarks. And, of course, each branch adopted some of their own priority policy language into the budget. So they'll be horse trading there.
But at least on the policy side, theoretically, they could adopt all of it if they agreed to it. It's on the money side where they're going to have to really sort of pinch the pennies and figure out what is possible and what just simply can't be done.
