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Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
45 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
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their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
A Tale
of Two Commonwealths
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As will occur when nothing occurs, the
referendum route was invoked. Student activists turned out
in force Thursday to say if they can't get satisfaction on
their desire for tuition-free attendance at state colleges
and universities, they will head for the ballot in 2020.
To be fair, this is a complicated state
facing difficult issues. Some legislative committees have
new chairpersons learning their roles and issues. Haste can
be the enemy of good deliberative balancing of interests.
Most items have funding implications dependent on a budget
process that needs many weeks to play out inclusively.
Still - months have gone by and nothing has
happened. Florida, a much larger state with a much larger
economy and a $90 billion state budget, is cantering through
its legislative agenda, in a session that began March 5 and
will end May 4. To name one example of the many states that
annually take up and resolve their agendas with far more
dispatch than Massachusetts. No one in charge seems able to
articulate why it needs to take so long to accomplish work
that larger states get done so much sooner, or concerned
about the slow pace.
The top item of the week, was, fittingly, a
top-urgency item of 2017 with no specific timetable for
resolution this year. Hundreds of educators, local leaders,
teachers and equity activists filled Gardner Auditorium
beyond capacity to tout one or another billion-dollar
solution to the education achievement gap....
State House News Service
Friday, March 22, 2019
Weekly Roundup - Your government inaction
Gov. Charlie Baker's road safety bill and
other legislation targeting distracted driving are up for a
public hearing Thursday morning. Baker wants to end the use
of handheld phones while driving, an idea that's enjoyed a
lot of support but has stalled out in the House in recent
years. His bill also would allow police to stop motorists
for not wearing a seat belt.
Legislators next week also wind closer to
wrapping up annual budget hearings with a health and human
services session planned in Arlington on Tuesday and a
hearing at Roxbury Community College on Friday that will
explore labor, housing and economic development issues. The
April 2 completion of public hearings on Baker's $42.7
billion spending plan will be followed next month by the
release of the House Ways and Means Committee's rewrite of
Baker's budget....
State House News Service
Friday, March 22, 2019
Advances - Week of March 24, 2019
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
"Still - months have gone by and nothing has
happened. Florida, a much larger state with a
much larger economy and a $90 billion state
budget, is cantering through its legislative
agenda, in a session that began March 5 and will
end May 4. To name one example of the many
states that annually take up and resolve their
agendas with far more dispatch than
Massachusetts. No one in charge seems able to
articulate why it needs to take so long to
accomplish work that larger states get done so
much sooner, or concerned about the slow pace."
Over the past few weeks and months a
number of CLT members have suggested or requested that I
recount some of what I've found in my new "sanctuary
state" of Kentucky. When I've mentioned to them
some of the sharp differences with Massachusetts
politics and government, they've insisted the
comparisons need to be passed on to other CLT members,
to contrast the tale of two commonwealths.
Massachusetts and Kentucky are two of the four states in
the nation that call themselves commonwealths (along
with Pennsylvania and Virginia). That's the most
they have in common. Similarities pretty much end
there.
In light of the State House News
Service's report, "Your government inaction," today
is a good time to fulfill those members' requests and
suggestions. The legislature in Kentucky, called
the General Assembly, holds its final day of this year's
session on Thursday. Then it shuts down and
legislators go home to their real lives and occupations
for the remainder of the year.
Here's a term you likely may never
have heard in Massachusetts: Adjournment sine
die. It means adjourning with no future date
being designated to resume.
You've probably never heard it because
it never happens in The Great and General Court
of Massachusetts, the state's House and Senate. The
Massachusetts Legislature recesses from time to
time (primarily for its extended summer-fall-winter
vacation), holding occasional, symbolic "informal sessions"
comprised of a few members if that. It
never officially adjourns until the next session
begins in January. Legislative sessions in
Massachusetts are perpetual. Adjournment sine die
occurs when a legislature's session comes to an end, and
it's not anticipated that it will meet again in its
current session year. If the Massachusetts
Legislature ever adjourned, legislative salaries,
expenses, and perks would end as well.
While the Massachusetts Legislature is
still gearing up for the year ahead, the Kentucky
General Assembly – and many
if not most other state legislatures
– are closing up shop,
shutting down for the year or getting close to their
respective adjournments sine die.
The Kentucky legislature (General
Assembly) convenes in regular session on the first
Tuesday after the first Monday in January, for 60 days
in even-numbered years and for 30 days in odd-numbered
years like this one. It convenes in special
session at the call of the governor if necessary.
The Kentucky Constitution mandates that a regular
session be completed no later than April 15 in
even-numbered years and March 30 in odd-numbered years
like this one, called its "short session."
The Kentucky General Assembly convened
on January 8 and began hearings and legislating.
(The state's two-year budget won't be considered until
next year, during a "long session" of 60 days)
Done with business – all
bills passed that were going to be passed
– it then recessed on March
14.
Those bills have been signed into law by Republican
Governor Matt Bevin or are on his desk awaiting his
signature.
The General Assembly has reserved its final day,
Thursday, to consider any overrides of the governor's
potential vetoes.
Kentucky legislators are paid for each
day they are actually in session: a base salary of
$188.22/day, and a per diem (for travel and lodging) of
$154/day. Only while they are in session
– on "active duty."
The elephant in the room issue in
Kentucky – as just about
everywhere else – is
unfunded government employee pension liabilities and
what to do about it. This year the General
Assembly again kicked the can down the road. The
Louisville Courier Journal reported:
Gov. Matt Bevin ripped lawmakers for failing to
address the pension crisis at the special
session he called last December, and then taking
a high-profile step of creating a working group
that despite many meetings produced no bill for
this session.
He
said the General Assembly still has time to pass
reform legislation when it returns for the final
day of the session on March 28.
But
if the session adjourns without passage of
pension reform, he said he will not call another
special session later this year for them to
reconsider the issue.
"Not a chance. Not a chance," Bevin said in the
interview with Chad Young of WKCT radio in
Bowling Green. "... Like Charlie Brown and the
football with Lucy? I mean, seriously."
Bevin said, "There's no chance that I'm going to
pay them extra money, or the taxpayers are going
to pay them extra money, to come in and do a job
that they still have time to do."
When the General Assembly adjourns
sine die on Thursday the legislators' salaries and
per diems cease. If Gov. Bevin were to call them
back, the salaries and per diems would start anew.
Here are a few of the bills that passed
in this "short session" and were signed into law, or are
awaiting Gov. Bevin's signature, that would never
pass in Massachusetts:
February 28 - Public schools in Kentucky
will have to display “In God We Trust” in a prominent
location next school year under a bill that has cleared
the state House of Representatives. The
Republican-dominated chamber approved House Bill 46 by a
vote of 72-25.
March 11 - Both the Kentucky House and
Senate overwhelming passed a law repealing Kentucky's only state firearms law or regulation. Senate
Bill 150 eliminated the permit requirement for carrying
a firearm concealed. On March 11 Gov. Bevin signed
it into law, making Kentucky the sixteenth such
"constitutional carry" state. Gov. Bevin, a
concealed carry gun owner, said "It recognizes the
Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United
States. That's really it. It doesn't break new ground."
March 14 - House Bill 254 will require
public universities to adopt policies that protect their
students' and faculty's constitutional right to freedom
of expression and ensure that people don't
"substantially obstruct or otherwise substantially
interfere with the freedom of others to express views
they reject"
March 14 - Senate Bill 9, the "fetal
heartbeat" law bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat is
detected, won final passage in the General Assembly,
capping off a legislative session where lawmakers in the
Republican-controlled body pushed through a batch of
anti-abortion measures.
MY CLT
OFFICE-IN-EXILE AND NEW COMMAND CENTER
MORE OFFICE-IN-EXILE PHOTOS
It's a whole new experience here in my
new "sanctuary state," like being in an entirely
different country. It's been an epiphany to
realize – and truly
appreciate as only an outsider
can – how things can be. It's
encouraging to recognize that government doesn't need
to be as we've become so familiar with, become so
grudgingly accustomed to and accepting of in Massachusetts. The Bay
State is the anomaly, the outlier. Its full-time
Legislature and
costly dysfunction is not necessary.
All the more reason to keep fighting on
to defeat such a corrupt, abusive, oppressive system that's been
far too long entrenched. We as well as The Powers That Be
can never accept the Massachusetts status quo as
permanent and immutable. At least we
shouldn't.
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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State House News
Service
Friday, March 22, 2019
Weekly Roundup - Your government inaction
By Craig Sandler
The State House was populated by two main groups
this week: people asking for things to be done,
and people not doing them.
The far-more-numerous first group is dependent
on the second, and that's where things get
frustrating.
From Voke-Tech Lobby Day, to rallies for the
Safe Communities Act, free public college
education, and the preservation of
sexual-identity counseling, important and
interesting public questions brought citizens by
the hundreds to the State House to make
themselves heard and call for action.
Advocates took to the State House corridors
Thursday protesting student debt and pushing for
tuition-free college at a Public Higher
Education Network of Massachusetts lobby day.
Now, as to the second category: the House and
Senate convened several times and passed a
smattering of congratulatory resolutions and
sick-leave bank bills. The Senate on Wednesday
held a formal session, so called because it sets
the stage for votes on significant items. No
such votes were taken.
In the basement, a group of woebegone
freshpersons still malingers, having wintered in
the bowels of the building and still awaiting
the day when their committee cubicles are ready
and they can ascend to their permanent homes.
Committee assignments, which define the bulk of
the office space in the building, were made five
weeks ago. The session began Jan 4.
As will occur when nothing occurs, the
referendum route was invoked. Student activists
turned out in force Thursday to say if they
can't get satisfaction on their desire for
tuition-free attendance at state colleges and
universities, they will head for the ballot in
2020.
To be fair, this is a complicated state facing
difficult issues. Some legislative committees
have new chairpersons learning their roles and
issues. Haste can be the enemy of good
deliberative balancing of interests. Most items
have funding implications dependent on a budget
process that needs many weeks to play out
inclusively.
Still - months have gone by and nothing has
happened. Florida, a much larger state with a
much larger economy and a $90 billion state
budget, is cantering through its legislative
agenda, in a session that began March 5 and will
end May 4. To name one example of the many
states that annually take up and resolve their
agendas with far more dispatch than
Massachusetts. No one in charge seems able to
articulate why it needs to take so long to
accomplish work that larger states get done so
much sooner, or concerned about the slow pace.
The top item of the week, was, fittingly, a
top-urgency item of 2017 with no specific
timetable for resolution this year. Hundreds of
educators, local leaders, teachers and equity
activists filled Gardner Auditorium beyond
capacity to tout one or another billion-dollar
solution to the education achievement gap.
There's near-universal agreement the
distribution formula for state dollars has to be
updated, and the amount of those dollars should
be increased. The main questions before the
Education Committee: how, and how much?
The governor and Education Secretary James
Peyser led off, making the case along with
Education Commissioner Jeff Riley for their
budget proposal to increase state aid to
education $200 million this year, and $1.1
billion over seven years, with the money
targeted at low-income districts. Major
improvements are possible starting immediately,
without raising taxes, they claimed.
They were followed immediately by Sen. Sonia
Chang-Diaz (D-Boston) and a bevy of supportive
legislator advocates, who declared the governor
has set his education-improvement ambitions much
too low, and that methods must be found to bring
poor, urban schools out of a condition where
their students have no hope of getting as good
an education as their wealthier, whiter peers.
So in some sense, the hearing like the issue
itself was a matter of PROMISE vs. reality - the
PROMISE Act propounded by Chang-Diaz versus the
reality that it would take billions to bring
Orange and Fall River and Chelsea up to the
level of Lexington and Cohasset, billions more
than the governor or Legislature seem willing to
propose in new revenue.
The House and Senate could not agree on which
path to take last session, appalling the entire
education sector, and Chang-Diaz was removed as
education chair in favor of Sen. Jason Lewis
(D-Winchester), whom Senate President Karen
Spilka perhaps viewed as more likely to bring to
closure a bill with a formula more amenable to
all parties.
Note there the replacement of an urban lawmaker
with a suburban one - a tension reflected in the
testimony before the committee and the questions
it asked. James Kelcourse of Amesbury spoke of
his pride in his school and its work, and asked
a quartet of New England Patriots what the
PROMISE Act would do for his suburban, more
affluent district.
The football players were on an off-season
mission to pursue what they see as social
justice, and Devin McCourty fired back at
Kelcourse: "You got to level the playing field."
He extended the football analogy to say players
show up for practice with different skill
levels, and it's the coach's job to find ways to
help players from different starting points up
to their maximum potential.
With the daylong hearing behind them, the
committee and legislative leadership will now
set about blending all the factors and
addressing funding-formula corrections first
formally identified as necessary in 2015. The
question, with ed-funding as so many other
items, is when they'll finally cross the goal
line.
State House News
Service
Friday, March 22, 2019
Advances - Week of March 24, 2019
Gov. Charlie Baker's road safety bill and other
legislation targeting distracted driving are up
for a public hearing Thursday morning. Baker
wants to end the use of handheld phones while
driving, an idea that's enjoyed a lot of support
but has stalled out in the House in recent
years. His bill also would allow police to stop
motorists for not wearing a seat belt.
Legislators next week also wind closer to
wrapping up annual budget hearings with a health
and human services session planned in Arlington
on Tuesday and a hearing at Roxbury Community
College on Friday that will explore labor,
housing and economic development issues. The
April 2 completion of public hearings on Baker's
$42.7 billion spending plan will be followed
next month by the release of the House Ways and
Means Committee's rewrite of Baker's budget.
Baker is hoping House leaders will ramp up
consideration of an education funding and reform
bill to move with the budget, and Friday's
packed hearing before the Education Committee
affirmed the strong interest in that topic. "It
would be really unfortunate if there was a delay
this year," Education Commissioner Jeff Riley
told lawmakers as he finished his testimony,
urging them to find common ground after talks on
a bill died last summer.
Lawmakers this session have had trouble building
momentum around priority bills. There's broad
support in both branches for proposals banning
state-licensed therapists from attempting to
change a minor's sexual orientation or gender
identity, but that bill, which has cleared the
House, remains before Sen. Joan Lovely's Senate
Rules Committee.
Both branches have approved midyear spending
bills that include critical appropriations, but
those bills have disappeared into the murky
world of informal negotiations between branch
leaders. Both branches are also on record
favoring a reform to permit families receiving
public assistance to receive additional
assistance when they add to their families. The
Senate included plans to lift the so-called cap
on kids in its supplemental budget; the House
passed it as standalone legislation. Two
versions of the cap on kids bills remain pending
before Sen. Michael Rodrigues' Ways and Means
Committee.
On Friday, House Speaker Robert DeLeo announced
the House next week plans to take up a spending
bill that will include legislation to help
offset the loss of federal funding to women’s
reproductive health organizations due to the
Trump administration’s changes to the Title X
program. The speaker's office said the House
plans to meet Wednesday in a formal session to
consider the matter, with roll call votes slated
to start at 1 p.m.
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