IN THE
HOUSE
On the third day of consideration of the
$42.7 billion fiscal 2020 budget, the House added roughly
$23.5 million in spending in accounts related to housing,
mental health and disability services, public safety,
judiciary, and public health.
Before recessing until 11 a.m. Thursday, the
House heard inaugural floor speeches from Rep. Alyson
Sullivan of Abington and Rep. Natalie Blais of Sunderland.
The House will return to action on Thursday
and Speaker DeLeo told representatives to expect a
consolidated amendment related to constitutional officers,
state administration and transportation to emerge for review
at noon. Along with those topics, the House is still waiting
to see a consolidated package of labor and economic
development-related amendments. Less than two dozen
amendments categorized as "legislation, non-budget" also
remain pending before the House. Roll calls are expected to
begin around 12:30 p.m.
State House News Service
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
House Session
By Colin A. Young
A capped land conservation tax credit would
be expanded under a budget amendment adopted by the House on
Thursday that would reduce a logjam of landowners looking to
take advantage, according to supporters.
Minority Leader Brad Jones sponsored the
amendment that would gradually raise the tax credit cap from
$2 million to $5 million over three years. The limit would
increase by $1 million a year for three years, starting Jan.
1, 2020.
The amendment to the fiscal 2020 budget
passed the House unanimously.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 25, 2019
House votes to expand land conservation tax credit
The House passed a budget Thursday night for
the fiscal year that begins July 1 that would authorize more
than $42.7 billion in spending, including significant new
investments in elementary and secondary education, while
also avoiding any significant tax increases.
The vote for the budget was 154-1, with
Democrat Rep. Russell Holmes of Mattapan casting the lone
dissenting vote in a branch that also includes 32
Republicans and one independent.
Over the course of four days of
deliberations and sporadic floor debates, House lawmakers
added nearly $71 million to the spending plan first laid out
two weeks ago by the House Ways and Means Committee....
Most of the action during the week took
place in the House Members' Lounge where lawmakers pitched
leadership on pet projects and priorities that led to large,
consolidated amendments loaded with earmarks for
legislators' districts.
Holmes, who has been on the outs with
leadership for a few years, spoke Thursday about his
proposal to change the way legislators are compensated.
Holmes argued for a similar proposal during the House rules
debate in January, and said it would address the issue of
compensation in a more equitable way and remove a degree of
power the speaker holds over the members through control of
committee assignments and stipends. The Holmes amendment was
rejected.
The House also voted Thursday for Minority
Leader Brad Jones's plan to expand a land conservation tax
credit, which allows landowners to get a tax break if they
donate property to the state for preservation, and tweaked
the pricing requirement for the next solicitations for
off-shore wind power.
In all, the House considered 1,369
amendments over the course of the week, and will now wait to
see how the spending plan is received by the Senate in May
before negotiations between the branches begin.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 25, 2019
House Session
By Matt Murphy
State Rep. Russell Holmes attempted to cut
pay for the Speaker and House leadership Thursday, filing an
amendment essentially reversing a hefty raise that the House
voted for themselves in 2017.
“I still believe that two years ago we made
a very bad decision,” Holmes said outside the House Chamber.
“Structurally, I think it’s very bad for the commonwealth
for us not to be paid the same because of the fact that we
have, essentially, the exact same job.”
The House voted themselves an $18 million
pay raise package in 2017, an average 40% increase,
overriding a veto from Gov. Charlie Baker, who called it
“fiscally irresponsible.”
Holmes’ amendment would reduce “additional”
pay, which is given on top of base salaries, for Speaker
Robert DeLeo from its current $80,000 to $50,000, and for
chairmen of Ways and Means from $65,000 to $35,000. The base
salary for the Speaker in 2019 is $66,257.09 and the
Legislature gets a pay raise every two years, according to
the state Constitution.
Under the amendment, compensation for floor
leaders and the president and speaker pro tempore of the
Senate and House would be cut in half. Mileage stipends
would also be reduced....
Holmes, a Democrat representing District 6
(Suffolk), argued during budget deliberations that pay
should be equal among lawmakers, similar to how it’s done in
Congress, but the measure was overwhelmingly voted down
151-5. He said he wasn’t surprised.
“This pace is sheep being led by a
shepherd,” Holmes said. “Once you see one vote from the
Speaker, you know how most of the rest of the building is
going to go.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, April 26, 2019
Russell Holmes files amendment to block legislative pay hike
It's safe to say the luster of House "budget
week" is gone. And it has been for a few years. The
deliberations are a showcase of Republicans and Democrats
agreeing, and keeping any disagreements private.
The days of hallways crowded with lobbyists,
late nights and contentious policy debates seem to be a
thing of the past. Now only a smattering of lobbyists linger
outside the House chamber (emails and texts will suffice),
the latest lawmakers stayed any night this week was 9:39
p.m. and the idea of opposition seems almost quaint.
A far cry from the "Animal House" days of
yore.
But members, by and large, seemed content to
let the process unfold. And the product remains the same - a
spending plan for the coming fiscal year that now approaches
$42.8 billion after lawmakers padded the Ways and Means
budget with about $71 million over four days.
Even the Republicans had little to say,
spending much of the week counting their chits, perhaps the
bounty paid for their silence. Minority Leader Brad Jones
stepped to the mic just once over four days to explain his
proposal to expand a land conservation tax credit, which had
the backing of Democrats and passed unanimously....
As has become custom, new spending was
packed on through large, earmark-filled consolidated
amendments put together by the Ways and Means Committee and
new chairman Aaron Michlewitz, who spent hours meeting
privately with members in the infamous Room 348, otherwise
known as the Members' Lounge, to discuss priorities.
While any member can choose to have their
amendment debated individually, only Rep. Russell Holmes
did. The Mattapan Democrat made a plea for legislative pay
reform that he said would bring equity to the system and
take some stipend-related power away from the speaker.
Needless to say, it failed....
And the policy debates, such as they were,
were limited to brief explanations of what had been
decided....
House Speaker Robert DeLeo declared the
final product - which was Michlewitz's first as Ways and
Means chairman - an "excellent piece of work." Overall, it
increases state spending by about 3 percent over last year,
including over $200 million in new funding for public
schools.
On the other side of the building, the
Senate packed its work into one day on Thursday when it
finished the job of overriding Baker's veto of a bill to
repeal a cap on family welfare benefits.
The Senate also passed a bill to allow
people to choose a nonbinary gender designation of "X" on
driver's licenses and birth certificates, and a road safety
bill requiring bicycle tailights, safety mirrors on
state-owned trucks and more.
State House News Service
Friday, April 26, 2019
Weekly Roundup - Order in the House
In the fiscal 2020 budget approved Thursday
night by the Massachusetts House, lawmakers passed on the
opportunity to adopt major new taxes or revenues to make the
kind of investments in education and transportation that
Democrats have been clamoring for since 2016. Now the action
is shifting to the Senate, where leadership also appears
uncertain about a path forward on revenue generation.
The Legislature's unspoken game plan this year appears to
call for authorizing a larger than usual investment in K-12
public education for fiscal 2020, but punting until later
this year, at the earliest, on the debate over taxes, a
conversation complicated by Gov. Charlie Baker's thoughts.
The governor is simultaneously open to some new taxes (he's
proposed a few of his own) while also opposed to increases
in broad-based taxes, a category that his administration is
loath to define other than specifying he's against
increasing the income or sales taxes.
After misplaying their push for new taxes on the wealthy to
pay for education and transportation investments, Democrats
are now in the position of choosing between coming up with a
tax package that might survive a Baker veto or playing the
governor's game and trying to wedge big investments in those
areas into the nearly $43 billion budget without coming up
with new revenues.
The House so far this year has adopted Baker's approach,
although House leaders say they'll hold a revenue debate
this year. The stakes are high. The outcome of this slowly
unfolding drama, as well as debates over reform proposals,
will determine how far the state can go in addressing
traffic congestion, subpar MBTA service, zip code-based
inequities in public education, the affordability crisis in
higher education, and the state's economic competitiveness.
The nearly $43 billion House budget will soon officially be
in the custody of new Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael
Rodrigues of Westport. The Senate will work off the same
revenue assumptions as Baker and the House, although
everyone on Beacon Hill has an eye on April revenue
collections, due out next week, to better gauge the strength
or weakness of tax collections that facilitate all of the
spending lawmakers promote during springtime budget
deliberations....
The break before May's Senate budget deliberations gives
lawmakers an opportunity to dive back into public hearings
on bills. Topics on the docket for next week include
investing in public higher education, protecting people with
intellectual or developmental disabilities, public housing,
workforce development and union benefits, as well as bills
dealing with hate crimes, hazing and abortion. Senate aides
say they plan to follow the budget rollout and deliberation
cycle used in prior years, which featured debate the week
before Memorial Day.
State House News Service
Friday, April 26, 2019
Advances - Week of April 28, 2019
IN THE
SENATE
Expanding road tolls across Massachusetts
and to the state's borders could be a way to generate new
revenue to address growing transportation woes, Senate
President Karen Spilka said Thursday.
In remarks at a Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce breakfast Thursday, Spilka, an Ashland Democrat,
told business leaders that tolls similar to those along
Interstate 90 deserve consideration for other places.
"Simply put, and I put this out there, if
tolls are a good idea for my district, my region, I believe
we should explore the possibility of expanded tolling,
including possibly at our borders," Spilka said. "Our best
ideas won't matter if we can't find a way to make a 21st
century transportation infrastructure a reality — and find a
way to pay for it."
Spilka also mentioned congestion pricing, an
idea other lawmakers on Beacon Hill have frequently raised,
as a way to address worsening traffic and infrastructure.
Echoing a similar comment made last month by House Speaker
Robert DeLeo, Spilka told the audience that no proposal
should be "off the table."
The Legislature, she said, must soon take up
"an honest and clear-eyed conversation about how we will pay
for the proposed solutions to our complex challenges." ...
It's not clear if lawmakers view the House
budget being debated this week as a "money bill," a
designation that would allow the Senate to add in new
revenues when they take it up next month. Spilka said
Thursday she is not sure if the current version is a money
bill and is awaiting the final House vote.
The House on Thursday added a rider to its
budget expanding a land conservation tax credit.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 25, 2019
More tolled roads deserve consideration, Spilka says
While the House continued sorting through
hundreds of budget amendments, the Senate on Thursday
churned through policy debates in a compact session. The
session began with senators voting 37-3 to override Gov.
Charlie Baker's veto of legislation lifting a 1990s-era
state policy barring families receiving public assistance
benefits from getting additional benefits when another child
is born.
The Senate then heard an inaugural speech
from Sen. Jo Comerford, who spoke about a bill to give
adults three options when indicating gender on state
identification records -- male, female or "X." That bill,
after being amended on the floor, was passed 39-1.
To wrap up its Thursday, the Senate voted
unanimously to pass a road safety bill focused on pedestrian
and bicyclist safety. The Senate will return on Monday for
an informal session.
A Senate vote Thursday passed into law over
Gov. Charlie Baker's veto legislation lifting a 1990s-era
state policy barring families receiving public assistance
benefits from getting additional benefits when another child
is born.
Sen. Sal DiDomenico, who has long been
pushing to eliminate the so-called cap on kids, said it was
the sixth time the Senate voted to do away with the
policy....
"Lifting the Cap on Kids will make a
critical difference in the lives of 8,700 of the lowest
income children in Massachusetts," Deborah Harris of the
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute said. "With today's vote,
Massachusetts has affirmed the dignity and humanity of every
child."
State House News Service
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Lawmakers lift cap on family welfare benefits
