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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”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Those
"Good Old Days"
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The Senate will debate its annual budget
bill beginning Tuesday, May 21 and amendments to the budget,
which will be released next week, are due by 12 p.m. on
Friday, May 10, under an order adopted Thursday.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee, under
new chairman Sen. Michael Rodrigues, plans to release the
committee's budget bill (S 3) next Tuesday. The House
approved its roughly $42.8 billion budget bill (H 3801) last
week.
A Democrat-controlled six-member conference
committee each spring works to agree on a final budget for
the new fiscal year, which begins on July 1.
State House News Service
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Senate budget debate set for May 21
By Michael P. Norton
The third, but not final, chapter in the
Legislature's six-month budget drama opens on Tuesday with
the release of the Senate Ways and Means Committee's fiscal
2020 budget proposal, a bill that will be debated beginning
Tuesday, May 21....
The House took a spend-first approach to
K-12 education investments in its $42.76 budget (H 3801),
ratcheting up outlays for public school districts while
postponing consideration of tax and revenue adjustments, and
education aid distribution formula changes, until sometime
later in the session. If the Senate takes the same approach,
the degree of difficulty facing a House-Senate conference
committee in June will be lower, so budget watchers will be
on the lookout [for] new revenue proposals in the Senate
budget....
The week ahead also features the launch on
Wednesday of the 2019-2020 Constitutional Convention, which
is the forum where lawmakers plan to resurrect a proposed $2
billion tax on the state's highest earners....
State House News Service
Friday, May 3, 2019
Advances - Week of May 5, 2019
Tuesday, May 7, 2019 – Committee on Revenue
meets to take testimony on bills related to the sales tax
and excise tax. The committee is also going to accept
testimony on a bill (S 10) filed by Gov. Charlie Baker to
raise $137 million annually through an increase in the
excise tax paid on real estate transfers to generate $1
billion over the next decade to help cities and towns cope
with climate change impacts.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and Rep.
Marc Lombardo are pitching a reduction in the sales tax rate
to 5 percent
(S
1776/H
2545), an idea that Gov. Baker used to support....
State House News Service
Friday, May 3, 2019
Advances - Week of May 5, 2019
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
– CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION: Lawmakers are expected
on Wednesday to gavel in the 2019-2020 Constitutional
Convention. The time of the meeting will hinge on an order
that's expected to emerge on Monday. The convention will be
the arena for debate on a legislative amendment to the
constitution (S 16 / H 86), and amendments to that
amendment, calling for a 4 percent surtax on households with
incomes above $1 million per year. The Revenue Committee
gave the so-called millionaire tax an "ought to pass"
recommendation.
State House News Service
Friday, May 3, 2019
Advances - Week of May 5, 2019
Along with another attempt to impose an
additional tax on incomes over $1 million, state lawmakers
could be asked whether Massachusetts should amend its
constitution to allow no-excuse absentee voting and allow
for language tweaks in the oath of office.
Ahead of an April 24 deadline, committees
endorsed three proposals for amendments to the constitution.
Those three -- the so-called "millionaire's tax," absentee
voting, and oath language -- could come before the
Legislature for a vote this session, one stage in a
multi-year process of amending the constitution....
To advance to the next stage, an amendment
must be placed on the Constitutional Convention Calendar by
May 8.
Lawmakers must vote on legislative
amendments to the constitution before the end of formal
sessions for the term in July 2020, and, if it wins the
support of at least 101 people in the 200-member
Legislature, it would need to clear the body by the same
threshold again the following term to eventually be put
before voters.
Rep. James O'Day, a West Boylston Democrat
who sponsored the income surtax amendment with Sen. Jason
Lewis of Winchester, voiced optimism that their proposal
could clear the vote threshold, saying "a ton of folks" were
cosponsoring the plan. One hundred and fifteen other
lawmakers signed on to O'Day's version of the bill.
"I think we're good," he told the News
Service. "I think we have a good, strong argument that we're
good, anyway."
State House News Service
Monday, April 29, 2019
Income surtax backers hope for vote before summer break
Friday, May 10, 2019 –
SENATE BUDGET AMENDMENT DEADLINE: Senators by noon must file
their amendments to the Senate Ways and Means Committee's
fiscal 2020 budget recommendation (S 3). The amendments will
be considered by the full Senate when it begins its public
budget deliberations on Tuesday, May 21. (Friday, noon)
State House News Service
Friday, May 3, 2019
Advances - Week of May 5, 2019
Just after 8 p.m. last Monday, Rep. Paul
Donato alerted his fellow House lawmakers that a five-page,
$9.2 million document was now available for their review,
eight hours after the start of a closed-door meeting where
representatives could pitch House Ways and Means Chairman
Aaron Michlewitz on their proposals for education and local
aid, two big areas of public investment.
Forty-seven minutes after Donato's
announcement, and with scant public explanation, that
five-page package of additional education and local aid
spending was unanimously tacked on to the House's version of
next year's budget in the first of nine similar votes the
House took over the course of four days of budget
consideration.
Using a familiar process authorized by the
House in early April, the House addressed -- either by
including it in the budget or leaving it out -- 1,260 of the
1,370 amendments representatives had filed by consolidating
them into nine packages assembled by the Ways and Means
Committee staff and voted on as single entities.
The House last week took 16 recorded votes
and adopted a grand total of 21 amendments outside of those
consolidated packages....
On Monday, House Speaker Robert DeLeo
offered his own explanation of how the House conducts the
budget process. He said each member has a chance to meet
one-on-one with the chairman of Ways and Means "in terms of
what their priorities" are and then another chance, in the
Room 348 meetings, to make their case.
"And bottom line, when folks talk about the
fact that their item was not debated or they wish there was
some debate, each and every member has the ability to take
that amendment outside of the so-called consolidated
amendment and debate it if they are displeased with the
decision of the chair," DeLeo said. "So it's up to the
members, whatever they wish to do."
Though lawmakers have that option to remove
their amendments from the consolidated packages and open
them up to individual debate, only Rep. Russell Holmes opted
to do so this year. His proposal to rework the legislative
pay structure -- which he said would result in more
equitable salaries for what are essentially the same jobs
and reduce House leadership's influence over the members --
failed on a 5-151 vote.
Holmes said afterward he was not surprised
by the vote and did not find the budget process to be open
and accessible to the public.
"Most decisions, clearly, are being made
behind backrooms, and I agree with everything I've read in
terms of how we lack transparency," the Mattapan Democrat
said. "However, this is what folks find efficient, and I'm
everyone's equal in this building, including the speaker,
the majority leader and anyone else. We all have the same
rights, and I can pull out my amendment, and that's why I
did it. I think other people should do it as well, but no
one wants to get out of sorts with the leadership." ...
In addition to avoiding debates, House
lawmakers opted to dispense with most amendments without
direct votes.
The Holmes amendment marked one of six
recorded votes on the House budget that was not unanimous
and one of only four recorded votes on an individual
amendment that was not consolidated.
In total, the House took 16 recorded votes.
One, a quorum call, essentially took attendance, and another
was to continue meeting past 9 p.m. on Wednesday night. Nine
votes were on consolidated amendments, and the final vote,
at 8:35 p.m. on Thursday, was 154-1 to pass the budget.
Holmes voted in opposition....
The consolidated amendment process is not
new. The first mention of consolidated amendments in the
News Service's online archive, which dates to 1986, came at
about 2:30 a.m. in June 1988 when Senate President William
Bulger put a package of budget amendments on the floor and
Assistant Minority Leader David Locke praised the idea.
Under House Speaker Thomas Finneran by the
early 2000s, consolidated amendments became a way for House
budget managers to deal with repetitive or duplicative
amendments. Rather than consolidating dozens of amendments
as is the practice today, the House about two decades ago
often merged just a handful of amendments at a time.
By 2005, when Speaker Salvatore DiMasi was
in power and tapped DeLeo to run the Ways and Means
Committee, the modern-day budget debate process began to
take form in the House. Members would meet privately in Room
348 to voice their priorities to committee leaders and
staff, and then would wait to find out if their amendments
survived.
In 2010, after DeLeo ascended to the
speakership, the News Service reported that though the
consolidated amendment practice had "been a common practice
for years, this year, House members have put the process
into overdrive." The House had adopted 22 consolidated
amendments, each on a single topic, in 2009 and in 2010 the
committee "crammed as many as five large categories into
one" and the House adopted seven amendment packages, the
News Service reported.
This year, the House dealt with 1,260
individually-filed amendments across nine consolidated
amendments, most of which dealt with at least two topic
areas.
State House News Service
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Private debate, few votes as House allocates $42.7 Bil
More than 50 immigrants and advocates with
snare drums, flags, and banners marched the roughly 25 miles
from Framingham to Boston to highlight a push to provide
driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants, arriving at
the State House the same day a pair of district attorneys
filed a federal lawsuit to halt immigration arrests at
courthouses.
Rallying on Beacon Street Monday afternoon,
marchers who spoke in Spanish with a translator said their
four-day trek was to call attention to the sacrifices made
by migrants seeking to enter the United States.
They urged the Legislature's Transportation
Committee to quickly hold a hearing on bills (S 2061, H
3012) that would allow people to apply for and obtain
driver's licenses if they are unable to provide proof they
are lawfully present in the country. The licenses would not
be REAL ID-compliant, meaning they could not be used for air
travel or to enter a federal building.
Li Adorno told the crowd that Moviemento
Cosecha, which led the march, opted not to invite
politicians to the event because they have not seen
lawmakers act on the issue, first introduced in the 1990s.
"We are tired of the promises," he said.
State House News Service
Monday, April 29, 2019
License-seeking immigrants march to State House
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
In the CLT Update of June 23, 2009 ("The
second-largest tax increase in state history") I
wrote:
"It
took 207 years of Massachusetts history for the
commonwealth to reach its first $10 billion
budget.
"The 1989 "temporary" Dukakis income tax hike
package funded a $12.3 billion budget, just
twenty years ago. Today's tax hikes are to fund
a budget that'll spend significantly more than
twice that much. Through numerous tax hikes in
the interim, Beacon Hill has more than
doubled state spending in just two decades.
Yet the pols think they're still not taking
enough money from us."
In June, 2009 the Legislature passed and Gov. Patrick
signed a tax increase package totaling $1 Billion to
fund a state budget of $27.4 Billion. This
included the 25 percent hike in the sales tax, from 5%
to 6.25%.
In his Boston Herald
column on June 30 of that year Michael Graham wrote ("Alas,
it's only drizzling on taxpayers' parade"):
In most states, a governor who just signed a $1
billion tax hike would be looking for political
cover. A budget with a 25 percent sales tax hike
would be a legislative orphan elsewhere.
But in Massachusetts, taxpayers feel a palpable
sense of relief. “We only got nailed with a
sales tax?” locals ask in pleased surprise.
Welcome to Massachusetts, where taxpayers lined
up before the Beacon Hill firing squad are just
grateful they didn’t get shot twice....
Thanks to a combination of one-party government
and a largely liberal media, the Democratic
autocracy that runs this state is free to rain
on the taxpayers’ parade every day. Voters in
other states might expect more but why should
we?
For a few months, our taxes are going to be
slightly less higher than expected. And, I
predict, one day this week we’ll see the sun
break.
In both instances, my advice is the same: It’s
Massachusetts. Enjoy it while you can.
In retrospect, we might call those "the
good old days."
A
mere decade later the House of Representatives has
unanimously (minus one protest vote) passed its proposed
state budget for next fiscal year totaling $42.8
Billion. That is over $15 Billion more spending
than just ten years ago, a 55 percent increase.
Even when adjusted for inflation that 2009 budget would
have increased to $32.9 Billion. The current House
proposal is still spending an adjusted increase of $10
Billion.
The sales tax was hiked from 5% to 6.25%
in 2009. Spending has increased by 55 percent over
the ensuing decade. The state can certainly
"afford" to return the sales tax to 5 percent – and
it certainly does not need to confiscate more of
taxpayers' hard-earned income, what remains of it.
So of course we support the bills
(S
1776/H
2545) sponsored by
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester)
and
Rep. Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica) to roll back the state
sales tax to 5 percent.
Taxes simply cannot continue to be
piggybacked over and over again on past tax increases,
new taxes devised and imposed in perpetuity. This
ridiculous overspending is not sustainable. This
tax-spend-tax more-spend more escalating cycle simply
cannot go on forever if Massachusetts isn't going to
flush ever more productive taxpayers down the toilet
– or chase even more of
them out of the commonwealth. Must that be
the only way this accelerating cycle of
self-destruction can end – when
only The Takers remain, with nothing left for
them to take?
The State House News Service reported on
the upcoming Senate budget debate:
The
House took a spend-first approach to K-12
education investments in its $42.76 budget (H
3801), ratcheting up outlays for public school
districts while postponing consideration of tax
and revenue adjustments, and education aid
distribution formula changes, until sometime
later in the session. If the Senate takes the
same approach, the degree of difficulty facing a
House-Senate conference committee in June will
be lower, so budget watchers will be on the
lookout [for] new revenue proposals in the
Senate budget.
The operative phrase in that paragraph is "budget
watchers will be on the lookout for new revenue
proposals in the Senate budget." In the CLT
Update of April 26
I noted:
When it
gets to the Senate watch for whether it will be
deemed a "money
bill" due to the House's inclusion of
Minority Leader Brad Jones' (R-North Reading)
amendment to expand the conservation tax
credit. His amendment was adopted unanimously with
the support of all House Democrats and
Republicans. In its July 2015 ruling on what
constitutes a "money bill" the State House News
Service reported on the ruling of the state's
highest court:
The Supreme Judicial Court, in its opinion
signed by all seven justices, found that the
House's decision in its version of the
budget to delay the implementation of a
business tax break and expand a tax
credit for land conservation opened the
door for the Senate to propose additional
tax policy changes.
It
appears the House failed to learn from its
previous mistake – or without dissent, it
intentionally again expanded the conservation tax
credit to knowingly open the tax floodgate in
the Senate.
It's going to be a busy few weeks ahead,
folks – stay alert!
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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State House News
Service
Friday, May 3, 2019
Advances - Week of May 5, 2019
The third, but not final, chapter in the
Legislature's six-month budget drama opens on
Tuesday with the release of the Senate Ways and
Means Committee's fiscal 2020 budget proposal, a
bill that will be debated beginning Tuesday, May
21.
Ahead of those deliberations, the Senate on
Thursday plans to take up legislation requiring
motorists in Massachusetts to use only
hands-free technology while driving. That policy
overhaul would trump the state's nine-year-old
ban on texting while driving, a law that many
drivers flout. Amendments to the distracted
driving bill are due by noon Monday.
Over in the House, there's work underway to get
the annual bill allocating funds for local road
projects through that branch. The week ahead
also features the launch on Wednesday of the
2019-2020 Constitutional Convention, which is
the forum where lawmakers plan to resurrect a
proposed $2 billion tax on the state's highest
earners.
And next week is capped with a noon Friday
deadline by which senators must file amendments
to the proposed Senate budget.
The House took a spend-first approach to K-12
education investments in its $42.76 budget (H
3801), ratcheting up outlays for public school
districts while postponing consideration of tax
and revenue adjustments, and education aid
distribution formula changes, until sometime
later in the session. If the Senate takes the
same approach, the degree of difficulty facing a
House-Senate conference committee in June will
be lower, so budget watchers will be on the
lookout [for] new revenue proposals in the Senate
budget.
The Senate traditionally speeds through its
budget amendments in a few days and approves its
budget bill just before Memorial Day weekend.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sen. Michael
Rodrigues and his House counterpart, Rep. Aaron
Michlewitz, will then get their first
opportunity to lead talks on behalf of their
branches, working on a six-member conference
committee charged with recommending a consensus
budget in time for the July 1 start of the new
fiscal year.
State House News
Service
Friday, May 3, 2019
Advances - Week of May 5, 2019
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Committee on Revenue meets to take testimony on
bills related to the sales tax and excise tax.
The committee is also going to accept testimony
on a bill (S 10) filed by Gov. Charlie Baker to
raise $137 million annually through an increase
in the excise tax paid on real estate transfers
to generate $1 billion over the next decade to
help cities and towns cope with climate change
impacts.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and Rep. Marc
Lombardo are pitching a reduction in the sales
tax rate to 5 percent
(S
1776/H
2545), an idea that Gov. Baker used to
support.
Rep. Kay Khan has filed a proposal (H 2529) to
impose an excise tax on the distribution of
sugary drinks like soda. There are a number of
bills related to other sales or excise tax
exemptions and Rep. Tom Golden has a bill (H
2478) to establish special commission to study
the efficacy of funding the construction of
public safety buildings through the sales tax.
House Co-Chair Mark Cusack promised House
members who wanted to debate revenues as part of
the state budget late last month that his
committee would give their ideas a full vetting
in due time and House Speaker Robert DeLeo has
said the House plans to bring revenue issues to
a vote at some point this session. (Tuesday, 1
p.m., Hearing Room B-2)
Revenue Committee Agenda:
https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/3130
State House News
Service
Monday, April 29, 2019
Income surtax backers hope for vote before
summer break
By Katie Lannan
Along with another attempt to impose an
additional tax on incomes over $1 million, state
lawmakers could be asked whether Massachusetts
should amend its constitution to allow no-excuse
absentee voting and allow for language tweaks in
the oath of office.
Ahead of an April 24 deadline, committees
endorsed three proposals for amendments to the
constitution. Those three -- the so-called
"millionaire's tax," absentee voting, and oath
language -- could come before the Legislature
for a vote this session, one stage in a
multi-year process of amending the constitution.
Lawmakers filed several proposed amendments this
session. Committees gave adverse reports
proposals to Sen. Adam Hinds amendment to
restore voting rights to incarcerated felons,
Rep. Thomas Golden's amendment to set term
limits for judges, and Rep. Mindy Domb's
amendment to make the constitution's language
gender-neutral.
To advance to the next stage, an amendment must
be placed on the Constitutional Convention
Calendar by May 8.
Lawmakers must vote on legislative amendments to
the constitution before the end of formal
sessions for the term in July 2020, and, if it
wins the support of at least 101 people in the
200-member Legislature, it would need to clear
the body by the same threshold again the
following term to eventually be put before
voters.
Rep. James O'Day, a West Boylston Democrat who
sponsored the income surtax amendment with Sen.
Jason Lewis of Winchester, voiced optimism that
their proposal could clear the vote threshold,
saying "a ton of folks" were cosponsoring the
plan. One hundred and fifteen other lawmakers
signed on to O'Day's version of the bill.
"I think we're good," he told the News Service.
"I think we have a good, strong argument that
we're good, anyway."
Revenue generated by the tax would be dedicated
to funding education and transportation. A
similar effort, initiated by citizens petition,
to put the tax before voters in 2018 was
scuttled when the Supreme Judicial Court ruled
it improperly mixed unrelated subjects.
Legislatively proposed amendments do not face
the same relatedness requirements as those
launched through the petition process.
The first attempt at the 4 percent surtax passed
the Legislature 135-57 in 2016 and 134-55 in
2017.
O'Day said he hoped a vote would be scheduled
for next month. Lewis said he'd like to see it
brought to the floor "in the next couple
months."
"My hope would be that we could take a vote on
it in a Constitutional Convention before the
summer break in August," Lewis said.
A favorable committee report does not guarantee
a vote at the Constitutional Convention, where
lawmakers over the years have often opted
against debating or voting on amendments.
The Election Laws Committee reported out a Rep.
Michael Moran proposal (H 78) that would bring
no-excuse absentee voting to Massachusetts,
where voters are currently allowed to cast
absentee ballots in only limited circumstances,
and the Judiciary Committee advanced a modified
version of a Rep. Domb amendment dealing with
oaths of office.
The amendment (S 2211) would allow a person to
"affirm" an oath of office instead of "swearing"
it, and to replace the words "So help me God"
with "This I do under the pains and penalties of
perjury" if they so choose.
Testifying before the Judiciary Committee
earlier this month, Domb said the constitution
currently allows only Quakers to opt against
"swearing" their oath because of the word's
religious implications. The first-term Amherst
Democrat said she is not a Quaker but was "not
really comfortable swearing," and had wanted to
be able to affirm her oath earlier this year
instead.
Giving the options of affirming oaths would be
more inclusive of various religious and
spiritual beliefs, Domb said.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Private debate, few votes as House allocates
$42.7 Bil
By Katie Lannan and Colin A. Young
Just after 8 p.m. last Monday, Rep. Paul Donato
alerted his fellow House lawmakers that a
five-page, $9.2 million document was now
available for their review, eight hours after
the start of a closed-door meeting where
representatives could pitch House Ways and Means
Chairman Aaron Michlewitz on their proposals for
education and local aid, two big areas of public
investment.
Forty-seven minutes after Donato's announcement,
and with scant public explanation, that
five-page package of additional education and
local aid spending was unanimously tacked on to
the House's version of next year's budget in the
first of nine similar votes the House took over
the course of four days of budget consideration.
Using a familiar process authorized by the House
in early April, the House addressed -- either by
including it in the budget or leaving it out --
1,260 of the 1,370 amendments representatives
had filed by consolidating them into nine
packages assembled by the Ways and Means
Committee staff and voted on as single entities.
The House last week took 16 recorded votes and
adopted a grand total of 21 amendments outside
of those consolidated packages.
Across the four days, as the House approved
leadership's $42.7 billion budget plan and
roughly $71 million in additional spending,
there was seven hours and 39 minutes of action
that took place inside the House Chamber and
within public view, an analysis of full session
audio recordings found. The rest of the action
happened behind closed doors as the consolidated
amendments were compiled through a process
favored by legislators but which critics say
centralizes power among a handful of House
leaders and keeps the public in the dark about
the give and take on one of the most critical
pieces of legislation.
"It's up to the members"
On Monday, House Speaker Robert DeLeo offered
his own explanation of how the House conducts
the budget process. He said each member has a
chance to meet one-on-one with the chairman of
Ways and Means "in terms of what their
priorities" are and then another chance, in the
Room 348 meetings, to make their case.
"And bottom line, when folks talk about the fact
that their item was not debated or they wish
there was some debate, each and every member has
the ability to take that amendment outside of
the so-called consolidated amendment and debate
it if they are displeased with the decision of
the chair," DeLeo said. "So it's up to the
members, whatever they wish to do."
Though lawmakers have that option to remove
their amendments from the consolidated packages
and open them up to individual debate, only Rep.
Russell Holmes opted to do so this year. His
proposal to rework the legislative pay structure
-- which he said would result in more equitable
salaries for what are essentially the same jobs
and reduce House leadership's influence over the
members -- failed on a 5-151 vote.
Holmes said afterward he was not surprised by
the vote and did not find the budget process to
be open and accessible to the public.
"Most decisions, clearly, are being made behind
backrooms, and I agree with everything I've read
in terms of how we lack transparency," the
Mattapan Democrat said. "However, this is what
folks find efficient, and I'm everyone's equal
in this building, including the speaker, the
majority leader and anyone else. We all have the
same rights, and I can pull out my amendment,
and that's why I did it. I think other people
should do it as well, but no one wants to get
out of sorts with the leadership."
DeLeo said the representatives he spoke with
last week thought the process worked well and
"felt it was one of the best budgets they were
involved with." When pressed about the
remarkably small amount of public debate, the
speaker said it is important to focus on the end
result rather than the process used to get
there.
"What I would ask the public to do would be to
take a, again, let's take a look at the final
product and what I see as the final product is
each and every member representing their
district very well and each and every member
representing their particular interest or
concern," he said. "Again, if that member who
filed the amendment felt that it was necessary
for it to be debated in public or on the floor,
they have that ability."
In addition to avoiding debates, House lawmakers
opted to dispense with most amendments without
direct votes.
The Holmes amendment marked one of six recorded
votes on the House budget that was not unanimous
and one of only four recorded votes on an
individual amendment that was not consolidated.
In total, the House took 16 recorded votes. One,
a quorum call, essentially took attendance, and
another was to continue meeting past 9 p.m. on
Wednesday night. Nine votes were on consolidated
amendments, and the final vote, at 8:35 p.m. on
Thursday, was 154-1 to pass the budget. Holmes
voted in opposition.
Michlewitz's office did not respond to News
Service requests to speak with the chairman
about the budget process. House Minority Leader
Brad Jones, who was notably quiet during last
week's budget debate, also did not respond to
News Service requests for comment.
The View from Room 348
On Thursday, a few hours before the final vote
on the spending bill, Environment, Natural
Resources and Agriculture Committee Chairman
William "Smitty" Pignatelli observed that the
process was going "smoothly," but with "not as
much debate on either side of the aisle."
Pignatelli, a Lenox Democrat who's served in the
House since 2003, attributed the lack of debate
to cooperation among Democrats and Republicans
and Michlewitz's preparation.
"I think we're working well together," he said.
"I've been in those [Room] 348 meetings, Aaron
is very attentive. I think he's done a lot of
work in advance."
For Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, a first-term Democrat
from Northampton, the meetings in Room 348
provided a "great opportunity" to get to know
her colleagues and their districts. The
experience of hearing other lawmakers defend
their amendments and make their case for
spending priorities was a "positive I was not
expecting," she told the News Service.
Sabadosa was among a handful of new House
Democrats who live-tweeted their budget
experience, including updates from within the
closed-door meetings, and responded to questions
from the News Service over Twitter.
"Nothing is decided there," Sabadosa said of
Room 348. "The representatives go in and
advocate in about 30 seconds for their
amendments that are consolidated within the
topic area (& others they may support)."
Rep. Maria Robinson of Framingham described one
gathering as "a last-chance pitch meeting where
folks get to advocate for amendments (theirs or
others)," and noted the room was "super warm."
Rep. Tami Gouveia of Acton said a meeting she
was in was "Very focused, collegial, and
on-topic," and Rep. Mindy Domb of Amherst said
the huddles provided a "real education into the
needs of the Commonwealth - across the state -
and the strong advocacy Reps make for their
districts concerns, problems, and needs."
"It's actually been really fun to celebrate
other people's wins," Sabadosa said in an
interview.
A member of the Progressive Caucus, Sabadosa
said she's gotten support from staff and the
caucus in interpreting consolidated amendments
before voting on them. "You learn quickly how to
do it, how to read it, and what it means," she
said. "You just have to sit down with it."
Sabadosa, who posted nightly Instagram video
updates for her constituents and penned a
pre-debate column on "demystifying" the budget
process for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, said
there are "always ways to make things more
transparent."
"A Common Practice For Years"
The consolidated amendment process is not new.
The first mention of consolidated amendments in
the News Service's online archive, which dates
to 1986, came at about 2:30 a.m. in June 1988
when Senate President William Bulger put a
package of budget amendments on the floor and
Assistant Minority Leader David Locke praised
the idea.
Under House Speaker Thomas Finneran by the early
2000s, consolidated amendments became a way for
House budget managers to deal with repetitive or
duplicative amendments. Rather than
consolidating dozens of amendments as is the
practice today, the House about two decades ago
often merged just a handful of amendments at a
time.
By 2005, when Speaker Salvatore DiMasi was in
power and tapped DeLeo to run the Ways and Means
Committee, the modern-day budget debate process
began to take form in the House. Members would
meet privately in Room 348 to voice their
priorities to committee leaders and staff, and
then would wait to find out if their amendments
survived.
In 2010, after DeLeo ascended to the
speakership, the News Service reported that
though the consolidated amendment practice had
"been a common practice for years, this year,
House members have put the process into
overdrive." The House had adopted 22
consolidated amendments, each on a single topic,
in 2009 and in 2010 the committee "crammed as
many as five large categories into one" and the
House adopted seven amendment packages, the News
Service reported.
This year, the House dealt with 1,260
individually-filed amendments across nine
consolidated amendments, most of which dealt
with at least two topic areas.
"It's different now. I don't know if it's any
better or any worse, but it's just a different
process from what it used to be," Gun Owners
Action League of Massachusetts director Jim
Wallace said outside the House Chamber last
week. "It used to be 1,400 amendments they'd go
through one by one and we'd be here until 1 or 2
o'clock in the morning for four or five days in
a row. I can remember lobbyists bringing pillows
into the gallery."
Over the years, House leaders have defended the
consolidated amendment process and extended its
use to other areas of debate, like economic
development bills and the expanded gaming law.
In 2012, then-chairman of Ways and Means Rep.
Brian Dempsey said allowing members to debate
issues on the floor could become unwieldy.
"What's interesting about [Room] 348 is I think
sometimes folks don't appreciate it's really
about logistics. It's very difficult to have a
debate in the House chamber when you have 30 or
40 folks interested in talking about a
particular issue," Dempsey said.
Wallace, who was unsuccessful last week in
lobbying for an amendment to establish a task
force to review the firearms licensing process
to be included in the budget, said he's seen the
budget process change in other ways since he
started lobbying professionally in the early
2000s.
"They do fewer outside sections. It used to be
that if they were having trouble getting a bill
moving they would try to throw it into the
budget," he said. "There's much less of that,
which we're OK with."
The Senate uses a similar process when it
debates its own budget plan, called "bundling."
When the Senate bundles budget amendments, its
Ways and Means staff assembles a "yes" pile and
a "no" pile and members are similarly empowered
to request debate on a specific amendment.
Paul Craney, a spokesman for the Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance, a conservative organization
that often criticizes the Legislature, said the
"blame" for a lack of public debate falls both
on House leadership and on "House members who
claim to care about transparency and are doing
virtually nothing to object."
"What was once a robust, week long debate on
legislators' most important obligation has been
whittled down to sporadic announcements of
closed-door meetings taking place in secretive
room 348 -- a room from which both the press and
the public are banned from," Craney said in a
statement.
State House News
Service
Monday, April 29, 2019
License-seeking immigrants march to State House
By Katie Lannan
More than 50 immigrants and advocates with snare
drums, flags, and banners marched the roughly 25
miles from Framingham to Boston to highlight a
push to provide driver's licenses to
undocumented immigrants, arriving at the State
House the same day a pair of district attorneys
filed a federal lawsuit to halt immigration
arrests at courthouses.
Rallying on Beacon Street Monday afternoon,
marchers who spoke in Spanish with a translator
said their four-day trek was to call attention
to the sacrifices made by migrants seeking to
enter the United States.
They urged the Legislature's Transportation
Committee to quickly hold a hearing on bills (S
2061, H 3012) that would allow people to apply
for and obtain driver's licenses if they are
unable to provide proof they are lawfully
present in the country. The licenses would not
be REAL ID-compliant, meaning they could not be
used for air travel or to enter a federal
building.
Li Adorno told the crowd that Moviemento Cosecha,
which led the march, opted not to invite
politicians to the event because they have not
seen lawmakers act on the issue, first
introduced in the 1990s.
"We are tired of the promises," he said.
"We want to hold both political parties
accountable for their actions," Adorno said.
"There is no secret that the Republican Party is
anti-immigrant, but there is a common myth here
in Massachusetts that the Democratic Party is
somehow friendly towards us. That is not true.
As an undocumented person myself, I can tell you
that is not true."
Earlier Monday, county prosecutors Marian Ryan
and Rachael Rollins filed a lawsuit in federal
court against U.S. Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement, seeking to have the agency's
practice of arresting people while coming to,
attending, or returning from court declared
illegal.
The suit asks the court "to immediately enjoin
ICE from conducting any more courthouse
arrests."
According to the Boston-based group Lawyers for
Civil Rights, ICE's practice of arresting people
for civil immigration matters at courthouses
makes it more difficult to secure defendants'
appearance in court and causes prosecutors to
abandon cases because victims and witnesses are
unwilling to appear.
"ICE's using state courthouses as a forum to
conduct their enforcement work has struck fear
in many of our most vulnerable, keeping them
from accessing our courts. That is not justice.
It does not make our communities safer,"
Middlesex District Attorney Ryan said. "What is
clear to me is that in order to make meaningful
and positive change, we all need to work
together."
Said Rollins, the district attorney for Suffolk
County, "Initiating a federal civil deportation
prior to a criminal defendant being held
accountable for the harm they caused in Suffolk
County does nothing to serve the interest of
justice or public safety. Instead, it creates an
environment of fear and mistrust, and harms our
entire community."
The suit comes four days after U.S. Attorney
Andrew Lelling announced the indictment of
Newton District Court Judge Shelley Richmond
Joseph and former court officer Wesley MacGregor
on obstruction of justice charges, alleging they
worked to allow a defendant to leave through a
back door at the courthouse and avoid an ICE
officer intending to detain him.
Martin Healy, the chief legal counsel and chief
operating officer at the Massachusetts Bar
Association, described the lawsuit as
"unprecedented" and said it "reflects the
escalating tensions between state and federal
law caused by ICE's law enforcement activities
around local courthouses.
"As demonstrated by the disruptions cited by
both state prosecutors and public defenders,
this strategy is not only interfering with the
proper administration of justice, but also
impeding the state's interest in enforcing its
rule of law and chilling access to justice for
defendants, witnesses and others with business
before the state courts," Healy said.
The state public defender agency, the Committee
for Public Counsel Services, and the community
group the Chelsea Collaborative are also
plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson released a
statement blasting the suit, calling it
"frivolous" and saying the lawyers and advocates
should instead "be working with law enforcement
instead of partnering with criminal illegal
immigrants."
"ICE officers are federal law enforcement
professionals who risk their lives day in and
day out protecting our communities: Shame on
anyone, especially elected officials sworn to
protect their citizens, who sides with the
lawbreakers over law enforcement," Hodgson said.
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