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Post Office Box 1147
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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
48 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Monday, June 20, 2022
Juneteenth Day
Two-Day Sales Tax
Holiday and Ballot Questions Week
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
|
Most Relevant News
Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
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State
lawmakers agreed Monday to set Aug. 13 and 14 as the
dates for this year's annual sales tax holiday, but
legislative leaders wouldn't say whether any sort of
reduction in or expanded break from the 6.25 percent
sales tax will feature into their relief plans.
"I'm sure
as we go forward, everything will be on the table
and we'll look at that but for right now, we're just
talking about the sales tax holiday that we agreed
to set a few years back," Senate President Karen
Spilka said.
The House
and Senate adopted a joint resolution Monday
scheduling the two-day break from the sales tax,
which was established as an annual holiday under a
2018 law that also raises the minimum wage from $11
to $15 an hour over a five-year period, phases out
time-and-a-half pay for workers on Sundays and
holidays, and solidified the launch of a paid family
and medical leave program backed by a payroll
tax....
House and
Senate Democrats, in passing their respective nearly
$50 billion budgets for the fiscal year that starts
July 1, turned down Republican amendments proposing
gas tax suspensions and mirroring Baker's tax
package. Senators also rejected a proposal from
Minority Leader Bruce Tarr that would expand the
sales-tax holiday to run for two weeks, from Aug. 8
to 21.
Tarr said
on the Senate floor Monday that he hopes lawmakers
will consider expanding the sales tax holiday this
year, calling it "one of the best ways to be able to
give tax relief to the citizens of the commonwealth
of Massachusetts, who are watching these debates,
and asking themselves -- repetitively -- if we have
billions of dollars in surplus, and we are properly
funding all of our accounts, then why is it that we
cannot find the ability to reach consensus on
offering substantial, responsible tax relief?" ...
Asked
Monday if he'd like to see changes to the sales tax,
Baker talked about tax relief more broadly.
"I've said
many times that the state is awash in revenues
because the people in Massachusetts bounced back in
an extraordinary way coming out of the pandemic,"
Baker said. "And given the rising price of
practically everything, they have earned tax cuts
from the commonwealth, and I hope that a package
that includes tax cuts for people in Massachusetts
gets to my desk by the end of this session so that
we can sign it and say thank you to the people who
made all that revenue possible."
In 2018,
Baker said he supported reducing the sales tax, and
campaigned on that idea during his unsuccessful run
for governor in 2010.
State
House News Service
Monday, June 13, 2022
Leaders Mum On Additional Sales Tax
Relief
If
legislators could get the state budget done on time,
it would free up a lot of energy to focus on the
significant remaining workload that awaits before
formal sessions come to an end on July 31, and
campaign season heats up. But that's a big if.
In each of
Gov. Charlie Baker's first seven years on the job,
he filed an interim budget somewhere between June 19
and June 22 to keep state government running and
give Democrats more time to produce a final annual
budget. And they've taken that time to extend their
talks often well into the new fiscal year, which
begins July 1.
Extended
budget talks in a Legislature where power is
centralized can pull decision-makers away from other
priorities. Time-sensitive infrastructure and
economic development bills have yet to surface in
either branch, but they will. And Democrats are also
known for, whether intentionally or not, rushing
bills through the branches with no notice or debate
at the eleventh hour....
Ballot question supporters and opponents are also at
a critical juncture. Opponents of a constitutional
amendment imposing an income surtax on wealthy
households are awaiting a Supreme Judicial Court
ruling that could alter how that proposal is
described to voters this election season. And if the
Legislature has any plans to step in and pass
alternatives to initiative petitions proposing new
alcohol licensing rules and mandates on the dental
care industry, they have to do so soon. Those
campaigns must file a second required round of
signatures at the local level by Wednesday and the
questions will be locked into the ballot by early
next month.
State
House News Service
Friday, June 17, 2022
Advances - Week of June 19, 2022
One-quarter of the Massachusetts population is
considering leaving the state?
Surely
that number can’t possibly be true. It’s got to be a
lot higher percentage than that.
This
survey was commissioned by the Fiscal Alliance
Foundation (FAF) of 750 registered voters in the
state. It was conducted earlier this month.
“The poll
asked voters if they are considering or have made
plans to leave Massachusetts to reside somewhere
else and nearly 1 in 4 voters responded that they
are.” ...
When it
comes to trending in the wrong direction,
Massachusetts traditionally fights way above its
weight class. During the Panic, under the abysmal
leadership of Gov. Charlie Baker, the state was at
times simultaneously number one in the nation in
unemployment and number three in the death rate.
But an
even better gauge of just how quickly Massachusetts
is failing is the annual survey by Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) of the migration of taxpayers and what
the Wall Street Journal calls “aggregate adjusted
gross income between states.”
Remember,
this is only about taxpayers, that is, people who
work for a living, who produce the goods and
services consumed by the non-working classes, i.e.,
Democrats.
Massachusetts currently ranks 15th in population
among the 50 states. But according to the latest IRS
statistics, from 2020, it ranked fourth in the
exodus of wealth — $2.6 billion vanished.
The only
three states that shed more wealth than
Massachusetts were New York ($19.5 billion gone),
California ($17.8 billion) and Illinois ($8.5
billion).
See what I
mean about Massachusetts fighting above its weight
class?
We are
getting poorer faster than a lot of the bigger
states, like New Jersey (down $2.3 billion), Ohio
($1.4 billion) and Pennsylvania ($1.2 billion)....
Of course,
if this folly becomes law, the “millionaires” will
either flee or get under the threshold. Within a
couple of years, everyone making over, say, $40,000
a year will be a millionaire, at least for tax
purposes....
Which is
why the six previous attempts to beggar the working
classes on behalf of the non-working classes have
flopped so spectacularly since 1962 — five times at
the ballot box and once in the courts.
It should
fail again this year, given the catastrophe that is
the Biden administration. It’s looking like a
red-wave year, but in Massachusetts anyway, there’s
a problem with that GOP scenario.
The people
who work for a living have already largely bailed
out of Massachusetts. That’s what those statistics
from the IRS prove. This soak-the-working-classes
tax scam will just accelerate the exodus.
I haven’t
seen Massachusetts voters this surly since 1990,
when the Republicans swept offices few even knew
existed. The only difference this year is that so
many of the blue collars and small-business owners
who fueled that insurrection in 1990 have since
voted with their feet.
They’re in
Florida, or somewhere else where you don’t have a
target on your back if you have a real job. Thank
goodness for the new technology of apps and Internet
streaming — my audience can still listen to my radio
show in Florida or Texas. And they do.
First they
departed Boston. Then they left the state....
One out of
four taxpayers want out? I’m going to say a lot more
than 25% of the taxpayers in Massachusetts can’t
wait to leave this Third World flophouse that the
Democrats are turning the state into.
The
Boston Herald
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Democrats spark an exodus of wealth
from Massachusetts
The people who work for a living have already
largely bailed out
By Howie Carr
Opponents
of a new law that will allow immigrants without
legal status to seek driver's licenses took a
preliminary step Monday toward asking voters to
scrap the measure, while Democrats celebrated their
success in pushing the bill and overcoming Gov.
Charlie Baker's opposition.
A campaign
filed paperwork Monday with the Office of Campaign
and Political Finance to create a committee, called
"Fair and Secure Massachusetts," seeking to repeal
the law enacted over Baker's veto last week.
Milford
resident Maureen Maloney, a longtime opponent of the
proposal whose son Matthew Denice was killed by a
drunk driver who did not have legal status in the
U.S., will chair the committee. Its treasurer will
be Kevin Dube of North Andover, according to the
form submitted to OCPF.
Convening
a ballot question campaign committee is an early
step along the road toward putting a referendum
before voters, but it still indicates the law could
be short-lived if petitioners -- who have support
from Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl
-- collect enough signatures in the next two and a
half months.
"This is
clearly a complete overstep on the part of people
who don't understand what the voters, what people in
Massachusetts want out of their government," Wendy
Wakeman, a Republican strategist who is working with
the nascent referendum campaign, told the News
Service....
Legislative leaders who steered the long-debated
bill through the House and Senate said they have
some worries about the prospect of a statewide
campaign on the topic.
"Certainly, if it's part of our ballot initiative
process, that is a concern...."
Starting
July 1, 2023, anyone in Massachusetts regardless of
immigration status can apply for a standard driver's
license. Undocumented immigrants will still need to
prove their identity, date of birth and residency in
Massachusetts using a range of documents including
either a valid, unexpired foreign passport or a
valid, unexpired consular identification document.
Baker
vetoed the bill on May 27, saying the Registry of
Motor Vehicles did not have the capacity to verify
the identities of immigrants without legal status
and arguing that the bill "significantly increases
the risk that noncitizens will be registered to
vote." ...
Baker on
Monday said his administration would "start the
process of implementing it pretty much immediately."
"There's a
ton of policies and procedures and training that
will have to be done across the registry to actually
pull this off, and there's no one who works for the
registry currently who knows what any of these
foreign documents look like or how to determine
their validity," he said.
More than
a dozen states allow undocumented immigrants to
acquire some type of driver's license, though Baker
said Monday he believes in most instances they offer
a "driver's privilege card" and not a full license.
"That was
never really on the table here in Massachusetts," he
said....
Wakeman
said the campaign is still working to collect the
initial 10 signatures required to launch a
referendum campaign.
To put the
question of whether the law should be repealed on
the November ballot, petitioners will need to
collect at least 40,120 signatures from registered
voters, no more than 10,030 of which can come from a
single county, in less than three months.
The
campaign will have until Aug. 24 to submit
signatures to local election officials for
certification and until Sept. 7 to submit them to
Secretary of State William Galvin's office.
Wakeman
worked in 2021 on a trio of ballot question
campaigns, including one seeking a statewide voter
identification law, that fell short of collecting
enough signatures to remain in the mix.
"It's
never easy to collect signatures. We found it
incredibly hard a year ago," she said. "But I think
we've got enough interest to do it."
State
House News Service
Monday, June 13, 2022
Celebrating Dems Concerned
About License Law Repeal
Law's GOP Opponents May Ride Issue In Election
Season
Opponents
of a law authorizing state driver's licenses for
undocumented immigrants want to repeal the measure
before it goes into effect next year.
Encouraged
by Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl
and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Leah
Cole Allen, critics of the recently approved Work
and Family Mobility law began gathering signatures
on a petition to put a repeal question before the
state's voters in the November elections.
Diehl
initiated the effort with a recent statement saying
he and Allen would "support" a statewide referendum
to repeal the new law, if proposed.
He argues
that the law, if it goes into effect in July 2023,
would "seriously undermine the safety and security
of Massachusetts residents and threaten the
integrity of our elections."
"This bill
is a bad bill," the former state lawmaker said. "We
must exercise all available options to make sure
this bill does not become law."
Diehl's
campaign says the initiative has been taken up a
group of volunteers led by Maureen Maloney, a
Milford woman whose 23-year-old son was killed in
2011 after being hit and dragged by a truck driven
by an undocumented immigrant.
The repeal
effort is also supported by the state Republican
Party, which argues that the new law will encourage
more people to enter the U.S. illegally.
The Salem
News
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Effort underway to repeal immigrant
license law
As top
lawmakers gathered to sign a bill that gives illegal
immigrants access to a driver’s license, one mom was
quietly working to gather the signatures required to
undo their work.
“After the
death of my son, that is why I have become involved,
opposing illegal immigration and becoming
politically active,” Maureen Maloney, whose son was
killed in 2011 by an illegal immigrant drunken
driver, told the Herald Tuesday.
When
Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl
reached out to ask if she would spearhead an effort
to overturn the Work and Family Mobility Act,
Maloney said she didn’t hesitate.
“The issue
with providing them licenses — it’s a magnet. It’s
another reason to bring them to Massachusetts,”
Maloney said of the illegal immigrant who killed her
son.
On Monday,
she filed a petition with the Office of Campaign and
Political Finance letting them know she would begin
the process of asking voters to overturn the law
through a veto referendum.
“The death
of my son ignited my passion for activism,” she
said....
Maloney
will have a long road ahead of her. Her group will
need to collect over 40,000 signatures, or 1.5% of
total votes cast for the last governor’s race, in
order to make the ballot. They have until August 24
to do it, she said, and they already have a team
hundreds-strong working on it.
“I feel
like the voters should be making this decision. I
think the Legislature was more than a little
tone-deaf,” she said.
The
Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Mother vows to overturn
license law for illegal immigrants in Massachusetts
‘After the death of my son, that is why I have
become involved’
Opponents
of the new law making undocumented immigrants
eligible to obtain driver's licenses have filed
paperwork designed to let voters decide in November
whether to repeal that law or let it stand.
"Filed!
The referendum to repeal the drivers licenses for
illegal immigrants law passed over the governor's
veto. Let's repeal the bad law!" Wendy Wakeman
tweeted on Wednesday, along with a photo of herself
at the state elections division's offices.
A campaign
filed paperwork Monday with the Office of Campaign
and Political Finance to create a committee, called
"Fair and Secure Massachusetts," seeking to repeal
the law enacted last week over Baker's veto.
State
House News Service
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Licensing Law Opponents File For
Repealer
An
initiative petition seeking to change state
liquor-licensing laws remains alive after the
Supreme Judicial Court on Monday ruled that Attorney
General Maura Healey correctly certified it to
appear before voters on November's ballot.
The high
court rejected a challenge to Healey's
certification, which argued the question did not
meet the Constitutional requirement that initiative
petitions contain only matters that are related or
mutually dependent.
In a
decision penned by Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt,
the court found that the question "presents an
integrated scheme whose various provisions serve the
common purpose of loosening some of the current
restrictions on the number and allocation of
licenses for the retail sale of beer and wine for
off-premises consumption, while taking steps to
mitigate the potential negative effects of this
expansion."
State
House News Service
Monday, June 13, 2022
Alcohol License Question Survives
High Court Challenge
The ballot
question involving the status and benefits for
app-based drivers will not go before voters this
fall and Attorney General Maura Healey was wrong to
certify it for the ballot, the Supreme Judicial
Court said Tuesday in a ruling that abruptly put the
brakes on an expensive and contentious campaign.
The
state's highest court determined that the proposed
ballot question (there were technically two slightly
different versions) contained "at least two
substantively distinct policy decisions," putting
the proposal at odds with the state Constitution's
requirement that initiative petitions contain only
related or mutually dependent subjects.
State
House News Service
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
SJC Tosses App-Based
Driver Ballot Question
A proposed
ballot question seeking [to] apply a spending limit
on dental insurance companies survived a legal
challenge, as the state's high court said Wednesday
that its spending and transparency components serve
a common purpose.
The
initiative, endorsed this week by the Massachusetts
Dental Society, would require dental insurers to
spend at least 83 percent of their dollars on
"dental expenses and quality improvements, as
opposed to administrative expenses."
State
House News Service
Tuesday, June 15, 2022
Dental Care Ballot Question
Cleared By SJC
It didn't
come down to persuasive TV ads, high-profile
endorsements, Big Tech money, the strength of
organized labor or a vote one way or the other.
Instead,
what ultimately brought an end to the costly and
contentious ballot campaign around the employment
status of drivers for platforms like Uber and
DoorDash was -- to borrow a phrase from Supreme
Judicial Court Justice Scott Kafker's ruling -- "a
separate, significant policy decision that has been
obscured by murky language." ...
If the
Supreme Judicial Court had a relatedness standard to
live up to like ballot questions do, it would have
met that bar this week. Sticking with a theme, the
high court also issued relatedness rulings on
initiative petitions seeking to change the state's
liquor-licensing rules and impose new requirements
on dental insurers' spending, clearing both to
continue their path to the ballot.
The court
stopped short of making it fully Ballot Question
Week, leaving for a future date its pending decision
on Healey's summary of a proposed constitutional
amendment imposing a surtax on incomes over $1
million.
With one
bruising ballot campaign now off the table, another
one could be newly taking shape. This one's also
about drivers, or at least the licensing of them.
Over
objections from Gov. Charlie Baker, legislators last
week put a new law on the books making immigrants
without legal status eligible for driver's licenses,
starting in July 2023.
While
legislative Democrats celebrated their veto override
and the years of work from advocates, opponents of
the new policy took their first steps in a repeal
effort.
To put a
repeal question before voters in November, the
referendum campaign will need signatures from more
than 40,000 registered voters by Aug. 24 -- a hefty
lift, to be sure, but one that could get a boost
from the GOP candidates for governor and great
weather for signature-gathering.
Typically,
if lawmakers' timing imperils legislation, it's
because they acted too late -- for instance, giving
Baker the final say by not leaving enough room in
the legislative calendar for an override vote. This
case could be something of a reversal: if they
overrode Baker's veto of the license bill later this
summer, it would have given opponents less time to
gather their repeal signatures....
But,
somewhere in the State House's back channels,
there's another ARPA spending plan in the works.
"I was
under the assumption that the chairman of Ways and
Means in the House and the chairman of Ways and
Means in the Senate were negotiating three things:
the budget, the expenditure of ARPA money, and the
expenditure of the surplus money," [House Speaker
Ron] Mariano said Wednesday.
Only one
of those things -- the fiscal 2023 budget -- is
formally before a conference committee, and the
other two haven't even hit the floor in either
branch.
State
House News Service
Friday, June 17, 2022
Weekly Roundup - The Relatedness
Test |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary |
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Happy Juneteenth Day
folks, the newest national and state holiday established just last
year. Regardless of its righteous celebration, as with all
state and federal holidays it provides government "public servants"
another paid three-day weekend off — private
sector employees not so much.
Nobody can say it was a
busy week on Beacon Hill (after all, summer officially arrives
tomorrow) nor a productive one at the State House. But
nonetheless a lot's been happening in politics and government of
which you should be aware. As Pericles, the ancient Greek
warrior and politician (495-429 BC), famously stated, “Just because
you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't
take an interest in you.”
In its
Weekly Roundup on Friday the
State House News Service noted:
The House
and Senate on Monday agreed to set this year's sales tax holiday
weekend for Aug. 13 and 14, making their pick two days before
the June 15 cutoff when the scheduling power flips over to the
Baker administration.
The details on how that works was
reported by the News Service on June 8 ("Window
Closing For Legislature To Set Sales Tax Holiday") and included
in last week's CLT Update:
. . . The "grand bargain" that
legislative and administration leaders agreed to in 2018 made a
sales tax-free weekend an annual holiday and calls for the
Legislature by June 15 to choose a weekend that the state will
give up tens of millions of dollars in taxes in a bid to spur
buying and consumer savings.
If lawmakers
don't, the Department of Revenue will announce by July 1 which
weekend in August it will suspend the 6.25 percent sales tax on
most items up to $2,500.
Just in the nick of time
— like everything else the Legislature
touches — the House and Senate finally
got around to it.
The State House News Service reported last Monday ("Leaders
Mum On Additional Sales Tax Relief"):
State lawmakers agreed
Monday to set Aug. 13 and 14 as the dates for
this year's annual sales tax holiday, but
legislative leaders wouldn't say whether any
sort of reduction in or expanded break from the
6.25 percent sales tax will feature into their
relief plans.
"I'm sure as we go forward,
everything will be on the table and we'll look
at that but for right now, we're just talking
about the sales tax holiday that we agreed to
set a few years back," Senate President Karen
Spilka said.
The House and Senate
adopted a joint resolution Monday scheduling the
two-day break from the sales tax, which was
established as an annual holiday under a 2018
law that also raises the minimum wage from $11
to $15 an hour over a five-year period, phases
out time-and-a-half pay for workers on Sundays
and holidays, and solidified the launch of a
paid family and medical leave program backed by
a payroll tax....
House and Senate Democrats,
in passing their respective nearly $50 billion
budgets for the fiscal year that starts July 1,
turned down Republican amendments proposing gas
tax suspensions and mirroring Baker's tax
package. Senators also rejected a proposal from
Minority Leader Bruce Tarr that would expand the
sales-tax holiday to run for two weeks, from
Aug. 8 to 21.
Tarr said on the Senate
floor Monday that he hopes lawmakers will
consider expanding the sales tax holiday this
year, calling it "one of the best ways to be
able to give tax relief to the citizens of the
commonwealth of Massachusetts, who are watching
these debates, and asking themselves --
repetitively -- if we have billions of dollars
in surplus, and we are properly funding all of
our accounts, then why is it that we cannot find
the ability to reach consensus on offering
substantial, responsible tax relief?" ...
Asked Monday if he'd like
to see changes to the sales tax, Baker talked
about tax relief more broadly.
"I've said many times that
the state is awash in revenues because the
people in Massachusetts bounced back in an
extraordinary way coming out of the pandemic,"
Baker said. "And given the rising price of
practically everything, they have earned tax
cuts from the commonwealth, and I hope that a
package that includes tax cuts for people in
Massachusetts gets to my desk by the end of this
session so that we can sign it and say thank you
to the people who made all that revenue
possible."
In 2018, Baker said he
supported reducing the sales tax, and campaigned
on that idea during his unsuccessful run for
governor in 2010.
Concerning the
Legislature's 'just in the nick of time' work ethic and its standard
procrastinations, in its
Advances for the coming week
the News Service on Friday observed:
If legislators could get
the state budget done on time, it would free up
a lot of energy to focus on the significant
remaining workload that awaits before formal
sessions come to an end on July 31, and campaign
season heats up. But that's a big if.
In each of Gov. Charlie
Baker's first seven years on the job, he filed
an interim budget somewhere between June 19 and
June 22 to keep state government running and
give Democrats more time to produce a final
annual budget. And they've taken that time to
extend their talks often well into the new
fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Extended budget talks in a
Legislature where power is centralized can pull
decision-makers away from other priorities.
Time-sensitive infrastructure and economic
development bills have yet to surface in either
branch, but they will. And Democrats are also
known for, whether intentionally or not, rushing
bills through the branches with no notice or
debate at the eleventh hour. [emphasis mine]
It was a big week for
ballot questions challenged before the state Supreme Judicial Court,
with one being ruled unconstitutional under Article 48 of the state
constitution while two others were affirmed and moved forward.
The State
House News Service reported in its
Weekly Roundup on Friday:
It didn't
come down to persuasive TV ads, high-profile
endorsements, Big Tech money, the strength of
organized labor or a vote one way or the other.
Instead,
what ultimately brought an end to the costly and
contentious ballot campaign around the employment
status of drivers for platforms like Uber and
DoorDash was -- to borrow a phrase from Supreme
Judicial Court Justice Scott Kafker's ruling -- "a
separate, significant policy decision that has been
obscured by murky language." ...
If the
Supreme Judicial Court had a relatedness standard to
live up to like ballot questions do, it would have
met that bar this week. Sticking with a theme, the
high court also issued relatedness rulings on
initiative petitions seeking to change the state's
liquor-licensing rules and impose new requirements
on dental insurers' spending, clearing both to
continue their path to the ballot.
The court
stopped short of making it fully Ballot Question
Week, leaving for a future date its pending decision
on Healey's summary of a proposed constitutional
amendment imposing a surtax on incomes over $1
million.
With one
bruising ballot campaign now off the table, another
one could be newly taking shape. This one's also
about drivers, or at least the licensing of them.
Over
objections from Gov. Charlie Baker, legislators last
week put a new law on the books making immigrants
without legal status eligible for driver's licenses,
starting in July 2023.
While
legislative Democrats celebrated their veto override
and the years of work from advocates, opponents of
the new policy took their first steps in a repeal
effort.
To put a
repeal question before voters in November, the
referendum campaign will need signatures from more
than 40,000 registered voters by Aug. 24 -- a hefty
lift, to be sure, but one that could get a boost
from the GOP candidates for governor and great
weather for signature-gathering.
Typically,
if lawmakers' timing imperils legislation, it's
because they acted too late -- for instance, giving
Baker the final say by not leaving enough room in
the legislative calendar for an override vote. This
case could be something of a reversal: if they
overrode Baker's veto of the license bill later this
summer, it would have given opponents less time to
gather their repeal signatures.
The News Service also
noted in its
Advances one pending challenge before the high court:
. . .
Opponents of a constitutional amendment imposing an income
surtax on wealthy households are awaiting a Supreme Judicial
Court ruling that could alter how that proposal is described to
voters this election season.
One potential ballot
question was denied; two survived, we're awaiting a ruling on the
graduated income tax amendment's language —
and a new ballot question will likely be added to the
November ballot.
The News Service
reported on Wednesday ("Licensing Law Opponents File For
Repealer"):
Opponents
of the new law making undocumented immigrants
eligible to obtain driver's licenses have filed
paperwork designed to let voters decide in November
whether to repeal that law or let it stand.
"Filed!
The referendum to repeal the drivers licenses for
illegal immigrants law passed over the governor's
veto. Let's repeal the bad law!" Wendy Wakeman
tweeted on Wednesday, along with a photo of herself
at the state elections division's offices.
A campaign
filed paperwork Monday with the Office of Campaign
and Political Finance to create a committee, called
"Fair and Secure Massachusetts," seeking to repeal
the law enacted last week over Baker's veto.
The
Boston Herald reported on Tuesday ("Mother vows to overturn
license law for illegal immigrants in Massachusetts
—
‘After the death of my son, that is why I have
become involved’"):
As top
lawmakers gathered to sign a bill that gives illegal
immigrants access to a driver’s license, one mom was
quietly working to gather the signatures required to
undo their work.
“After the
death of my son, that is why I have become involved,
opposing illegal immigration and becoming
politically active,” Maureen Maloney, whose son was
killed in 2011 by an illegal immigrant drunken
driver, told the Herald Tuesday.
When
Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl
reached out to ask if she would spearhead an effort
to overturn the Work and Family Mobility Act,
Maloney said she didn’t hesitate.
“The issue
with providing them licenses — it’s a magnet. It’s
another reason to bring them to Massachusetts,”
Maloney said of the illegal immigrant who killed her
son.
On Monday,
she filed a petition with the Office of Campaign and
Political Finance letting them know she would begin
the process of asking voters to overturn the law
through a veto referendum.
“The death
of my son ignited my passion for activism,” she
said....
Maloney
will have a long road ahead of her. Her group will
need to collect over 40,000 signatures, or 1.5% of
total votes cast for the last governor’s race, in
order to make the ballot. They have until August 24
to do it, she said, and they already have a team
hundreds-strong working on it.
“I feel
like the voters should be making this decision. I
think the Legislature was more than a little
tone-deaf,” she said.
The State
House News Service on Monday reported ("Celebrating Dems Concerned
About License Law Repeal —
Law's GOP Opponents May Ride Issue In Election
Season"):
Opponents
of a new law that will allow immigrants without
legal status to seek driver's licenses took a
preliminary step Monday toward asking voters to
scrap the measure, while Democrats celebrated their
success in pushing the bill and overcoming Gov.
Charlie Baker's opposition.
A campaign
filed paperwork Monday with the Office of Campaign
and Political Finance to create a committee, called
"Fair and Secure Massachusetts," seeking to repeal
the law enacted over Baker's veto last week.
Milford
resident Maureen Maloney, a longtime opponent of the
proposal whose son Matthew Denice was killed by a
drunk driver who did not have legal status in the
U.S., will chair the committee. Its treasurer will
be Kevin Dube of North Andover, according to the
form submitted to OCPF.
Convening
a ballot question campaign committee is an early
step along the road toward putting a referendum
before voters, but it still indicates the law could
be short-lived if petitioners -- who have support
from Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl
-- collect enough signatures in the next two and a
half months.....
Legislative leaders who steered the long-debated
bill through the House and Senate said they have
some worries about the prospect of a statewide
campaign on the topic.
"Certainly, if it's part of our ballot initiative
process, that is a concern...."
Baker
vetoed the bill on May 27, saying the Registry of
Motor Vehicles did not have the capacity to verify
the identities of immigrants without legal status
and arguing that the bill "significantly increases
the risk that noncitizens will be registered to
vote." ...
Baker on
Monday said his administration would "start the
process of implementing it pretty much immediately."
"There's a
ton of policies and procedures and training that
will have to be done across the registry to actually
pull this off, and there's no one who works for the
registry currently who knows what any of these
foreign documents look like or how to determine
their validity," he said.
More than
a dozen states allow undocumented immigrants to
acquire some type of driver's license, though Baker
said Monday he believes in most instances they offer
a "driver's privilege card" and not a full license.
"That was
never really on the table here in Massachusetts," he
said....
Wakeman
said the campaign is still working to collect the
initial 10 signatures required to launch a
referendum campaign.
To put the
question of whether the law should be repealed on
the November ballot, petitioners will need to
collect at least 40,120 signatures from registered
voters, no more than 10,030 of which can come from a
single county, in less than three months.
The
campaign will have until Aug. 24 to submit
signatures to local election officials for
certification and until Sept. 7 to submit them to
Secretary of State William Galvin's office.
In its Weekly Roundup
report the State House News service noted:
Typically,
if lawmakers' timing imperils legislation, it's
because they acted too late -- for instance, giving
Baker the final say by not leaving enough room in
the legislative calendar for an override vote. This
case could be something of a reversal: if they
overrode Baker's veto of the license bill later this
summer, it would have given opponents less time to
gather their repeal signatures.
Having organized and run a
referendum petition drive to repeal the mandatory seat belt law and
one or two to repeal legislative pay raises, I don't see it as a
question of having less time to collect the signatures
— it's rather the time remaining upon
completion of the petition drive to get the question included on the
November ballot. Getting them to the Secretary of State by
September 7 is cutting it close to have the question printed on the
ballots, but should be achievable. If there are any dark
shenanigans ahead to obstruct the repeal that's where to watch — and
nothing will be said out loud until and unless the requisite number
of signatures are attained and submitted.
In his
Boston Herald column of Wednesday ("Democrats spark an exodus of wealth
from Massachusetts —
The people who work for a living have already
largely bailed out") Howie Carr wrote:
One-quarter of the Massachusetts population is
considering leaving the state?
Surely
that number can’t possibly be true. It’s got to be a
lot higher percentage than that.
This
survey was commissioned by the Fiscal Alliance
Foundation (FAF) of 750 registered voters in the
state. It was conducted earlier this month.
“The poll
asked voters if they are considering or have made
plans to leave Massachusetts to reside somewhere
else and nearly 1 in 4 voters responded that they
are.” ...
But an
even better gauge of just how quickly Massachusetts
is failing is the annual survey by Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) of the migration of taxpayers and what
the Wall Street Journal calls “aggregate adjusted
gross income between states.”
Remember,
this is only about taxpayers, that is, people who
work for a living, who produce the goods and
services consumed by the non-working classes, i.e.,
Democrats.
Massachusetts currently ranks 15th in population
among the 50 states. But according to the latest IRS
statistics, from 2020, it ranked fourth in the
exodus of wealth — $2.6 billion vanished....
Of course,
if this ["Millionaire's Tax") folly becomes law, the “millionaires” will
either flee or get under the threshold. Within a
couple of years, everyone making over, say, $40,000
a year will be a millionaire, at least for tax
purposes....
Which is
why the six previous attempts to beggar the working
classes on behalf of the non-working classes have
flopped so spectacularly since 1962 — five times at
the ballot box and once in the courts.
It should
fail again this year, given the catastrophe that is
the Biden administration. It’s looking like a
red-wave year, but in Massachusetts anyway, there’s
a problem with that GOP scenario.
The people
who work for a living have already largely bailed
out of Massachusetts. That’s what those statistics
from the IRS prove. This soak-the-working-classes
tax scam will just accelerate the exodus.
I haven’t
seen Massachusetts voters this surly since 1990,
when the Republicans swept offices few even knew
existed. The only difference this year is that so
many of the blue collars and small-business owners
who fueled that insurrection in 1990 have since
voted with their feet.
They’re in
Florida, or somewhere else where you don’t have a
target on your back if you have a real job. Thank
goodness for the new technology of apps and Internet
streaming — my audience can still listen to my radio
show in Florida or Texas. And they do.
First they
departed Boston. Then they left the state....
One out of
four taxpayers want out? I’m going to say a lot more
than 25% of the taxpayers in Massachusetts can’t
wait to leave this Third World flophouse that the
Democrats are turning the state into.
Besides "I fully concur"
what more can I possibly add?
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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State House News
Service
Monday, June 13, 2022
Leaders Mum On Additional Sales Tax Relief
Dem Leaders Say Everything Is On The Table
By Katie Lannan
State lawmakers agreed Monday to set Aug. 13 and 14 as the
dates for this year's annual sales tax holiday, but
legislative leaders wouldn't say whether any sort of
reduction in or expanded break from the 6.25 percent sales
tax will feature into their relief plans.
"I'm sure as we go forward, everything will be on the table
and we'll look at that but for right now, we're just talking
about the sales tax holiday that we agreed to set a few
years back," Senate President Karen Spilka said.
The House and Senate adopted a joint resolution Monday
scheduling the two-day break from the sales tax, which was
established as an annual holiday under a 2018 law that also
raises the minimum wage from $11 to $15 an hour over a
five-year period, phases out time-and-a-half pay for workers
on Sundays and holidays, and solidified the launch of a paid
family and medical leave program backed by a payroll tax.
That law, dubbed the "grand bargain," was a deal struck to
keep three initiatives from going to the ballot, including
one backed by retailers that sought to roll the sales tax
back to its former 5 percent rate.
Faced with a state budget crisis, lawmakers in 2009 raised
the sales tax to 6.25 percent, after the Great Recession
wreaked havoc on revenue collections.
This year, surging tax collections prompted Gov. Charlie
Baker to file a nearly $700 million tax-relief plan that
proposes changes to the estate tax and tax on short-term
capital gains along with relief for parents and caregivers,
seniors, renters and low-income earners.
Spilka and House Speaker Ronald Mariano have said they plan
to pursue relief packages, with an eye toward vulnerable
populations and those hard hit by COVID-19. With less than
seven weeks of formal lawmaking sessions left for this year,
they have not put forward concrete proposals but said they
are looking at Baker's bill (H 4361) and ideas from
lawmakers.
Spilka and Mariano have ruled out a gas-tax suspension
despite high fuel prices, saying there's no way to guarantee
that oil companies would pass savings on to consumers.
Mariano echoed Spilka Monday in saying "everything is on the
table" in tax-cut talks.
"We haven't made a decision about anything," he said.
Asked if that included a gas tax holiday, Mariano said,
"Probably not a gas tax holiday because it's something I
never really believed in."
House and Senate Democrats, in passing their respective
nearly $50 billion budgets for the fiscal year that starts
July 1, turned down Republican amendments proposing gas tax
suspensions and mirroring Baker's tax package. Senators also
rejected a proposal from Minority Leader Bruce Tarr that
would expand the sales-tax holiday to run for two weeks,
from Aug. 8 to 21.
Tarr said on the Senate floor Monday that he hopes lawmakers
will consider expanding the sales tax holiday this year,
calling it "one of the best ways to be able to give tax
relief to the citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts,
who are watching these debates, and asking themselves --
repetitively -- if we have billions of dollars in surplus,
and we are properly funding all of our accounts, then why is
it that we cannot find the ability to reach consensus on
offering substantial, responsible tax relief?"
Last year, with the state similarly on track for a major
budget surplus, Gov. Charlie Baker proposed stretching the
sales-tax holiday into a two-month break, an idea
legislative Democrats rebuffed.
Asked Monday if he'd like to see changes to the sales tax,
Baker talked about tax relief more broadly.
"I've said many times that the state is awash in revenues
because the people in Massachusetts bounced back in an
extraordinary way coming out of the pandemic," Baker said.
"And given the rising price of practically everything, they
have earned tax cuts from the commonwealth, and I hope that
a package that includes tax cuts for people in Massachusetts
gets to my desk by the end of this session so that we can
sign it and say thank you to the people who made all that
revenue possible."
In 2018, Baker said he supported reducing the sales tax, and
campaigned on that idea during his unsuccessful run for
governor in 2010.
State House News Service
Friday, June 17, 2022
Advances - Week of June 19, 2022
If legislators could get the state budget done on time, it
would free up a lot of energy to focus on the significant
remaining workload that awaits before formal sessions come
to an end on July 31, and campaign season heats up. But
that's a big if.
In each of Gov. Charlie Baker's first seven years on the
job, he filed an interim budget somewhere between June 19
and June 22 to keep state government running and give
Democrats more time to produce a final annual budget. And
they've taken that time to extend their talks often well
into the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Extended budget talks in a Legislature where power is
centralized can pull decision-makers away from other
priorities. Time-sensitive infrastructure and economic
development bills have yet to surface in either branch, but
they will. And Democrats are also known for, whether
intentionally or not, rushing bills through the branches
with no notice or debate at the eleventh hour.
The House and Senate have each approved major bills
addressing marijuana industry rules, climate policies and
emission reductions, sports betting, and oversight of the
state's two long-term care homes for veterans. Agreements on
any of those bills could be struck at any time, or be put
off until the negotiators are forced to move by the finality
of a deadline.
Ballot question supporters and opponents are also at a
critical juncture. Opponents of a constitutional amendment
imposing an income surtax on wealthy households are awaiting
a Supreme Judicial Court ruling that could alter how that
proposal is described to voters this election season. And if
the Legislature has any plans to step in and pass
alternatives to initiative petitions proposing new alcohol
licensing rules and mandates on the dental care industry,
they have to do so soon. Those campaigns must file a second
required round of signatures at the local level by Wednesday
and the questions will be locked into the ballot by early
next month.
Monday, June 20, 2022
JUNETEENTH OBSERVED: The Juneteenth holiday will be observed
in Massachusetts on Monday. The House and Senate are closed
for the observance and all non-essential state
administrative offices will be closed as well. "I am
encouraged that many private sector employers are taking
notice and using the new federal holiday to advance their
diversity, equity, and inclusion goals and commitments by
closing or operating with skeleton crews on June 20th. Some
employers who are not unable to shut down their operations
are considering holiday pay premiums for working employees
or letting employees use PTO or floating holidays on or
around Juneteenth," Rep. Bud Williams, the author of the
budget amendment that created the Juneteenth holiday, and
the co-chair of the Joint Committee on Racial Equity, Civil
Rights, and Inclusion, said. "This is a great start in
recognizing Juneteenth as an All-Inclusive Holiday to be
enjoyed and celebrated by everyone!"
The Boston
Herald
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Democrats spark an exodus of wealth from Massachusetts
The people who work for a living have already largely bailed
out
By Howie Carr
One-quarter of the Massachusetts population is considering
leaving the state?
Surely that number can’t possibly be true. It’s got to be a
lot higher percentage than that.
This survey was commissioned by the Fiscal Alliance
Foundation (FAF) of 750 registered voters in the state. It
was conducted earlier this month.
“The poll asked voters if they are considering or have made
plans to leave Massachusetts to reside somewhere else and
nearly 1 in 4 voters responded that they are.”
Granted, the FAF is a conservative group, opposed to the
so-called millionaires’ tax which will be on the statewide
ballot in November. But I still believe the pollsters are
lowballing the number of people who want out of this
benighted Commonwealth.
When it comes to trending in the wrong direction,
Massachusetts traditionally fights way above its weight
class. During the Panic, under the abysmal leadership of
Gov. Charlie Baker, the state was at times simultaneously
number one in the nation in unemployment and number three in
the death rate.
But an even better gauge of just how quickly Massachusetts
is failing is the annual survey by Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) of the migration of taxpayers and what the Wall Street
Journal calls “aggregate adjusted gross income between
states.”
Remember, this is only about taxpayers, that is, people who
work for a living, who produce the goods and services
consumed by the non-working classes, i.e., Democrats.
Massachusetts currently ranks 15th in population among the
50 states. But according to the latest IRS statistics, from
2020, it ranked fourth in the exodus of wealth — $2.6
billion vanished.
The only three states that shed more wealth than
Massachusetts were New York ($19.5 billion gone), California
($17.8 billion) and Illinois ($8.5 billion).
See what I mean about Massachusetts fighting above its
weight class?
We are getting poorer faster than a lot of the bigger
states, like New Jersey (down $2.3 billion), Ohio ($1.4
billion) and Pennsylvania ($1.2 billion).
As to which states working people are fleeing to, you can
probably guess. (Hint: they don’t have state income taxes.)
For the record, Florida gained $23.7 billion in wealth, with
Texas taking in an extra $6.3 billion. In all, four of the
top 10 fastest-growing-in-income states have … no state
income taxes.
Coincidence? Isn’t it an accepted fact that whatever you
tax, you get less of? And conversely, that whatever you
subsidize, you get more of?
In Massachusetts, the current plan is to tax working people,
and to subsidize those who don’t work – especially illegal
immigrants.
Guess what we’re going to get less of, and more of.
The FAF survey was primarily designed to measure the status
of the referendum question to impose a graduated income tax
on the state. The hackerama has long dreamed of jacking up
the income tax rate from 5% to 9%, but only on
“millionaires,” wink wink nudge nudge.
Of course, if this folly becomes law, the “millionaires”
will either flee or get under the threshold. Within a couple
of years, everyone making over, say, $40,000 a year will be
a millionaire, at least for tax purposes.
That’s what’s happened everywhere this grift has ever been
run. You could look it up.
Which is why the six previous attempts to beggar the working
classes on behalf of the non-working classes have flopped so
spectacularly since 1962 — five times at the ballot box and
once in the courts.
It should fail again this year, given the catastrophe that
is the Biden administration. It’s looking like a red-wave
year, but in Massachusetts anyway, there’s a problem with
that GOP scenario.
The people who work for a living have already largely bailed
out of Massachusetts. That’s what those statistics from the
IRS prove. This soak-the-working-classes tax scam will just
accelerate the exodus.
I haven’t seen Massachusetts voters this surly since 1990,
when the Republicans swept offices few even knew existed.
The only difference this year is that so many of the blue
collars and small-business owners who fueled that
insurrection in 1990 have since voted with their feet.
They’re in Florida, or somewhere else where you don’t have a
target on your back if you have a real job. Thank goodness
for the new technology of apps and Internet streaming — my
audience can still listen to my radio show in Florida or
Texas. And they do.
First they departed Boston. Then they left the state. Those
who have remained behind, or drifted in are, in ever higher
percentages, hacks, trust-funders, illegal aliens or some
combination thereof. If they “work” at all, it’s at
nonprofits,or in some such similar parasitical,
paper-shuffling, income-redistributing bureaucracies.
As the Wall Street Journal noted in its editorial about “The
Great Pandemic Wealth Migration:”
“When states lose taxpayers, they lose tax revenue that
supports public services. Democrats in liberal states try to
compensate by raising taxes, which drives away more people.”
Which is what the “millionaires tax” would do. It would
finally finish off Massachusetts.
But that’s what the state’s payroll patriots want. That’s
why they’re all in for drivers’ licenses for illegals.
Don’t you know, the undocumented Democrats need those
licenses, so they can drive from their free public housing
to the supermarkets where they load up on supplies with
their free EBT cards and their WIC certificates, after which
they head over to the free health clinic for some free
health care with their EBT cards, before going to the
courthouse to meet with their free translators and free
public defenders, and then maybe off to the dentist’s office
in the afternoon for some free dental care.
That’s life in the “gateway cities.” The problem with gates,
though, is that you can open them to get in … or get out.
One out of four taxpayers want out? I’m going to say a lot
more than 25% of the taxpayers in Massachusetts can’t wait
to leave this Third World flophouse that the Democrats are
turning the state into.
State House News
Service
Monday, June 13, 2022
Celebrating Dems Concerned About License Law Repeal
Law's GOP Opponents May Ride Issue In Election Season
By Chris Lisinski and Sam Doran
Opponents of a new law that will allow immigrants without
legal status to seek driver's licenses took a preliminary
step Monday toward asking voters to scrap the measure, while
Democrats celebrated their success in pushing the bill and
overcoming Gov. Charlie Baker's opposition.
A campaign filed paperwork Monday with the Office of
Campaign and Political Finance to create a committee, called
"Fair and Secure Massachusetts," seeking to repeal the law
enacted over Baker's veto last week.
Milford resident Maureen Maloney, a longtime opponent of the
proposal whose son Matthew Denice was killed by a drunk
driver who did not have legal status in the U.S., will chair
the committee. Its treasurer will be Kevin Dube of North
Andover, according to the form submitted to OCPF.
Convening a ballot question campaign committee is an early
step along the road toward putting a referendum before
voters, but it still indicates the law could be short-lived
if petitioners -- who have support from Republican
gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl -- collect enough
signatures in the next two and a half months.
"This is clearly a complete overstep on the part of people
who don't understand what the voters, what people in
Massachusetts want out of their government," Wendy Wakeman,
a Republican strategist who is working with the nascent
referendum campaign, told the News Service.
Both Maloney and Dube supported Diehl at last month's
Republican convention in Springfield.
Legislative leaders who steered the long-debated bill
through the House and Senate said they have some worries
about the prospect of a statewide campaign on the topic.
"Certainly, if it's part of our ballot initiative process,
that is a concern. However, for right now and today, I am
looking forward to the ceremonial bill-signing," Senate
President Karen Spilka told reporters about half an hour
before gathering with other lawmakers, union leaders and
activists for a "bill signing" ceremony in the State
Library, across the building from the governor's office.
Speakers pepped up the crowd and recounted the license
policy's long road toward becoming law, with one legislator
recalling that it was a young Rep. Marty Walsh who first
filed the bill many years ago.
Similar ceremonies for other legislation usually feature
Baker wielding a pen over the parchment, but in this case it
was Spilka and House Speaker Ronald Mariano wielding their
override pens.
"They changed the argument, they changed the debate -- you
changed the debate," Mariano said, referring to advocates in
the audience, "and made it into a public safety issue. And
that's basically and fundamentally what this bill is. And
I'm disappointed that our governor chose to veto it, and
ignore the public safety argument, and get hung up on
questions that we think we answered properly to him."
Starting July 1, 2023, anyone in Massachusetts regardless of
immigration status can apply for a standard driver's
license. Undocumented immigrants will still need to prove
their identity, date of birth and residency in Massachusetts
using a range of documents including either a valid,
unexpired foreign passport or a valid, unexpired consular
identification document.
Baker vetoed the bill on May 27, saying the Registry of
Motor Vehicles did not have the capacity to verify the
identities of immigrants without legal status and arguing
that the bill "significantly increases the risk that
noncitizens will be registered to vote."
The House voted 119-36 and the Senate voted 32-8 to override
Baker's veto and make the measure law.
Baker on Monday said his administration would "start the
process of implementing it pretty much immediately."
"There's a ton of policies and procedures and training that
will have to be done across the registry to actually pull
this off, and there's no one who works for the registry
currently who knows what any of these foreign documents look
like or how to determine their validity," he said.
More than a dozen states allow undocumented immigrants to
acquire some type of driver's license, though Baker said
Monday he believes in most instances they offer a "driver's
privilege card" and not a full license.
"That was never really on the table here in Massachusetts,"
he said.
Still, he gave credit to one Democrat: Transportation
Committee Co-chair Rep. William Straus, who Baker said
ensured the administration would have additional time to
prepare for the new normal.
"There were a lot of people who wanted to put a January 1
implementation date on this, and he said 'no, there's no way
the state could possibly be ready to do this in January,'
and he made it in July," Baker said.
Although news of a possible repeal effort spread last week,
Baker on Monday said he is "not familiar with that process"
when asked if he would support the referendum, adding that
he "made pretty clear what my rationale was for vetoing the
law."
"If somebody can collect the signatures and put a question
before the voters, then obviously the voters get a shot at
it," Baker said.
Wakeman said the campaign is still working to collect the
initial 10 signatures required to launch a referendum
campaign.
To put the question of whether the law should be repealed on
the November ballot, petitioners will need to collect at
least 40,120 signatures from registered voters, no more than
10,030 of which can come from a single county, in less than
three months.
The campaign will have until Aug. 24 to submit signatures to
local election officials for certification and until Sept. 7
to submit them to Secretary of State William Galvin's
office.
Wakeman worked in 2021 on a trio of ballot question
campaigns, including one seeking a statewide voter
identification law, that fell short of collecting enough
signatures to remain in the mix.
"It's never easy to collect signatures. We found it
incredibly hard a year ago," she said. "But I think we've
got enough interest to do it."
Chris Doughty, who is also running for governor as a
Republican, circulated a petition on his campaign website in
the wake of the override slamming the move and calling for
voters to "tell the Legislature right now that you are
AGAINST this decision."
The Salem
News
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Effort underway to repeal immigrant license law
By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter
Opponents of a law authorizing state driver's licenses for
undocumented immigrants want to repeal the measure before it
goes into effect next year.
Encouraged by Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl
and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Leah Cole
Allen, critics of the recently approved Work and Family
Mobility law began gathering signatures on a petition to put
a repeal question before the state's voters in the November
elections.
Diehl initiated the effort with a recent statement saying he
and Allen would "support" a statewide referendum to repeal
the new law, if proposed.
He argues that the law, if it goes into effect in July 2023,
would "seriously undermine the safety and security of
Massachusetts residents and threaten the integrity of our
elections."
"This bill is a bad bill," the former state lawmaker said.
"We must exercise all available options to make sure this
bill does not become law."
Diehl's campaign says the initiative has been taken up a
group of volunteers led by Maureen Maloney, a Milford woman
whose 23-year-old son was killed in 2011 after being hit and
dragged by a truck driven by an undocumented immigrant.
The repeal effort is also supported by the state Republican
Party, which argues that the new law will encourage more
people to enter the U.S. illegally.
"Instances of human trafficking, fentanyl distribution, and
voter fraud will now increase because the Democrats caved in
order pander to the far-left open borders lobby," MassGOP
chairman Jim Lyons said in a recent statement.
Under the new rules, immigrants without legal residency
status can only acquire standard driver's licenses, not
federally authorized REAL ID-compliant versions. Applicants
will still be required to produce at least two official
identity documents. They will also need to prove
Massachusetts residency to get a driver’s license.
Democrats, who have super majorities in the House and
Senate, pushed the bill through the Legislature amid
opposition from Republican lawmakers and even some members
of their own party.
Supporters of the law say it will improve public safety and
the livelihoods of the undocumented motorists who are
already driving on the state’s roadways.
Critics say the new law lacks basic safeguards to prevent
abuses and would unfairly reward people who are living in
the United States illegally.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed the bill last month,
citing concerns about the ability of the state Registry of
Motor Vehicles to verify the identity of people seeking a
license, and the possibility that the move could
inadvertently authorize undocumented immigrants to register
and vote in state and local elections.
But the Legislature moved quickly to override Baker's
objections, mustering the two-thirds vote needed to make the
proposal a law. Republicans and a handful of Democrats voted
against the veto override during sessions last week.
With its passage, Massachusetts becomes the 17th state,
including Connecticut and Vermont, to allow residents to get
a driver’s license or permit regardless of immigration
status, supporters say.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Baker declined to say whether
he would support the repeal effort, but reiterated his
opposition to the new law.
"I've made it pretty clear what my rationale was for vetoing
the bill," he said. "If people gather enough signatures to
put it on the ballot, then the public will have a say in it,
but I'm not familiar with the process."
Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, defended the law
Monday before gathering with supporters of the changes to
celebrate the bill's passage.
"I still believe that this bill will dramatically increase
public safety," Spilka told reporters. "People will have to
learn the rules of the road, they will have to have
insurance, there will be less fleeing the scene of accidents
and less accidents."
— Christian M. Wade covers
the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media
Group’s newspapers and websites.
The Boston
Herald
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Mother vows to overturn license law for illegal immigrants
in Massachusetts
‘After the death of my son, that is why I have become
involved’
By Matthew Medsger
As top lawmakers gathered to sign a bill that gives illegal
immigrants access to a driver’s license, one mom was quietly
working to gather the signatures required to undo their
work.
“After the death of my son, that is why I have become
involved, opposing illegal immigration and becoming
politically active,” Maureen Maloney, whose son was killed
in 2011 by an illegal immigrant drunken driver, told the
Herald Tuesday.
When Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl reached
out to ask if she would spearhead an effort to overturn the
Work and Family Mobility Act, Maloney said she didn’t
hesitate.
“The issue with providing them licenses — it’s a magnet.
It’s another reason to bring them to Massachusetts,” Maloney
said of the illegal immigrant who killed her son.
On Monday, she filed a petition with the Office of Campaign
and Political Finance letting them know she would begin the
process of asking voters to overturn the law through a veto
referendum.
“The death of my son ignited my passion for activism,” she
said.
Ecuadorian driver Nicolas Dutan Guaman struck Matthew Denice,
who was on a motorcycle, with his pickup truck on Aug. 20,
2011. Denice, 23, became trapped underneath the truck and
was dragged for a quarter mile in Milford as witnesses
screamed for Guaman to stop.
Guaman is serving a sentence of 12 to 14 years for OUI
manslaughter.
The law Maloney now hopes to overturn was passed by the
Legislature early this month despite a veto by Gov. Charlie
Baker and will see those without legal status, but with the
ability to demonstrate their identity using documents from
their home country, granted access to receive driver’s
licenses from the Registry of Motor Vehicles on July 1 of
next year.
Amanda Orlando, Diehl’s campaign manager, told the Herald
Tuesday that Diehl reached out to Maloney to begin the
process after lawmakers moved forward despite the objections
of the governor.
“This just isn’t the right move for Massachusetts and there
are a lot of unintended consequences,” she said. “The Diehl
campaign and Leah Cole Allen for Lt. Governor campaign will
support (Maloney) every step of the way.”
The law has been hailed by proponents as the only way to
make sure those drivers, who must use the roads anyway to
survive, are participating in the training and insurance
associated with licensing.
“I still do believe that this bill will dramatically
increase public safety. People will have to learn how to
drive, they’ll learn the rules of the road. They will have
to have insurance, there will be less fleeing the scene of
accidents. There will be less accidents,” state Senate
President Karen Spilka said ahead of the bill’s ceremonial
signing.
Maloney will have a long road ahead of her. Her group will
need to collect over 40,000 signatures, or 1.5% of total
votes cast for the last governor’s race, in order to make
the ballot. They have until August 24 to do it, she said,
and they already have a team hundreds-strong working on it.
“I feel like the voters should be making this decision. I
think the Legislature was more than a little tone-deaf,” she
said.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Licensing Law Opponents File For Repealer
By Michael P. Norton
Opponents of the new law making undocumented immigrants
eligible to obtain driver's licenses have filed paperwork
designed to let voters decide in November whether to repeal
that law or let it stand.
"Filed! The referendum to repeal the drivers licenses for
illegal immigrants law passed over the governor's veto.
Let's repeal the bad law!" Wendy Wakeman tweeted on
Wednesday, along with a photo of herself at the state
elections division's offices.
A campaign filed paperwork Monday with the Office of
Campaign and Political Finance to create a committee, called
"Fair and Secure Massachusetts," seeking to repeal the law
enacted last week over Baker's veto.
Starting July 1, 2023, anyone in Massachusetts regardless of
immigration status can apply for a standard driver's
license. Undocumented immigrants will still need to prove
their identity, date of birth and residency in Massachusetts
using a range of documents including either a valid,
unexpired foreign passport or a valid, unexpired consular
identification document.
Baker vetoed the bill on May 27, saying the Registry of
Motor Vehicles did not have the capacity to verify the
identities of immigrants without legal status and arguing
that the bill "significantly increases the risk that
noncitizens will be registered to vote." The House voted
119-36 and the Senate voted 32-8 to override Baker's veto
and make the measure law.
To put the question of whether the law should be repealed on
the November ballot, petitioners will need to collect at
least 40,120 signatures from registered voters, no more than
10,030 of which can come from a single county, in less than
three months.
The campaign will have until Aug. 24 to submit signatures to
local election officials for certification and until Sept. 7
to submit them to Secretary of State William Galvin's
office.
The licensing law reform was a target of frequent jabs at
last month's Republican Party convention in Springfield.
State House News
Service
Monday, June 13, 2022
Alcohol License Question Survives High Court Challenge
SJC Sees "Integrated Scheme" In Licensing Overhaul
By Katie Lannan
An initiative petition seeking to change state
liquor-licensing laws remains alive after the Supreme
Judicial Court on Monday ruled that Attorney General Maura
Healey correctly certified it to appear before voters on
November's ballot.
The high court rejected a challenge to Healey's
certification, which argued the question did not meet the
Constitutional requirement that initiative petitions contain
only matters that are related or mutually dependent.
In a decision penned by Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt, the
court found that the question "presents an integrated scheme
whose various provisions serve the common purpose of
loosening some of the current restrictions on the number and
allocation of licenses for the retail sale of beer and wine
for off-premises consumption, while taking steps to mitigate
the potential negative effects of this expansion."
Backed by the Massachusetts Package Stores Association, the
proposal would gradually double the number of allowable
licenses any one retailer can hold to 18 by 2031, but also
reduce the cap on licenses specifically for the sale of all
alcoholic beverages -- beer, wine and liquor -- from nine to
seven. The total cap of 18 would cover both licenses for all
alcoholic beverages and those for just beer and wine sales.
The proposal would also change the way fines for liquor-sale
violations are calculated and put new rules in place
prohibiting self-checkout of alcoholic beverages and
allowing retailers to accept out-of-state IDs.
The package stores group has pitched its proposal as a
compromise essential to preserving a share of the alcohol
retail market in Massachusetts for small,
independently-owned businesses as large out-of-state
corporations muscle into the space. Opponents, including
groups representing supermarkets and convenience stores,
have knocked it as an attempt to stifle competition from
retailers that sell a broader array of products.
Plaintiffs in the case Colpack v. Attorney general had
argued that the proposal does not meet the relatedness
requirement and would "require the electorate to cast a
single vote on five competing and disparate subjects raising
significant and distinct policy questions about the number
of off-premises licenses a retailer may own (and where),
about what regulatory burdens should be imposed on different
types of retail channels (and license tiers), and about what
practices should be allowed to provide greater choice and
convenience for consumers."
Wendlandt wrote that there "is no bright-line rule" to
follow in deciding if the components of an initiative
petition are related or dependent.
"We also have determined that initiative petitions
containing multiple provisions involving a variety of
different regulatory issues nonetheless may meet the related
subjects requirement..., so long as the provisions are part
of an 'integrated scheme' of regulation," Wendlandt wrote.
In 2020, the court similarly ruled that Healey had been
correct in certifying a different proposal involving alcohol
sales, which sought to create a new alcohol license type for
food stores and eventually eliminate cap on how many alcohol
sale licenses any entity could hold.
The backers of that effort, led by convenience store giant
Cumberland Farms, dropped their bid amid the COVID-19
pandemic's toll on the retail sector. Cumberland Farms this
year backs a bill (H 318) to create a new category of
licenses allowing food stores to sell beer and wine.
The company said in a statement Monday that their "focus
remains" on that bill, calling it a "fundamentally
different" proposal than the package stores' ballot
question.
"Bottom line: this is clearly not an 'either/or' situation.
Both proposals could be enacted into law -- whether by the
voters or by the legislature -- and coexist without
conflict," the statement said.
In Monday's ruling, Wendlandt cited past instances where the
court has struck proposals that did not meet the relatedness
requirement, including a 2006 question that sought to expand
animal-cruelty laws and abolish parimutuel dog-racing; a
2016 question that spoke to both Common Core learning
standards and state assessment tests; and the original 2018
version of a question seeking to impose a surtax on income
over $1 million and dedicate the revenue to education and
transportation needs.
The court threw out the surtax question in 2018 because it
found that the tax and the subjects of the earmarked revenue
were "not related beyond the broadest conceptual level of
public good."
A constitutional amendment imposing surtax is now set to
appear before voters this November, after its backers
instead advanced it to the ballot through the Legislature, a
process where the relatedness requirement does not apply.
The surtax question is once again subject to a legal
challenge, this time taking issue with the summary that
Healey has prepared for voters.
The SJC is also due to decide in relatedness challenges to
two other questions on track for November's ballot: one
involving classification of and benefits for gig-economy
drivers, and another seeking to impose a profit limit on
dental insurers similar to those applied to health plans.
The proponents of the driver classification, dental benefits
and liquor-licensing ballot questions have until Wednesday,
June 22 to submit their next round of signatures to local
officials to continue on their path to the ballot. The
signatures must be turned in to Secretary of State William
Galvin by July 6.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
SJC Tosses App-Based Driver Ballot Question
Healey Lawsuit, Pending Bills Keep Issue Alive
By Colin A. Young
The ballot question involving the status and benefits for
app-based drivers will not go before voters this fall and
Attorney General Maura Healey was wrong to certify it for
the ballot, the Supreme Judicial Court said Tuesday in a
ruling that abruptly put the brakes on an expensive and
contentious campaign.
The state's highest court determined that the proposed
ballot question (there were technically two slightly
different versions) contained "at least two substantively
distinct policy decisions," putting the proposal at odds
with the state Constitution's requirement that initiative
petitions contain only related or mutually dependent
subjects.
Writing for the SJC, Justice Scott Kafker said that most
parts of the initiatives are devoted to defining a new
contract-based relationship and benefits between drivers and
the "network companies" that they connect consumers to. But,
he said, "in vaguely worded provisions placed in a separate
section near the end of the laws they propose, the petitions
move beyond defining the relationship between app-based
drivers and network companies and the associated statutory
wages and benefits."
Beyond the relationship between drivers and platforms, the
proposed question would have also altered the relationship
between platforms like Uber, Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash
and the general public by changing the potential liability a
transportation network company would have to someone injured
by a driver. Whether the petitions would create a "liability
shield" for the platforms was at the center of the oral
arguments in the case last month.
"The petitions thus violate the related subjects requirement
because they present voters with two substantively distinct
policy decisions: one confined for the most part to the
contract-based and voluntary relationship between app-based
drivers and network companies; the other -- couched in
confusingly vague and open-ended provisions -- apparently
seeking to limit the network companies' liability to third
parties injured by app-based drivers' tortious conduct,"
Kafker wrote in the ruling that declares Healey's
certification of the two versions of the question to have
been in error.
The SJC's ruling brings an end to a campaign that pitted
deep-pocketed tech companies that collectively spent more
than $200 million in 2020 to successfully advocate for a
similar measure in California, known as Proposition 22,
against Massachusetts labor interests with powerful allies
such as U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Roughly 200,000 workers
in Massachusetts drive for rideshare platforms, and
companies typically designate them as independent
contractors.
Wes McEnany, who led the opposition campaign Massachusetts
is Not For Sale, said Massachusetts drivers, passengers and
taxpayers can "rest easier" knowing the SJC has struck down
the proposed initiative petition.
"The ballot question was written not only as an attempt to
reduce the rights of drivers, but also would have put the
rights of passengers and the public at risk. The ballot
question would have allowed these companies to avoid their
most basic responsibilities to provide safe and reliable
transportation service. We are excited to continue the work
of our coalition to ensure that drivers, riders, and
taxpayers are protected from the greed of Big Tech CEOs," he
said. "We commend the court for getting it right on this
issue and we will remain vigilant and united against any
further attempts by Big Tech to water down worker and
consumer protections in Massachusetts or beyond."
Flexibility and Benefits for Massachusetts Drivers, the
industry-backed group that was behind the proposed ballot
question, said that a "clear majority" of voters and drivers
supported and would have passed the question had it gone to
the ballot.
"That's exactly why opponents resorted to litigation to
subvert the democratic process and deny voters the right to
make their own decision. The future of these services and
the drivers who earn on them is now in jeopardy, and we hope
the legislature will stand with the 80% of drivers who want
flexibility and to remain independent contractors while
having access to new benefits," a spokesman for the group
said in a statement.
When the SJC heard oral arguments in the case last month,
the justices zeroed in on the argument that a provision of
the initiative that states that drivers will not be
considered "an employee or agent for all purposes with
respect to his or her relationship with the network company"
is meant to shield companies from vicarious liability.
Kafker, who wrote Tuesday's ruling officially eliminating
the question from November's statewide ballot, was
particularly engaged during oral arguments and suggested
during the presentation that the initiative intermingled two
unrelated issues.
"The public may feel one way about gig employees and how
they're compensated, whether they get all these benefits or
not. But the public cares a lot about whether, if they're in
an accident with one of those people, are they limited to
suing the poor guy who's driving the car or can they sue the
large corporation that can protect them and cover their
damages? Those are two different policy questions," Kafker
said when the SJC heard the case. He echoed those comments
in his opinion Tuesday.
Kafker also pointed out in his ruling that the petitions
included language instructing that "any party seeking to
establish that a person is not an app-based driver bears the
burden of proof," which he said would also make the
petitions "go well beyond the contract-based relationship
between network companies and app-based drivers, and the
compensation and benefits associated therewith."
Healey's office, which declared both versions of the
question acceptable for the ballot, had contended that "all
the provisions of the petitions are germane to this purpose"
of defining and regulating the contract-based relationship
between network companies and app-based drivers. The AG's
office also disagreed that the language of the petitions
would create a so-called liability shield.
But that disagreement over exactly how the petitions'
language would affect lawsuits and the rights of people to
bring claims in Massachusetts was cited by Kafker as another
reason that the question was not ready to go before voters
this fall.
"When even lawyers and judges cannot be sure of the meaning
of the contested provisions, it would be unfaithful to
[Article] 48's design to allow the petition to be presented
to the voters, with all the attendant risks that voters will
be confused and misled," he wrote, referring to part of the
Constitution that deals with initiative petitions.
Lawsuit and Legislation
The evaporation of the ballot question dealing with the
classification, pay and benefits of drivers on platforms
could make a two-year-old lawsuit that deals with similar
themes more significant that it might have been if voters
weighed in on the gig economy issues this fall.
In July 2020, Healey sued Uber and Lyft, alleging that the
popular platforms were violating Massachusetts labor laws by
treating their nearly 200,000 drivers like independent
contractors rather than employees and that the companies
were pocketing "hundreds of millions" of dollars every year
that they should instead be paying in benefits and into
state systems.
Healey's lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgment ordering the
companies to comply with the state wage and hour laws,
essentially attempting to get the courts to force the
companies to comply with the types of state employment laws
that their proposed ballot question sought to alter.
The lawsuit remains active and the next scheduled event in
the proceedings is a conference planned for July 12,
according to court records.
The issues at play in the proposed ballot question are also
still alive on Beacon Hill. The Joint Committee on Financial
Services has until June 30 to decide how to handle a bill (H
1234) filed by Rep. Mark Cusack of Braintree and Rep. Carlos
Gonzalez of Springfield and supported by the industry
players who backed the failed ballot question. That bill
would establish portable benefit accounts for app-based
drivers, but it faced stiff opposition from lawmakers and
others who view it as a corporate attempt to render Healey's
lawsuit moot by rewriting state law.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, June 15, 2022
Dental Care Ballot Question Cleared By SJC
By Katie Lannan
A proposed ballot question seeking [to] apply a spending
limit on dental insurance companies survived a legal
challenge, as the state's high court said Wednesday that its
spending and transparency components serve a common purpose.
The initiative, endorsed this week by the Massachusetts
Dental Society, would require dental insurers to spend at
least 83 percent of their dollars on "dental expenses and
quality improvements, as opposed to administrative
expenses." Those posting medical loss ratios of less than 83
percent would be required to refund excess premiums, and
insurers would also have to submit to state regulators
detailed annual financial statements that include
information on lines of business besides their dental plans.
Plaintiffs in Clark v. Attorney General had argued that AG
Maura Healey erred in certifying the question for the
ballot, saying it improperly mixes unrelated subjects by
proposing both new spending requirements and extensive
reporting mandates. Under the state Constitution, ballot
questions can only include measures that are related or
mutually dependent.
The Supreme Judicial Court found the disclosure requirements
"further the regulatory goals" of the proposal and would
provide "a comprehensive body of information on which to
assess a carrier's compliance with the goals of reducing the
cost of dental benefit plans or of improving the quality of
care, patient safety, or efforts at cost containment."
"That the petitioners chose to propose such a broad
mechanism for monitoring compliance is not fatal to the
measure," Justice Elspeth Cypher wrote.
Massachusetts Dental Soceity executive director Kevin
Monteiro said his group was pleased with the decision and
"confident" voters would approve the question that he said
would ensure "that, just like medical patients, dental
patients' premium dollars are spent on their care, with
critical components guaranteeing transparency and
accountability." The group opposing the question, The
Committee to Protect Access to Quality Dental Care, knocked
the measure Wednesday as an "anti-consumer proposal" and
said Massachusetts "doesn't need this added regulation that
will only increase costs and decrease choice for patients
across the state."
So far this week, the SJC issued two other decisions on
ballot questions, striking one about the employment status
of app-based drivers and allowing another on
liquor-licensing rules to proceed. The court could soon
publish a decision on a challenge to the proposed income
surtax that is also set to go before voters in November.
State House News
Service
Friday, June 17, 2022
Weekly Roundup - The Relatedness Test
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Katie Lannan
It didn't come down to persuasive TV ads, high-profile
endorsements, Big Tech money, the strength of organized
labor or a vote one way or the other.
Instead, what ultimately brought an end to the costly and
contentious ballot campaign around the employment status of
drivers for platforms like Uber and DoorDash was -- to
borrow a phrase from Supreme Judicial Court Justice Scott
Kafker's ruling -- "a separate, significant policy decision
that has been obscured by murky language."
The SJC spiked the driver-benefits question from November's
ballot, finding that because the proposal also contained
"confusingly vague and open-ended provisions" about the
companies' potential liability to someone injured by a
driver, it failed a constitutional requirement that ballot
questions contain only related or mutually dependent
policies.
While voters won't be weighing in this fall, neither the
backers of the question nor its opponents sound ready fully
to stand down. Pending legislation on Beacon Hill and
Attorney General Maura Healey's 2020 lawsuit alleging Uber
and Lyft violate labor laws by treating their drivers as
independent contractors could give them another battleground
or two.
If the Supreme Judicial Court had a relatedness standard to
live up to like ballot questions do, it would have met that
bar this week. Sticking with a theme, the high court also
issued relatedness rulings on initiative petitions seeking
to change the state's liquor-licensing rules and impose new
requirements on dental insurers' spending, clearing both to
continue their path to the ballot.
The court stopped short of making it fully Ballot Question
Week, leaving for a future date its pending decision on
Healey's summary of a proposed constitutional amendment
imposing a surtax on incomes over $1 million.
With one bruising ballot campaign now off the table, another
one could be newly taking shape. This one's also about
drivers, or at least the licensing of them.
Over objections from Gov. Charlie Baker, legislators last
week put a new law on the books making immigrants without
legal status eligible for driver's licenses, starting in
July 2023.
While legislative Democrats celebrated their veto override
and the years of work from advocates, opponents of the new
policy took their first steps in a repeal effort.
To put a repeal question before voters in November, the
referendum campaign will need signatures from more than
40,000 registered voters by Aug. 24 -- a hefty lift, to be
sure, but one that could get a boost from the GOP candidates
for governor and great weather for signature-gathering.
Typically, if lawmakers' timing imperils legislation, it's
because they acted too late -- for instance, giving Baker
the final say by not leaving enough room in the legislative
calendar for an override vote. This case could be something
of a reversal: if they overrode Baker's veto of the license
bill later this summer, it would have given opponents less
time to gather their repeal signatures.
The news wasn't good this week for anyone who relies on
trains as an alternative to driving.
The MBTA, starting on Monday, is slashing weekday service on
its Red, Orange and Blue Lines through the summer, leaving
longer gaps between trains in response to a staffing
shortage flagged by federal officials.
The Federal Transit Administration is still working on its
broader probe of the T, but has already found enough cause
for concern to order immediate corrective action addressing
problems like insufficient control center staffing, lapsed
certifications and delayed maintenance.
An infrastructure bond bill advanced out of committee, still
without the language Baker and Congressman Richard Neal are
seeking to create a new public authority to oversee rail
expansion into Western Massachusetts.
Calling an East-West Rail authority "very premature,"
Speaker Ron Mariano said state lawmakers need more
information before they move ahead.
It turns out lawmakers -- at least the House ones -- also
aren't ready to move on another Baker ask.
Representatives on the Economic Development Committee put
forward a new, smaller version of Baker's jobs and downtown
revitalization bill, stripping out the $2.3 billion in
American Rescue Plan Act money the governor proposed
spending, and instead just calling for about $1.2 billion in
borrowing.
Baker has said supply chain constraints and the general
complexities around construction planning mean cities and
towns need to get their projects in the pipeline as soon as
possible, or risk running up against the 2024 and 2026
deadlines for committing and spending ARPA funds.
The committee's Senate members were "not prepared" to
eliminate the ARPA money from the bill but wanted to keep
the bill moving, so did not vote yes or no on the bill,
co-chair Sen. Eric Lesser said.
But, somewhere in the State House's back channels, there's
another ARPA spending plan in the works.
"I was under the assumption that the chairman of Ways and
Means in the House and the chairman of Ways and Means in the
Senate were negotiating three things: the budget, the
expenditure of ARPA money, and the expenditure of the
surplus money," Mariano said Wednesday.
Only one of those things -- the fiscal 2023 budget -- is
formally before a conference committee, and the other two
haven't even hit the floor in either branch.
Whenever those bills, in whatever form, do surface, it looks
like Rep. Maria Robinson will still be around to vote for
them. As long as it's this session.
Last fall, it was widely expected that the Framingham
Democrat was headed for the exits after President Biden in
September announced her as his pick to serve as assistant
secretary of energy in the Office of Electricity. It was
seen as such a sure thing that her House colleagues carved
up her district when they drew new legislative maps in 2021,
and Robinson this year did not file for reelection.
But Robinson's nomination lingered, and then languished.
Pointed questions at a February hearing turned into a
postponed vote in March, and then a deadlocked committee in
May.
Rather than setting up another potential situation where
Vice President Kamala Harris would need to break a tie to
confirm a Bay Stater over Republican opposition in the U.S.
Senate -- as was the case with U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins
-- Biden withdrew Robinson's nomination last week.
That now leaves just Rep. Jim Kelcourse in the
will-they-or-won't-they confirmation hot seat.
Kelcourse, Baker's nominee for a seat on the Parole Board,
appeared before the Governor's Council Wednesday for a
hearing where councilors drilled into his lack of
social-sciences experience and his motivation for making the
move.
The Legislature, as it often does, had deadlines on its mind
this week.
The House and Senate on Monday agreed to set this year's
sales tax holiday weekend for Aug. 13 and 14, making their
pick two days before the June 15 cutoff when the scheduling
power flips over to the Baker administration.
And with the Sept. 6 primary inching closer, lawmakers on
Thursday sent Baker a compromise voting reform package that
enshrines mail-in and expanded early voting options into
state law.
Also landing on Baker's desk was the annual Chapter 90 bill
funding local road and bridge repairs, this year featuring
another $150 million in grants for other
transportation-related projects.
A $5 billion borrowing bill financing maintenance at state
buildings and other government infrastructure needs could
soon make its way to the governor as well, depending on how
quickly the House and Senate agree on a final version.
Once it does, the big question will be what Baker will do
with language calling for a five-year moratorium on prison
and jail construction in Massachusetts. Legislative
supporters describe the pause as a way to build on the
state's 2018 criminal justice reform law and renew focus on
treatment and services over incarceration, but
administration officials say it would hinder efforts to
upgrade aging facilities and evolve alongside the needs of
the incarcerated population.
"This Senate knows that mental health and addiction
treatment in alternative settings has proven to be much more
effective, rehabilitation in alternative settings, not to
mention less expensive," Sen. Jo Comerford said as the
Senate took up the bond bill and moratorium Thursday.
Mental health was the focus down the hall in the House,
where representatives unanimously passed a bill that looks
to beef up school-based behavioral health services, avoid
long stays in the emergency room for patients awaiting
psychiatric beds, and otherwise make it easier for people to
access needed care.
The bill is the House's answer -- or "complement," as top
Democrats in that branch have been describing it -- to a
mental health bill the Senate passed in November.
As the July 31 end of formal legislative sessions end, bills
start to fall into a handful of categories, with different
likelihoods of getting over the finish line. The House's
Thursday vote moves mental health legislation out of the
no-man's-land where bills passed by one branch but not the
other dwell and into a more optimistic space where striking
a deal has a formal spot on the to-do list.
Still in that first, cloudier realm are a pair of other
health care bills -- the Senate's drug cost and transparency
bill from February and the hospital expansion oversight bill
that cleared the House last November.
Another class of bills is the ones that the governor really,
really wants but that haven't stirred the same level of
passion in the Democrats who control the Legislature. Chief
among those is Baker's "dangerousness" bill that would make
it easier for police and the courts to detain defendants
deemed a risk to the community, still ensconced in the
Judiciary Committee.
"Well, everything's going through the process," Mariano said
Monday. "We have looked at some of the dangerousness issues
that the governor raised, and we're making some decisions."
STORY OF THE WEEK: SJC pumps the brakes on app-driver ballot
question, while a license law repeal committee hits the gas.
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