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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
Sunday, July 3, 2022
"Tax Relief" Aims
for
Redistribution of Over-Taxation Revenue Surplus
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
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Most Relevant News
Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
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Governor
Charlie Baker renewed efforts this week to get the
leaders of the state legislature to incorporate tax
cuts into the final state budget for Massachusetts
for the coming fiscal year.
Baker
called a press conference Monday primarily to talk
about tax cuts for senior citizens.
In April,
the governor proposed several tax cuts totaling $700
million, including lowering the tax burden for
people 65 and older by doubling the senior circuit
breaker tax credit, which allows senior citizens
whose incomes are low enough to reduce their state
income taxes based on the amount they pay in
property taxes, either directly or through rent.
He also
proposed doubling the threshold for the state’s
estate tax (sometimes called the death tax), from $1
million to $2 million, and eliminating the current
provision in state law that calls for taxing the
full amount below the threshold, which the
administration calls the “cliff effect.”
“A very
small number of states actually have an estate tax
in the first place. No state has an estate tax
that’s as aggressive as the estate tax in
Massachusetts,” Baker said during the press
conference Monday, June 27.
The
current legislative session is scheduled to end
Sunday, July 31. To date, the legislature has
incorporated no tax cuts into the budget....
“I think
the main point here is to make clear that there is a
clock that’s ticking, we all know that. July 31st is
right around the corner. There is a lot of work in
front of the legislature which is really important
and we hope gets done. But we thought it was
important to bring some of these folks who spend a
lot of time worrying about a population that in many
ways deserves to be heard, which are the older
adults here in Massachusetts, who are for the most
part on fixed incomes, and who do make up the vast
majority, in many cases, of the categories that
we’re looking to try to help here with these
proposals. And I really do hope that they don’t get
lost in the conversation between now and the end of
the session,” Baker said....
Michael
Heffernan, the state’s secretary of administration
and finance, said the state government has more than
enough cash to pay for needed government services,
calling the state’s economy “historically strong.”
The New
Boston Post
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Baker Presses For Tax
Cuts, Particularly For Senior Citizens
Gov.
Charlie Baker really wants the Legislature to move
forward with his plan to cut taxes, hopefully before
the end of their session.
“There is
always a lot of stuff that is moving around when you
get to the last 30 days of the session. I just
really want to make sure that these tax proposals
don’t get lost,” he told a room full of reporters at
the State House Monday.
The
leaders of the state Legislature, who sent his
January proposal to committee months ago, seem
disinclined to listen at the moment, if their
canceled meeting with the governor is any
indication.
They were
to meet about two hours later Monday, after Baker
summoned the press to his office to plead his case
for tax cuts, about $700 million worth.
The weekly
leadership meeting was apparently canceled,
according to a release sent out by Senate President
Karen Spilka’s office, 15 minutes before it was to
begin at 2 p.m., due to a scheduling conflict.
That
conflict didn’t prevent Spilka from meeting with
House Speaker Ronald Mariano, who was seen heading
to her office shortly after Baker’s staff confirmed
the governor’s meeting with the legislative leaders
had been dropped.
The
Boston Herald
Monday, June 27, 2022
Decision on tax
cuts in Massachusetts delayed, again
The
Legislature's Revenue Committee advanced a $600
million tax relief package on Friday, but the
panel's House chairman said the measure remains a
work in progress.
The
committee voted 17-0, according to House chairman
Rep. Mark Cusack, to advance a redraft of Gov.
Charlie Baker's tax relief plan that does not
feature Baker's call for a cut in the short-term
capital gains rate. Committee members were not
interested in that piece of the governor's bill,
Cusack said.
"The rest
of the bill is intact," Cusack said.
Baker in
January filed a nearly $700 million package
proposing tax breaks for renters, seniors, parents
and low-income workers. He also recommended changes
to the way Massachusetts handles estate and capital
gains taxes.
The bill
will be further developed by the House Ways and
Means Committee, Cusack said, advising against
viewing the Revenue Committee bill as the House's
plan.
"This is
just moving it in the process," said Cusack
(D-Braintree), whose panel faced a Friday deadline
to make a recommendation on the bill....
Senate
President Karen Spilka said last month that a tax
relief package may include changes to the earned
income tax credit and the estate tax.
Cusack on
Friday mentioned the earned income tax credit as an
area of potential interest among those studying tax
relief, and EITC bills were among a menu of relief
proposals that were "attached" to the redraft of the
governor's bill and released from the Revenue
Committee on Friday....
Baker has
described the 12 percent tax on short-term capital
gains as "markedly uncompetitive compared to the
rest of the country" and says a 5 percent rate would
treat that money the same as other income and align
Massachusetts with other states. In 2019, more than
150,000 filers paid the tax, more than 61,000 of
whom had incomes below $112,000, according to the
governor's budget.
Additionally, Baker wants to double tax credits for
dependents and child care, double the allowable
maximum for the senior circuit breaker property tax
credit, and increase the cap on deductions for rent
payments from $3,000 to $5,000....
A
bipartisan consensus around making changes to the
estate tax has been emerging, although the exact
approach remains to be seen. The estate tax is a
transfer tax on the value of a decedent's estate
before distribution to any beneficiary.
Under
Baker's plan, the threshold at which the estate tax
kicks in would double to $2 million. While the
current tax applies to the full value of estates
over $1 million, Baker's bill (H 4361) would tax
only the amount above $2 million.
State
House News Service
Friday, July 1, 2022
Baker Tax Relief Bill
Clears Committee Mostly Intact
Some Consensus On Guv's Plan, But Cusack Says It's
Work In Progress
Without a
budget deal for the fiscal year that starts on
Friday, House Democrats on Monday began advancing an
interim budget that will keep government services
funded and prevent shutdowns while work continues on
a nearly $50 billion annual spending plan.
At about
9:45 a.m. Monday, members of the House Ways and
Means Committee were asked to vote by 10:30 a.m. on
the interim budget. The House plans an 11 a.m.
session Monday where the spending bill could
advance. The Senate also meets at 11 a.m. Monday.
Republican
Gov. Charlie Baker and the Democrats who run the
Legislature have routinely approved interim budgets
each year since the Legislature is often unable to
get a full-year budget in place on time for the July
1 start of each fiscal year....
Budget
talks that drag into July could pull the
Legislature's collective attention away from the
glut of major bills, and others that have yet to
begin advancing, ahead of the July 31 deadline to
finish work on major bills before election season
kicks in.
State
House News Service
Monday, June 27, 2022
Interim Budget On Move
Ahead Of Annual Deadline
The state
budget agreement that could come at any moment is
setting up like a politician's dream, with enough
revenue available to fund the most generous spending
plans on the negotiating table while still leaving
sufficient revenue to pay for a tax relief package
and drive up the state's rainy day savings account
to a new high.
According
to a new Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
analysis, if current collection trends continue
through June, fiscal 2022 will be the second
straight year in which the state has recorded tax
revenue growth of more than 20 percent over the
prior year, which means state tax collections will
have increased by more than 35 percent since fiscal
2020.
The
business-backed research group concluded it's likely
that the state will collect $3 billion or more in
tax collections in fiscal 2022 than either the House
or Senate budgets assumed would be collected in
fiscal 2023. That reality points to a second
straight year in which budget negotiators will
massively mark up expected revenues, and release a
spending compromise with something for everyone, and
then some.
State
House News Service
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Revenue Markup Likely To
Fuel Spending, Tax Relief, And Savings
What
better way for a constitutional law scholar to spend
the Fourth of July than preparing briefs that could
determine the future of a major state expansion of
voting rights?
Lawyers
for the Massachusetts Republican Party and Secretary
of State William Galvin's office will undoubtedly be
deep into their law books this weekend preparing for
arguments on whether mail-in voting is consistent
with the state's Constitution.
Supreme
Judicial Court Chief Justice Scott Kafker said
Thursday the full court would consider the party's
request for an injunction to block Galvin from
mailing out ballot applications to the more than 4.7
million voters by July 23.
Republican
Party Chairman Jim Lyons and others have filed a
lawsuit seeking to overturn the law signed by Gov.
Charlie Baker making voting-by-mail permanent in
Massachusetts on the grounds that it violates the
state constitution's allowances for absentee voting.
"Due to
the significant time constraints in this matter, and
because the complaint raises wide-ranging and novel
constitutional challenges to the new election law
implicating the fundamental right to vote, I hereby
exercise my discretion to reserve and report the
matter to the full court for decision," Kafker wrote
in an order issued Thursday, scheduling oral
arguments in the case for next Wednesday and setting
a deadline for briefs to be filed on July 5....
Voting by
mail was first used during the COVID-19 pandemic to
protect public health, and became a popular option
that resulted in record turnout. Though the state's
constitution allows for absentee voting for three
reasons - a voter is going to be out of town, has a
disability, or has a religious-based conflict with
Election Day - the legal justification for voting by
mail hinged on the argument that the COVID-19
pandemic created a "disability" for all voters to
safely participate in elections.
With the
COVID-19 emergency lifted, Republicans contend the
practice should no longer be considered legal. "We
also have significant reasons to believe that
mail-in voting is especially vulnerable to fraud,"
Lyons said Thursday.
State
House News Service
Friday, July 1, 2022
SJC To Weigh Mail-In Voting
Law Challenge Next Week
Attorney
General Maura Healey has cleared a proposed
referendum for the November ballot seeking to repeal
a new state law authorizing state driver's licenses
for undocumented immigrants.
On Monday,
Healey wrote to Secretary of State Bill Galvin that
a review of the proposed referendum by her office
determined that the proposal meets the legal
criteria to appear on the ballot.
The move
clears a path for opponents of the controversial law
to begin gathering the 40,000 signatures of
registered voters needed to make the Nov. 8 ballot,
which must be turned into local election clerks
before the deadline Aug. 24.
Two weeks
ago, Galvin wrote to Healey asking for a legal
review of the proposal to determine if it is subject
to the state's initiative petition law and requested
"a fair and concise" summary of the ballot question.
"Given the
constitutional time constraints, your prompt
attention to this matter is appreciated," Galvin
wrote in the June 15 letter.
The
state's Republican Party, which is behind the repeal
effort, accused Healey of "slow-walking" the process
of reviewing and certifying the referendum, using
"political maneuvers" to delay the gathering of
signatures. Healey is a vocal supporter of the new
law.
"Every day
that goes by while these delay tactics continue is a
day that the referendum's supporters lose," MassGOP
Chairman Jim Lyons said in a recent statement.
"Maura Healey is clearly catering to far-left
special interest groups and delaying what is a mere
legal formality."
The
Eagle-Tribune
Monday, June 27, 2022
Healey clears question to
repeal immigrant license law
If
opponents of a new state law allowing illegal
immigrants to obtain drivers licenses in
Massachusetts are successful, the law’s repeal will
go before voters in Massachusetts.
That’s
where the issue belongs.
While the
bill has been kicking around in the state
Legislature for more than two decades, it was passed
this year — and promptly vetoed by Gov. Charlie
Baker. Lawmakers overrode his veto and the measure
is set to go into effect next summer.
“I cannot
sign this legislation because it requires the
Registry of Motor Vehicles to issue state
credentials to people without the ability to verify
their identity. The Registry does not have the
expertise or ability to verify the validity of many
types of documents from other countries,” Baker said
in his veto letter.
It is
indeed a tall order for the beleaguered RMV, which
has recently weathered a series of scandals,
including the 2019 out-of-state violations debacle.
Recently, some RMV workers allegedly gave out
licenses without making drivers take a road test.
More than 2,000 drivers who were granted licenses
without these tests were sent letters and advised
they had to retake the tests within 10 days, though
many insisted that they had, in fact, passed the
test to begin with.
This would
be the agency in charge of verifying illegal
immigrants’ identities.
The
governor isn’t the only one with misgivings about
the law.
According
to a recent UMass Amherst/ WCVB poll, the
legislation is not widely supported, with 46% polled
against and 40% in favor....
The
disparity between those who approve and disapprove
of the license law should be reason enough to put
this important piece of legislation before the
voters.
A Boston
Herald editorial
Friday, July 1, 2022
Voters belong in driver’s
seat on licenses for illegal immigrants
Democrat
Attorney General Maura Healey ought to go back to
suing Donald Trump.
She had
more luck back when Trump was president than she
does now. Not that she would begin to sue hapless
Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, whom she supports.
That is verboten.
Healey, a
party to three major suits before the
Trump-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, lost out on all
three when the court ruled on abortion, the New York
concealed-carry gun law and the school prayer
issue....
Healey,
the Democrat candidate for governor, is in favor of
the driver’s license proposal which many
conservatives believe is a step toward granting
non-citizens access to the voting booth.
Republican
Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed the measure, but it became
law after the Democrat-controlled Legislature
overrode his veto.
Republicans, led by party chairman Jim Lyons, sought
to get the issue on the 2022 ballot, a referendum
question the wording of which had to be approved by
Healey.
Lyons is
supported by both Republican candidates for
governor, Geoff Diehl, who was endorsed by the
Republican convention, and Wrentham businessman
Chris Doughty.
After
accusations that she was delaying approval in order
to hinder the GOP from gathering the 40,000
signatures needed to get on the ballot, Healey
finally cleared the issue last week. The GOP must
gather and file the signatures by the Aug. 24
deadline.
Healey’s
delaying tactics came as no surprise to anyone who
has covered Massachusetts politics for any length of
time.
I have
covered and/or known 11 attorneys general,
Republican and Democrat — and even worked for one —
and have found that Healey is the most one-sided and
politically partisan of them all.
The
Boston Herald
Friday, July 1, 2022
Maura Healey can’t sue her way out
of everything
By Peter Lucas
Time
always operates in a strange way inside the halls of
the State House, and the oddity only ramps up as the
session's end approaches. Just look at the contrast
of the past week.
In the
span of about four days, top House Democrats
lamented the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision
striking down the national right to an abortion
enshrined in Roe v. Wade and rolled out, deliberated
and approved a lengthy response, sending to the
Senate a bill that if completed would rank among the
Legislature's most significant accomplishments in
the 2021-2022 session.
And when
the branches gaveled out Thursday for a four-day
weekend, they also stifled any lingering chance of
getting a finalized state budget to Gov. Charlie
Baker before fiscal 2023 started Friday, once again
missing a July 1 deadline that's the same every year
and comes after five months of budget hearings and
deliberations.
Legislative leaders have rarely met a deadline they
could not circumvent, postpone or ignore....
In the
meantime, Senate Democrats had their sights set on
other priorities, which have not yet surfaced for
votes in the House but could do so at any time in
July or languish until the final bang of the gavel
that will send the Legislature into a lower-stakes,
informal-only mode until January....
The list
of bills in play as Beacon Hill enters the home
stretch seems to grow faster than it shrinks.
Reforms to rein in the health insurer practice known
as "step therapy" landed in that group this week
with House approval of a bill; the Senate has not
tackled the topic this session, but did so in 2020
and will likely be inclined to return to the issue
now....
Massachusetts stepped into another spending cycle
Friday as the calendar flipped to July 1 and fiscal
year 2023 began. As has become the norm, though,
Fiscal New Year celebrations will be muted for
budget wonks because lawmakers again failed to
produce an on-time annual spending plan....
Massachusetts stands among limited company:
Pennsylvania and Michigan are the only other states
that have yet to finalize FY23 budgets, according to
the National Association of State Budget Officers.
State
House News Service
Friday, July 1, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Slipping Into
the Future
As the
calendar turns to the session's final month of
formal meetings, House and Senate Democrats are
growing more mindful that in addition to their own
desire, or unwillingness, to compromise, time is
also now becoming a potential enemy of the
substantial work product they've left to the
proverbial last minute.
It's not
just about getting the big bills to Gov. Charlie
Baker's desk by midnight on July 31 - don't forget
the final formals could occur on a Saturday and
Sunday this year. In order for the major new laws
they're creating to look the way they want them to,
Democrats are sizing up the potential for
gubernatorial amendments and vetoes, and the impacts
of dilatory tactics allowed in the Senate, to muck
up their plans.
The
governor gets ten days to review bills, and in some
cases could send legislation back with amendments,
and then take more time before vetoing the final
product if it comes back in a form not to his
liking. For instance, in December 2020, during
extended formal sessions, it took the Legislature 25
days to overcome Baker's amendments to the ROE Act
and his subsequent veto of that bill....
To avoid
any risk that Baker can stand in their way,
lawmakers may want to get controversial proposals to
his desk in the first half of the month. After that,
risks rise for them, and that's not even taking into
account the possibility that Democrats may not be
able to agree among themselves on major matters.
They've proven that on numerous occasions. Four
years ago talks on major health care and education
proposals collapsed in late July.
State
House News Service
Friday, July 1, 2022
Advances - Week of July 3, 2022
Governor
Charlie Baker said Monday the state may “encourage”
employers in places that have effectively outlawed
abortion to relocate to Massachusetts, where
abortion rights are enshrined in law and are among
the strongest in the country.
“I do
believe that having listened to and heard from a lot
of companies over the course of the past several
days about what this decision means with respect to
their workforces and their benefit plans that there
may in fact be a big opportunity here for
Massachusetts to encourage some employers to either
come here or expand their footprint here, as we are
a state that takes this issue seriously,” Baker
said....
Baker, a
rare Republican elected official who supports the
right to abortion, signed an executive order last
Friday that he said aimed to “protect reproductive
health care providers who serve out-of-state
residents.”
The order
banned executive state agencies from assisting
another state’s investigation into a person or group
for receiving or performing abortions that are legal
in Massachusetts or extraditing those patients or
providers. The order also addressed laws imposed in
states that criminalize abortions and other
services, and protects Massachusetts abortion
providers from losing their professional licenses or
receiving other professional discipline based on
potential out-of-state charges.
Baker, a
Swampscott resident who is not running for
reelection, was one of the only Republican governors
in the country to take such a stance in response to
the Supreme Court ruling.
“We
obviously spent the time between the time of [the
leaked Supreme Court ruling] draft and the issuance
of the ultimate decision, coming up with a plan that
would . . . provide relief to people who came here
from other states seeking those services safe,” he
said....
In recent
years, Massachusetts has expanded access to abortion
and repealed old antiabortion measures, helping
ensure it remains legal here regardless of federal
judicial action. In 2020, abortion rights were
expanded and formally codified in state law, despite
Baker’s veto of the legislation, dubbed the Roe Act.
At the
time, Baker said he “strongly” supported aspects of
the legislation, but vetoed it because he said he
could not support sections “that expand the
availability of later-term abortions and permit
minors age 16 and 17 to get an abortion without the
consent of a parent or guardian.”
The
Boston Globe
Monday, June 27, 2022
Baker: Mass. may
‘encourage’ employers in states that outlawed
abortion
to relocate to the Bay State
The
Supreme Court decision Thursday striking down a New
York firearm law left Massachusetts lawmakers
searching for a fix that could help maintain the
state’s strict gun safety regime.
In the 6-3
decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that it’s
unconstitutional for New York to require someone to
prove a “special need” before getting a license to
carry a firearm in public. Legal experts expect the
ruling to quickly affect Massachusetts, one of five
states besides New York that have laws that the
court considers “analogues” to the standard struck
down by Thursday’s ruling.
“It will
not take long at all” until the gun licensing law is
challenged here, said Kent Greenfield, a Boston
College law professor. “The next person denied a
permit under the Massachusetts law can go
immediately into federal court and get an injunction
requiring their permit be issued based on this
ruling. We’re not talking months, we’re talking
days.” ...
But the
police chief provision of state gun law may be under
threat in its current form. The Supreme Court
decision, known as New York State Rifle & Pistol
Association v. Bruen, prompted wide consternation
Thursday, even as Massachusetts officials are
holding up their own laws as a model for other
states to follow in the wake of a spate of deadly
mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y.; Uvalde, Texas; and
elsewhere.
“We need
to take urgent action,” said state Senator Jamie
Eldridge, the Senate chairman of the Legislature’s
judiciary committee. “We know that discretionary
language is gone, that essentially the police chief
is not going to be able to make a discretionary
decision. It’s a significant loss. . . . But it is
possible for us to craft a bill that very
specifically describes the situations or history
where a person shall not get a concealed weapon.”
That could
include, the Acton Democrat said, explicitly barring
those with certain records of violence or domestic
violence from having a license to carry, or
increasing the training requirements to get one.
What could
ultimately emerge is not yet clear. Lawmakers also
face a tight deadline for action: Their formal
sessions are scheduled to end for the year on July
31, meaning any package would have to emerge amid a
bottleneck of other major bills in coming weeks....
Elected
officials in Massachusetts were quick to note that
the decision would not spur any automatic changes in
the law here.
Terry
MacCormack, a spokesman for Governor Charlie Baker,
said the ruling has “no immediate effect on the
Commonwealth’s gun laws, which all remain in place.”
“We’re not
going to see people walking around in churches and
schools with guns on their side,” said state
Representative Michael S. Day, House chairman of the
judiciary committee. “Our scheme works. We believe
it’s constitutional and firmly within the strictures
of the Second Amendment. We’re going to look at
what, if any, impact this has on the underlying
regulatory scheme we have.” ...
Still,
legal observers warn, it’s simply a matter of time
until the ruling could weaken the reach of
Massachusetts law.
Jason A.
Guida, an attorney and former director of the
Massachusetts Firearms Records Bureau, said
lawmakers will have to quickly reconsider what power
local chiefs have, including what elements of a past
offense could prompt a license to be denied.
“Otherwise,” he said, “it’s going to be local police
departments being dragged into court. It’s going to
be case by case — and there’s a very big possibility
that chiefs’ discretion may be completely
eliminated.”
In a
statement, Attorney General Maura Healey, who is
running for governor, called the Supreme Court
opinion “reckless and anti-democratic,” adding it
“poses a grave danger to Americans as they go about
their daily lives in public spaces like
supermarkets, hospitals, and playgrounds.”
“I stand
by our common-sense gun laws and will continue to
vigorously defend and enforce them,” she said.
The
Boston Globe
Thursday, June 23, 2022
‘We’re talking
days.’ Supreme Court decision will put
Mass. gun laws at risk, experts say |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary |
|
Happy
Independence Day Weekend one and all
— celebrate it while
you still can, if you can afford to!
On Monday
The Boston Herald reported ("Decision
on tax cuts in Massachusetts delayed, again"):
Gov. Charlie Baker really
wants the Legislature to move forward with his
plan to cut taxes, hopefully before the end of
their session.
“There is always a lot of
stuff that is moving around when you get to the
last 30 days of the session. I just really want
to make sure that these tax proposals don’t get
lost,” he told a room full of reporters at the
State House Monday.
The leaders of the state
Legislature, who sent his January proposal to
committee months ago, seem disinclined to listen
at the moment, if their canceled meeting with
the governor is any indication.
They were to meet about two
hours later Monday, after Baker summoned the
press to his office to plead his case for tax
cuts, about $700 million worth.
The weekly leadership
meeting was apparently canceled, according to a
release sent out by Senate President Karen
Spilka’s office, 15 minutes before it was to
begin at 2 p.m., due to a scheduling conflict.
That conflict didn’t
prevent Spilka from meeting with House Speaker
Ronald Mariano, who was seen heading to her
office shortly after Baker’s staff confirmed the
governor’s meeting with the legislative leaders
had been dropped.
The New Boston Post reported on Tuesday ("Baker
Presses For Tax Cuts, Particularly For Senior Citizens"):
Baker called a press
conference Monday primarily to talk about tax
cuts for senior citizens.
In April, the governor
proposed several tax cuts totaling $700 million,
including lowering the tax burden for people 65
and older by doubling the senior circuit breaker
tax credit, which allows senior citizens whose
incomes are low enough to reduce their state
income taxes based on the amount they pay in
property taxes, either directly or through rent.
He also proposed doubling
the threshold for the state’s estate tax
(sometimes called the death tax), from $1
million to $2 million, and eliminating the
current provision in state law that calls for
taxing the full amount below the threshold,
which the administration calls the “cliff
effect.”
“A very small number of
states actually have an estate tax in the first
place. No state has an estate tax that’s as
aggressive as the estate tax in Massachusetts,”
Baker said during the press conference Monday,
June 27.
The current legislative
session is scheduled to end Sunday, July 31. To
date, the legislature has incorporated no tax
cuts into the budget....
“I think the main point
here is to make clear that there is a clock
that’s ticking, we all know that. July 31st is
right around the corner. There is a lot of work
in front of the legislature which is really
important and we hope gets done. But we thought
it was important to bring some of these folks
who spend a lot of time worrying about a
population that in many ways deserves to be
heard, which are the older adults here in
Massachusetts, who are for the most part on
fixed incomes, and who do make up the vast
majority, in many cases, of the categories that
we’re looking to try to help here with these
proposals. And I really do hope that they don’t
get lost in the conversation between now and the
end of the session,” Baker said....
Michael Heffernan, the
state’s secretary of administration and finance,
said the state government has more than enough
cash to pay for needed government services,
calling the state’s economy “historically
strong.”
Finally, on Friday the State House News Service
reported ("Baker Tax Relief Bill Clears
Committee Mostly Intact — Some
Consensus On Guv's Plan, But Cusack Says It's Work In Progress"):
The Legislature's Revenue
Committee advanced a $600 million tax relief
package on Friday, but the panel's House
chairman said the measure remains a work in
progress.
The committee voted 17-0,
according to House chairman Rep. Mark Cusack, to
advance a redraft of Gov. Charlie Baker's tax
relief plan that does not feature Baker's call
for a cut in the short-term capital gains rate.
Committee members were not interested in that
piece of the governor's bill, Cusack said.
"The rest of the bill is
intact," Cusack said.
Baker in January filed a
nearly $700 million package proposing tax breaks
for renters, seniors, parents and low-income
workers. He also recommended changes to the way
Massachusetts handles estate and capital gains
taxes.
The bill will be further
developed by the House Ways and Means Committee,
Cusack said, advising against viewing the
Revenue Committee bill as the House's plan.
"This is just moving it in
the process," said Cusack (D-Braintree), whose
panel faced a Friday deadline to make a
recommendation on the bill....
Senate President Karen
Spilka said last month that a tax relief package
may include changes to the earned income tax
credit and the estate tax.
Cusack on Friday mentioned
the earned income tax credit as an area of
potential interest among those studying tax
relief, and EITC bills were among a menu of
relief proposals that were "attached" to the
redraft of the governor's bill and released from
the Revenue Committee on Friday....
Baker has described the 12
percent tax on short-term capital gains as
"markedly uncompetitive compared to the rest of
the country" and says a 5 percent rate would
treat that money the same as other income and
align Massachusetts with other states. In 2019,
more than 150,000 filers paid the tax, more than
61,000 of whom had incomes below $112,000,
according to the governor's budget.
Additionally, Baker wants
to double tax credits for dependents and child
care, double the allowable maximum for the
senior circuit breaker property tax credit, and
increase the cap on deductions for rent payments
from $3,000 to $5,000....
A bipartisan consensus
around making changes to the estate tax has been
emerging, although the exact approach remains to
be seen. The estate tax is a transfer tax on the
value of a decedent's estate before distribution
to any beneficiary.
Under Baker's plan, the
threshold at which the estate tax kicks in would
double to $2 million. While the current tax
applies to the full value of estates over $1
million, Baker's bill (H 4361) would tax only
the amount above $2 million.
"The Legislature's Revenue
Committee advanced a $600 million tax relief package on Friday, but
the panel's House chairman [Rep. Mark Cusack] said the measure
remains a work in progress....
"Cusack on Friday
mentioned the earned income tax credit as an area of potential
interest among those studying tax relief, and EITC bills were among
a menu of relief proposals that were "attached" to the redraft of
the governor's bill and released from the Revenue Committee on
Friday."
Note that the committee's
rewritten version of Gov. Baker's "tax relief" dropped the refund by
$100 million over the governor's proposal, then it eliminates Baker's
proposed cut in the short-term capital gains rate (on higher
earners at a higher rate) — but adds an expansion of
the
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for lower-wage workers,
low-taxed-if-any and not mentioned in Baker's tax relief proposal.
This is the redistributionist scheme ("From each according to
ability to each according to need") I've been expecting
— a backdoor graduated income tax.
There seems to be little
if any tax relief for those who bore the heaviest burden of the
years of unconscionable over-taxation and multi-billion dollar state
revenue surpluses.
This is just more of the
Legislature's Democrat supermajority spending taxpayers'
over-payments where it decides to squander them.
How much in tax overpayments were extracted from Bay
State taxpayers? On Tuesday the State
House News Service noted ("Revenue Markup Likely To
Fuel Spending, Tax Relief, And Savings"):
The state
budget agreement that could come at any moment is
setting up like a politician's dream, with enough
revenue available to fund the most generous spending
plans on the negotiating table while still leaving
sufficient revenue to pay for a tax relief package
and drive up the state's rainy day savings account
to a new high.
According
to a new Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
analysis, if current collection trends continue
through June, fiscal 2022 will be the second
straight year in which the state has recorded tax
revenue growth of more than 20 percent over the
prior year, which means state tax collections will
have increased by more than 35 percent since fiscal
2020.
The
business-backed research group concluded it's likely
that the state will collect $3 billion or more in
tax collections in fiscal 2022 than either the House
or Senate budgets assumed would be collected in
fiscal 2023. That reality points to a second
straight year in which budget negotiators will
massively mark up expected revenues, and release a
spending compromise with something for everyone, and
then some.
The longtime creed on
Bacon Hill continues: "If we've got it, then by god spend it!"
The State
House News Service reported on Friday ("SJC To Weigh Mail-In Voting
Law Challenge Next Week"):
What
better way for a constitutional law scholar to spend
the Fourth of July than preparing briefs that could
determine the future of a major state expansion of
voting rights?
Lawyers
for the Massachusetts Republican Party and Secretary
of State William Galvin's office will undoubtedly be
deep into their law books this weekend preparing for
arguments on whether mail-in voting is consistent
with the state's Constitution.
Supreme
Judicial Court Chief Justice Scott Kafker said
Thursday the full court would consider the party's
request for an injunction to block Galvin from
mailing out ballot applications to the more than 4.7
million voters by July 23.
Republican
Party Chairman Jim Lyons and others have filed a
lawsuit seeking to overturn the law signed by Gov.
Charlie Baker making voting-by-mail permanent in
Massachusetts on the grounds that it violates the
state constitution's allowances for absentee voting.
"Due to
the significant time constraints in this matter, and
because the complaint raises wide-ranging and novel
constitutional challenges to the new election law
implicating the fundamental right to vote, I hereby
exercise my discretion to reserve and report the
matter to the full court for decision," Kafker wrote
in an order issued Thursday, scheduling oral
arguments in the case for next Wednesday and setting
a deadline for briefs to be filed on July 5....
Voting by
mail was first used during the COVID-19 pandemic to
protect public health, and became a popular option
that resulted in record turnout. Though the state's
constitution allows for absentee voting for three
reasons - a voter is going to be out of town, has a
disability, or has a religious-based conflict with
Election Day - the legal justification for voting by
mail hinged on the argument that the COVID-19
pandemic created a "disability" for all voters to
safely participate in elections.
With the
COVID-19 emergency lifted, Republicans contend the
practice should no longer be considered legal. "We
also have significant reasons to believe that
mail-in voting is especially vulnerable to fraud,"
Lyons said Thursday.
This new law was ripe for
constitutional challenge and I'm glad to see that's happening.
It's gratifying to see the state's Supreme Judicial Court recognizes
the importance of it. Now we must hope the constitution still
applies to Democrat lawmaking. Apparently we will know soon.
"Healey clears question to
repeal immigrant license law," "Voters belong in driver’s
seat on licenses for illegal immigrants," and "Maura Healey can’t sue her way out
of everything" demonstrates the above situation
regarding constitutional rights in Massachusetts. Submission
for a repeal referendum is a relatively simple process. Here's
the law we want to repeal; here are the ten voters who want to put
it on the ballot for voters to decide is handed to the Secretary of
State's office; petition request is sent to the state's printing
company, sponsors pick them up and begin collecting signatures.
Unlike an initiative
petition submitted to create a brand new law, the subject and
language of a repeal referendum do not need
to be vetted for constitutionality under Article 48
of the state constitution. I alone (mandatory seat belt law
repeal, twice) and with CLT (legislative pay raise repeals, twice)
have submitted repeal referenda and had the blank petitions ready to
circulate in a week, ten days. Attorney General Maura Healey,
a supporter of the illegal immigrant driver's licensing law, sat on
the repeal of the licenses for illegal immigrants petition
application for two weeks running out the clock before the
petitioning deadline.
Anyone interested in
helping collect signatures on that petition, signing one, or finding
a location where they are available can learn more at:
Fair and
Secure MA
Whatever you do
— DO
NOT — return any
of them to CLT or you will have wasted your time and postage.
The
State
House News Service on Friday provided insight into
the growing chaos in the final few weeks of the Legislature' formal
session ("Weekly Roundup - Slipping Into
the Future"):
Time
always operates in a strange way inside the halls of
the State House, and the oddity only ramps up as the
session's end approaches. Just look at the contrast
of the past week.
In the
span of about four days, top House Democrats
lamented the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision
striking down the national right to an abortion
enshrined in Roe v. Wade and rolled out, deliberated
and approved a lengthy response, sending to the
Senate a bill that if completed would rank among the
Legislature's most significant accomplishments in
the 2021-2022 session.
And when
the branches gaveled out Thursday for a four-day
weekend, they also stifled any lingering chance of
getting a finalized state budget to Gov. Charlie
Baker before fiscal 2023 started Friday, once again
missing a July 1 deadline that's the same every year
and comes after five months of budget hearings and
deliberations.
Legislative leaders have rarely met a deadline they
could not circumvent, postpone or ignore....
In the
meantime, Senate Democrats had their sights set on
other priorities, which have not yet surfaced for
votes in the House but could do so at any time in
July or languish until the final bang of the gavel
that will send the Legislature into a lower-stakes,
informal-only mode until January....
The list
of bills in play as Beacon Hill enters the home
stretch seems to grow faster than it shrinks.
Reforms to rein in the health insurer practice known
as "step therapy" landed in that group this week
with House approval of a bill; the Senate has not
tackled the topic this session, but did so in 2020
and will likely be inclined to return to the issue
now....
Massachusetts stepped into another spending cycle
Friday as the calendar flipped to July 1 and fiscal
year 2023 began. As has become the norm, though,
Fiscal New Year celebrations will be muted for
budget wonks because lawmakers again failed to
produce an on-time annual spending plan....
Massachusetts stands among limited company:
Pennsylvania and Michigan are the only other states
that have yet to finalize FY23 budgets, according to
the National Association of State Budget Officers.
"Legislative leaders have
rarely met a deadline they could not circumvent, postpone or ignore"
underscores the value and work ethic of the "full-time, overly-paid
Best Legislature Money Can Buy." Of the fifty states in
the nation, only Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are still
stumbling toward next fiscal year's state budgets. My
prediction is in the end Massachusetts will be the last state
holding that distinction, as usual.
I found reactions by
Massachusetts officials to last week's U.S. Supreme Court's historic
decisions on gun rights and overturning Row v. Wade enlightening and
so typical, and think you will as well.
New York State Rifle
& Pistol Association v. Bruen decision
overturning arbitrary firearms licensing
‘We’re talking
days.’ Supreme Court decision will put
Mass. gun laws at risk, experts say
The
Supreme Court decision Thursday striking down a New
York firearm law left Massachusetts lawmakers
searching for a fix that could help maintain the
state’s strict gun safety regime.
In the 6-3
decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that it’s
unconstitutional for New York to require someone to
prove a “special need” before getting a license to
carry a firearm in public. Legal experts expect the
ruling to quickly affect Massachusetts, one of five
states besides New York that have laws that the
court considers “analogues” to the standard struck
down by Thursday’s ruling....
“We need
to take urgent action,” said state Senator Jamie
Eldridge, the Senate chairman of the Legislature’s
judiciary committee. “We know that discretionary
language is gone, that essentially the police chief
is not going to be able to make a discretionary
decision. It’s a significant loss. . . . But it is
possible for us to craft a bill that very
specifically describes the situations or history
where a person shall not get a concealed weapon.”
That could
include, the Acton Democrat said, explicitly barring
those with certain records of violence or domestic
violence from having a license to carry, or
increasing the training requirements to get one....
Elected
officials in Massachusetts were quick to note that
the decision would not spur any automatic changes in
the law here.
Terry
MacCormack, a spokesman for Governor Charlie Baker,
said the ruling has “no immediate effect on the
Commonwealth’s gun laws, which all remain in place.”
“We’re not going to see
people walking around in churches and schools
with guns on their side,” said state
Representative Michael S. Day, House chairman of
the judiciary committee. “Our scheme works. We
believe it’s constitutional and firmly within
the strictures of the Second Amendment. We’re
going to look at what, if any, impact this has
on the underlying regulatory scheme we have.”
In a
statement, Attorney General Maura Healey, who is
running for governor, called the Supreme Court
opinion “reckless and anti-democratic,” adding it
“poses a grave danger to Americans as they go about
their daily lives in public spaces like
supermarkets, hospitals, and playgrounds.”
“I stand
by our common-sense gun laws and will continue to
vigorously defend and enforce them,” she said.
Dobbs v. Jackson
decision overturning Roe v. Wade
Baker: Mass. may
‘encourage’ employers in states that outlawed
abortion
to relocate to the Bay State
Governor
Charlie Baker said Monday the state may “encourage”
employers in places that have effectively outlawed
abortion to relocate to Massachusetts, where
abortion rights are enshrined in law and are among
the strongest in the country.
“I do
believe that having listened to and heard from a lot
of companies over the course of the past several
days about what this decision means with respect to
their workforces and their benefit plans that there
may in fact be a big opportunity here for
Massachusetts to encourage some employers to either
come here or expand their footprint here, as we are
a state that takes this issue seriously,” Baker
said....
Baker, a
rare Republican elected official who supports the
right to abortion, signed an executive order last
Friday that he said aimed to “protect reproductive
health care providers who serve out-of-state
residents.”
The order
banned executive state agencies from assisting
another state’s investigation into a person or group
for receiving or performing abortions that are legal
in Massachusetts or extraditing those patients or
providers. The order also addressed laws imposed in
states that criminalize abortions and other
services, and protects Massachusetts abortion
providers from losing their professional licenses or
receiving other professional discipline based on
potential out-of-state charges.
Baker, a
Swampscott resident who is not running for
reelection, was one of the only Republican governors
in the country to take such a stance in response to
the Supreme Court ruling.
“We
obviously spent the time between the time of [the
leaked Supreme Court ruling] draft and the issuance
of the ultimate decision, coming up with a plan that
would . . . provide relief to people who came here
from other states seeking those services safe,” he
said.
|
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|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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The
New Boston Post
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Baker Presses For Tax Cuts, Particularly For Senior Citizens
Governor Charlie Baker renewed efforts this week to get the
leaders of the state legislature to incorporate tax cuts
into the final state budget for Massachusetts for the coming
fiscal year.
Baker called a press conference Monday primarily to talk
about tax cuts for senior citizens.
In April, the governor proposed several tax cuts totaling
$700 million, including lowering the tax burden for people
65 and older by doubling the senior circuit breaker tax
credit, which allows senior citizens whose incomes are low
enough to reduce their state income taxes based on the
amount they pay in property taxes, either directly or
through rent.
He also proposed doubling the threshold for the state’s
estate tax (sometimes called the death tax), from $1 million
to $2 million, and eliminating the current provision in
state law that calls for taxing the full amount below the
threshold, which the administration calls the “cliff
effect.”
“A very small number of states actually have an estate tax
in the first place. No state has an estate tax that’s as
aggressive as the estate tax in Massachusetts,” Baker said
during the press conference Monday, June 27.
The current legislative session is scheduled to end Sunday,
July 31. To date, the legislature has incorporated no tax
cuts into the budget.
Baker, a Republican, said Democratic leaders in the state
legislature have expressed interest in tax cuts, but that he
is emphasizing the point now because he doesn’t want the
proposals to get lost in the shuffle.
“I think the main point here is to make clear that there is
a clock that’s ticking, we all know that. July 31st is right
around the corner. There is a lot of work in front of the
legislature which is really important and we hope gets done.
But we thought it was important to bring some of these folks
who spend a lot of time worrying about a population that in
many ways deserves to be heard, which are the older adults
here in Massachusetts, who are for the most part on fixed
incomes, and who do make up the vast majority, in many
cases, of the categories that we’re looking to try to help
here with these proposals. And I really do hope that they
don’t get lost in the conversation between now and the end
of the session,” Baker said.
The governor is also calling for doubling the dependent care
credit, increasing the threshold of income at which people
pay state income taxes, and lowering the short-term capital
gains tax to 5 percent, from the current 12 percent.
Michael Heffernan, the state’s secretary of administration
and finance, said the state government has more than enough
cash to pay for needed government services, calling the
state’s economy “historically strong.”
The Boston
Herald
Monday, June 27, 2022
Decision on tax cuts in Massachusetts delayed, again
By Matthew Medsger
Gov. Charlie Baker really wants the Legislature to move
forward with his plan to cut taxes, hopefully before the end
of their session.
“There is always a lot of stuff that is moving around when
you get to the last 30 days of the session. I just really
want to make sure that these tax proposals don’t get lost,”
he told a room full of reporters at the State House Monday.
The leaders of the state Legislature, who sent his January
proposal to committee months ago, seem disinclined to listen
at the moment, if their canceled meeting with the governor
is any indication.
They were to meet about two hours later Monday, after Baker
summoned the press to his office to plead his case for tax
cuts, about $700 million worth.
The weekly leadership meeting was apparently canceled,
according to a release sent out by Senate President Karen
Spilka’s office, 15 minutes before it was to begin at 2
p.m., due to a scheduling conflict.
That conflict didn’t prevent Spilka from meeting with House
Speaker Ronald Mariano, who was seen heading to her office
shortly after Baker’s staff confirmed the governor’s meeting
with the legislative leaders had been dropped.
The pair may have been dodging the governor out of simple
necessity.
They don’t have a whole lot of time left to get their work
done; the session is supposed to end before August.
There are a number of sizable bills still pending, including
a bill that would legalize sports betting and a mental
health care investment both leaders have cited as important.
Besides which, they were to finish hammering out the
differences between the two chambers’ equally large but
substantively different nearly $50 billion budget this week.
House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz was seen
entering Spilka’s office with Mariano. Any budget
negotiations between the two chambers is bound to include
him.
Their negotiations may not being going too well, if their
morning activities are any indication. The Legislature sent
Baker a $6 billion temporary spending plan to cover the time
between the end of this fiscal year and when they come to a
compromise.
“As the legislative session comes to a close, and given the
recent SCOTUS opinions, the Speaker and House leadership are
busy with active discussions about pending legislative
items,” a spokesperson for Mariano told reporters as he went
into Spilka’s office.
Legislative leaders have told the press they will consider
some form of tax relief, but not exactly what Baker has
asked for. Baker’s plan would provide relief for low-income
residents of the commonwealth, seniors, and renters, and
lower the estate and capital gains taxes.
— Herald wire services
contributed.
State House News
Service
Friday, July 1, 2022
Baker Tax Relief Bill Clears Committee Mostly Intact
Some Consensus On Guv's Plan, But Cusack Says It's Work In
Progress
By Michael P. Norton
The Legislature's Revenue Committee advanced a $600 million
tax relief package on Friday, but the panel's House chairman
said the measure remains a work in progress.
The committee voted 17-0, according to House chairman Rep.
Mark Cusack, to advance a redraft of Gov. Charlie Baker's
tax relief plan that does not feature Baker's call for a cut
in the short-term capital gains rate. Committee members were
not interested in that piece of the governor's bill, Cusack
said.
"The rest of the bill is intact," Cusack said.
Baker in January filed a nearly $700 million package
proposing tax breaks for renters, seniors, parents and
low-income workers. He also recommended changes to the way
Massachusetts handles estate and capital gains taxes.
The bill will be further developed by the House Ways and
Means Committee, Cusack said, advising against viewing the
Revenue Committee bill as the House's plan.
"This is just moving it in the process," said Cusack
(D-Braintree), whose panel faced a Friday deadline to make a
recommendation on the bill.
As for the rest of the measures in Baker's bill, Cusack
said, "These are the areas that we had some consensus on,
some interest in."
Senate President Karen Spilka said last month that a tax
relief package may include changes to the earned income tax
credit and the estate tax.
Cusack on Friday mentioned the earned income tax credit as
an area of potential interest among those studying tax
relief, and EITC bills were among a menu of relief proposals
that were "attached" to the redraft of the governor's bill
and released from the Revenue Committee on Friday.
The committee voted on the governor's bills (H 4361 Redraft
| H 4362 Redraft) and others after issuing an electronic
poll on Thursday night, with the voting closing at 1 p.m.
Friday.
"The cost of just about everything is going up, and these
tax breaks would help offset some of those costs for
families," Baker said when he rolled out his plan in
January. "From a fiscal point of view, Massachusetts is in a
very strong financial position and able to offer this tax
relief while continuing to make big investments in our
people, our schools and our communities."
Baker has described the 12 percent tax on short-term capital
gains as "markedly uncompetitive compared to the rest of the
country" and says a 5 percent rate would treat that money
the same as other income and align Massachusetts with other
states. In 2019, more than 150,000 filers paid the tax, more
than 61,000 of whom had incomes below $112,000, according to
the governor's budget.
Additionally, Baker wants to double tax credits for
dependents and child care, double the allowable maximum for
the senior circuit breaker property tax credit, and increase
the cap on deductions for rent payments from $3,000 to
$5,000.
The Republican governor is also looking to raise the income
level at which people are required to file taxes, a move the
Executive Office of Administration of Finance says would
affect about 234,000 low-income taxpayers and cost the state
$41 million on an annualized basis. Currently, Massachusetts
residents must file an income tax return if they earn $8,000
as a single filer, $14,400 as a head of household, or
$16,400 as joint filers. His plan would raise the no-tax
threshold to align with the federal level, bringing it to
$12,400 for single filers, $18,650 for heads of households,
and $24,800 for joint filers.
A bipartisan consensus around making changes to the estate
tax has been emerging, although the exact approach remains
to be seen. The estate tax is a transfer tax on the value of
a decedent's estate before distribution to any beneficiary.
Under Baker's plan, the threshold at which the estate tax
kicks in would double to $2 million. While the current tax
applies to the full value of estates over $1 million,
Baker's bill (H 4361) would tax only the amount above $2
million.
Some have argued for estate tax changes to reflect the rise
in real estate values and help families that are house-rich
and cash-poor, but the Massachusetts Budget and Policy
Center has also warned against estate tax law changes that
could deliver big tax relief to larger estates.
A Baker spokesperson did not respond to a request for
comment on Friday afternoon.
State House News
Service
Monday, June 27, 2022
Interim Budget On Move Ahead Of Annual Deadline
By Michael P. Norton
Without a budget deal for the fiscal year that starts on
Friday, House Democrats on Monday began advancing an interim
budget that will keep government services funded and prevent
shutdowns while work continues on a nearly $50 billion
annual spending plan.
At about 9:45 a.m. Monday, members of the House Ways and
Means Committee were asked to vote by 10:30 a.m. on the
interim budget. The House plans an 11 a.m. session Monday
where the spending bill could advance. The Senate also meets
at 11 a.m. Monday.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and the Democrats who run the
Legislature have routinely approved interim budgets each
year since the Legislature is often unable to get a
full-year budget in place on time for the July 1 start of
each fiscal year.
Baker last Wednesday filed the interim budget (H 4911). It
authorizes $6 billion in spending "to maintain necessary
services through July" and allows advance local aid payments
to cities and towns that demonstration an emergency cash
shortfall.
Budget talks that drag into July could pull the
Legislature's collective attention away from the glut of
major bills, and others that have yet to begin advancing,
ahead of the July 31 deadline to finish work on major bills
before election season kicks in.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Revenue Markup Likely To Fuel Spending, Tax Relief, And
Savings
MTF Also Warns Capital Gains Wave Won't Continue
By Michael P. Norton
The state budget agreement that could come at any moment is
setting up like a politician's dream, with enough revenue
available to fund the most generous spending plans on the
negotiating table while still leaving sufficient revenue to
pay for a tax relief package and drive up the state's rainy
day savings account to a new high.
According to a new Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
analysis, if current collection trends continue through
June, fiscal 2022 will be the second straight year in which
the state has recorded tax revenue growth of more than 20
percent over the prior year, which means state tax
collections will have increased by more than 35 percent
since fiscal 2020.
The business-backed research group concluded it's likely
that the state will collect $3 billion or more in tax
collections in fiscal 2022 than either the House or Senate
budgets assumed would be collected in fiscal 2023. That
reality points to a second straight year in which budget
negotiators will massively mark up expected revenues, and
release a spending compromise with something for everyone,
and then some.
The new fiscal year begins Friday, but Beacon Hill leaders
have agreed on bill to keep the government funded in July
while annual budget talks continue.
Last year, the House-Senate budget conference committee
increased their estimate of available tax revenues by $4.2
billion. This year, MTF is looking at the current economic
environment and recommending a markup range of between $2.3
billion and $3.8 billion, warning that the surge in
investment-related capital gains tax revenues won't
continue. In fact, the foundation is advising budget
conferees to "account for this uncertainty by assuming that
non-withheld income collections decline in FY 2023."
However, in both of its upgrade scenarios, MTF sees the next
state budget having the capacity to shoulder both House and
Senate spending priorities and a tax relief package north of
$600 million, while still enabling the state to bulk its
savings account up past $8 billion.
Under its scenarios, and after accounting for mandatory
revenue sweeps to the rainy day fund, MBTA and the School
Building Authority, MTF estimates that between $1.5 billion
and $2.5 billion will be available to allocate, so the scope
of any tax relief will hinge in part on the size of the
revenue markup.
Despite frequent prodding from Gov. Charlie Baker, House and
Senate Democrats haven't advanced tax relief as part of the
budget, but plan to do so in a separate bill, mostly likely
next month before formal sessions come to an end for the
year on July 31.
On the spending front, MTF analysts say there's more than
$49.6 billion in spending that's common to both the House
and Senate budgets. Negotiators are focused on about $1.6
billion in appropriations that are unique to either the
House or Senate budgets, or a record amount of so-called
unique spending.
The House's fiscal 2023 budget includes $704 million in
spending not included in the Senate budget; the Senate
budget has $868 million in unique spending initiatives. By
comparison, MTF says the fiscal 2022 budget included $588
million in unique spending.
To accommodate all of the unique spending in each budget,
negotiators would have to raise the bottom line on the
fiscal 2023 budget to about $51.2 billion, or $700 million
above the bottom line of the Senate budget, MTF said.
There's a lot riding on the outcome of the unique spending
initiatives. Two of those - a $265 million Senate early
education plan and a $110 million plan from the House to
fund universal school meals - stem from an interest in
continuing pandemic-era programs.
The Senate budget also features $40 million in nursing home
rate funding and $32 million in unrestricted local aid
that's not included in the House budget, while the House has
voted for $40 million in wage increases for elder care, $20
million to making phone calls free for people who are
incarcerated, and $51 million to boost community programs
for individuals with developmental disabilities.
State House News
Service
Friday, July 1, 2022
SJC To Weigh Mail-In Voting Law Challenge Next Week
By Matt Murphy
What better way for a constitutional law scholar to spend
the Fourth of July than preparing briefs that could
determine the future of a major state expansion of voting
rights?
Lawyers for the Massachusetts Republican Party and Secretary
of State William Galvin's office will undoubtedly be deep
into their law books this weekend preparing for arguments on
whether mail-in voting is consistent with the state's
Constitution.
Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Scott Kafker said
Thursday the full court would consider the party's request
for an injunction to block Galvin from mailing out ballot
applications to the more than 4.7 million voters by July 23.
Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons and others have filed a
lawsuit seeking to overturn the law signed by Gov. Charlie
Baker making voting-by-mail permanent in Massachusetts on
the grounds that it violates the state constitution's
allowances for absentee voting.
"Due to the significant time constraints in this matter, and
because the complaint raises wide-ranging and novel
constitutional challenges to the new election law
implicating the fundamental right to vote, I hereby exercise
my discretion to reserve and report the matter to the full
court for decision," Kafker wrote in an order issued
Thursday, scheduling oral arguments in the case for next
Wednesday and setting a deadline for briefs to be filed on
July 5.
Voting by mail was first used during the COVID-19 pandemic
to protect public health, and became a popular option that
resulted in record turnout. Though the state's constitution
allows for absentee voting for three reasons - a voter is
going to be out of town, has a disability, or has a
religious-based conflict with Election Day - the legal
justification for voting by mail hinged on the argument that
the COVID-19 pandemic created a "disability" for all voters
to safely participate in elections.
With the COVID-19 emergency lifted, Republicans contend the
practice should no longer be considered legal. "We also have
significant reasons to believe that mail-in voting is
especially vulnerable to fraud," Lyons said Thursday.
Galvin has dismissed the GOP complaint as being without
merit, and some legal experts have suggested mail-in voting
is a form of early voting, distinct from Election Day voting
covered by the Constitution. But even proponents predicted
the concept would someday likely have its day in court.
The
Eagle-Tribune
Monday, June 27, 2022
Healey clears question to repeal immigrant license law
By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter
Attorney General Maura Healey has cleared a proposed
referendum for the November ballot seeking to repeal a new
state law authorizing state driver's licenses for
undocumented immigrants.
On Monday, Healey wrote to Secretary of State Bill Galvin
that a review of the proposed referendum by her office
determined that the proposal meets the legal criteria to
appear on the ballot.
The move clears a path for opponents of the controversial
law to begin gathering the 40,000 signatures of registered
voters needed to make the Nov. 8 ballot, which must be
turned into local election clerks before the deadline Aug.
24.
Two weeks ago, Galvin wrote to Healey asking for a legal
review of the proposal to determine if it is subject to the
state's initiative petition law and requested "a fair and
concise" summary of the ballot question.
"Given the constitutional time constraints, your prompt
attention to this matter is appreciated," Galvin wrote in
the June 15 letter.
The state's Republican Party, which is behind the repeal
effort, accused Healey of "slow-walking" the process of
reviewing and certifying the referendum, using "political
maneuvers" to delay the gathering of signatures. Healey is a
vocal supporter of the new law.
"Every day that goes by while these delay tactics continue
is a day that the referendum's supporters lose," MassGOP
Chairman Jim Lyons said in a recent statement. "Maura Healey
is clearly catering to far-left special interest groups and
delaying what is a mere legal formality."
A Healey spokeswoman declined to comment on the GOP's claims
but said the Attorney General's Office certified a summary
of the referendum on Monday as required by law.
Under the new rules, which would take effect next year,
immigrants without legal residency status can only acquire
standard driver’s licenses, not federally authorized Real
ID-compliant versions. Applicants would be required to
produce at least two official identity documents. They will
also need to prove Massachusetts residency to get a driver’s
license.
Supporters of the law say it would 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.
Democrats, who have supermajorities in the House and Senate,
pushed the bill through the Legislature amid opposition from
Republican lawmakers and even some members of their own
party.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed the bill, 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 it 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 two weeks ago.
Within days, Lyons announced plans to pursue a ballot
question asking voters to overturn the new law.
The issue has become fodder in the governor's race with
Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl sending a
fundraising email to supporters on Monday accusing Healey of
delaying certification of the ballot question for political
reasons.
Healey is the only Democrat in the race to succeed Baker,
who is not seeking a third term.
— Christian M. Wade covers
the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media
Group’s newspapers and websites.
The Boston
Herald
Friday, July 1, 2022
A Boston Herald editorial
Voters belong in driver’s seat on licenses for illegal
immigrants
If opponents of a new state law allowing illegal immigrants
to obtain drivers licenses in Massachusetts are successful,
the law’s repeal will go before voters in Massachusetts.
That’s where the issue belongs.
While the bill has been kicking around in the state
Legislature for more than two decades, it was passed this
year — and promptly vetoed by Gov. Charlie Baker. Lawmakers
overrode his veto and the measure is set to go into effect
next summer.
“I cannot sign this legislation because it requires the
Registry of Motor Vehicles to issue state credentials to
people without the ability to verify their identity. The
Registry does not have the expertise or ability to verify
the validity of many types of documents from other
countries,” Baker said in his veto letter.
It is indeed a tall order for the beleaguered RMV, which has
recently weathered a series of scandals, including the 2019
out-of-state violations debacle. Recently, some RMV workers
allegedly gave out licenses without making drivers take a
road test. More than 2,000 drivers who were granted licenses
without these tests were sent letters and advised they had
to retake the tests within 10 days, though many insisted
that they had, in fact, passed the test to begin with.
This would be the agency in charge of verifying illegal
immigrants’ identities.
The governor isn’t the only one with misgivings about the
law.
According to a recent UMass Amherst/ WCVB poll, the
legislation is not widely supported, with 46% polled against
and 40% in favor.
Though progressive pols are predictably on board — Mayor
Michelle Wu issued a statement saying “All Boston and
Massachusetts adults deserve access to driver’s licenses
regardless of immigration status. I support the Family
Mobility Act because it will make all of us safer ” — Bay
State voters deserve a voice in a matter than will impact us
all.
“A plurality of residents opposes legislation that would
allow undocumented immigrants to be eligible for a driver’s
license in the state,” political science professor Jesse
Rhodes said when the poll was released.
Surely, that counts for something.
Maureen Maloney, whose son was killed by a drunk driver who
was not in the U.S. legally, is leading The Fair and Secure
MA committee to get the license law on the ballot.
Maloney has told the Herald she thinks her group will be
able to get the required amount of support. It has to hit
40,000 signatures by Aug. 24.
Jessica Vaughn of the Center for Immigration Studies also
decries the law.
“Allowing the registry to issue driver’s licenses to illegal
aliens is asking for problems,” Vaughn said. “This will make
it possible for more identity fraud, allow people to create
new identities, and most importantly, allow people in this
country illegally to obtain a document enabling them live in
commonwealth as if they were there legally.”
Vaughn said driver’s licenses are “key” to accessing jobs
and benefits and doling them out is a “slap in the face” to
those who “waited their turn and were vetted and settled in
the state legally.”
Vaughn is right — and overriding the concept of legality
sets a bad precedent.
The disparity between those who approve and disapprove of
the license law should be reason enough to put this
important piece of legislation before the voters.
The Boston
Herald
Friday, July 1, 2022
Maura Healey can’t sue her way out of everything
By Peter Lucas
Democrat Attorney General Maura Healey ought to go back to
suing Donald Trump.
She had more luck back when Trump was president than she
does now. Not that she would begin to sue hapless Joe Biden,
a fellow Democrat, whom she supports. That is verboten.
Healey, a party to three major suits before the
Trump-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, lost out on all three
when the court ruled on abortion, the New York
concealed-carry gun law and the school prayer issue.
She was lucky not to be a party to the suit in which the New
York Supreme Court struck down a law that would have allowed
non-citizens to vote in local elections that was approved by
the New York City Council. She would have lost that one too.
As it was, though, Healey did her best to advance the rights
of illegal immigrants by slow-walking approval of a ballot
question granting illegal immigrants driver’s licenses.
Healey, the Democrat candidate for governor, is in favor of
the driver’s license proposal which many conservatives
believe is a step toward granting non-citizens access to the
voting booth.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed the measure, but it
became law after the Democrat-controlled Legislature
overrode his veto.
Republicans, led by party chairman Jim Lyons, sought to get
the issue on the 2022 ballot, a referendum question the
wording of which had to be approved by Healey.
Lyons is supported by both Republican candidates for
governor, Geoff Diehl, who was endorsed by the Republican
convention, and Wrentham businessman Chris Doughty.
After accusations that she was delaying approval in order to
hinder the GOP from gathering the 40,000 signatures needed
to get on the ballot, Healey finally cleared the issue last
week. The GOP must gather and file the signatures by the
Aug. 24 deadline.
Healey’s delaying tactics came as no surprise to anyone who
has covered Massachusetts politics for any length of time.
I have covered and/or known 11 attorneys general, Republican
and Democrat — and even worked for one — and have found that
Healey is the most one-sided and politically partisan of
them all.
She filed more than 50 lawsuits against Republican Trump and
endorsed even more that were filed by fellow Democrat
attorneys general. They ranged from the environment to
Trump’s border policy.
While they did not go anywhere, she was praised by the woke
left-wing media for “taking on” Trump.
She has not filed a single legal action against Biden or the
Biden administration, and this includes Biden’s humanitarian
horror show down at the Mexican border.
As a matter of fact, she openly criticized a group of fellow
attorneys general — Republicans, of course — for having the
audacity to file suit against Biden over his disastrous open
border policy that is flooding the country with illegal
immigrant criminals and deadly fentanyl.
No sooner did the Republican attorneys general file their
suit challenging Biden’s chaotic immigration policy than
Healey accused them of seeking to block Biden’s “rollback of
Trump’s cruel immigration policy.”
She said, “For four years, Republican AGs were complicit in
Donald Trump’s lies, hatred and attacks on our rule of law.
Now they are launching baseless, politically motivated
attacks on President Biden.”
It does not seem to matter that immigration lawsuit filed by
the Republican attorneys general against Biden is similar to
the suit filed by Healey and the Democrats against Trump.
The difference is that Trump, whatever you think of him, had
a border policy that worked. Biden has a policy that is
killing people and destroying the country. And Healey still
supports it.
Hence, no lawsuits, nor even any remarks about the latest
group of 53 illegal immigrants who suffered a ghastly death
locked in the trailer truck.
They were probably Republicans.
— Peter Lucas is a veteran
Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
State House News
Service
Friday, July 1, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Slipping Into the Future
By Chris Lisinski
Time always operates in a strange way inside the halls of
the State House, and the oddity only ramps up as the
session's end approaches. Just look at the contrast of the
past week.
In the span of about four days, top House Democrats lamented
the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the
national right to an abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade and
rolled out, deliberated and approved a lengthy response,
sending to the Senate a bill that if completed would rank
among the Legislature's most significant accomplishments in
the 2021-2022 session.
And when the branches gaveled out Thursday for a four-day
weekend, they also stifled any lingering chance of getting a
finalized state budget to Gov. Charlie Baker before fiscal
2023 started Friday, once again missing a July 1 deadline
that's the same every year and comes after five months of
budget hearings and deliberations.
Legislative leaders have rarely met a deadline they could
not circumvent, postpone or ignore. The approaching July 31
end of formal business for the two-year session is
different, though, and success or failure for most top
proposals will hinge on what happens by that date.
Most of the measures in the House's Dobbs v.
Jackson-prompted bill, including new legal protections for
providers and patients of reproductive and gender-affirming
care in Massachusetts, had not been top of mind since the
start of the 2021-2022 session.
The final vote -- 136-17, with more Republicans in favor
than opposed -- was not close, but the proceedings
themselves were some of the most vocal in recent memory.
More than 30 representatives, most of them women, spoke
about the bill or the baker's dozen amendments filed.
Underscoring the stakes at play in the matter, Reps. Carol
Doherty of Taunton, Mindy Domb of Amherst, Meghan Kilcoyne
of Clinton and Vanna Howard of Lowell each delivered their
first-ever floor speeches, back to back to back to back.
"Last week's Supreme Court decision tries to turn back the
clock, but we won't go back," Domb told her colleagues. "Our
constituents are angry and worried for themselves, their
children, their neighbors and our country. They understand
what's at stake. Make no mistake: eliminating abortion care
and access is the beginning of efforts to deny all of us the
ability to make our most personal and private decisions --
whether to access and use birth control, who and how we
choose to love and to marry, the right to seek and obtain
health care that serves our and our children's authentic
selves without fear of criminal prosecution."
Eyes turn now to the Senate, which approved similar legal
protections and emergency contraception access measures via
a budget amendment. It's not clear when the chamber would
take up the standalone House-approved bill, but it seems
likely senators will want another chance to champion the
proposal and stamp their mark.
In the meantime, Senate Democrats had their sights set on
other priorities, which have not yet surfaced for votes in
the House but could do so at any time in July or languish
until the final bang of the gavel that will send the
Legislature into a lower-stakes, informal-only mode until
January.
The Senate on Thursday approved an HIV prevention medication
access bill, sought to strike archaic language and sodomy
bans from state law, and secured passage of two criminal
justice reform bills that Republicans had delayed for a week
using parliamentary tactics at their disposal.
And in the middle of that process, a trio of top Democrats
broke off to paint a broadstrokes outline of an early
education and care bill they will bring to the Senate floor
next week.
The proposal would make more families eligible for
taxpayer-funded child care aid, create new loan forgiveness
and scholarship programs for early education workers, call
for a new state-designed "career ladder" with compensation
tiers, and make permanent grants for providers who offer
access to subsidized families.
There's a chance, though, that the Senate's upcoming vote
will be not much more than an exercise in laying a
foundation for action next year or the year after that. The
bill was outlined without any cost estimate, or timeline,
and was received with some apprehension in the House.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano has already suggested bringing
forward an early education and care package in the 2023-2024
session based on the feedback of business leaders. His top
education deputy, Rep. Alice Peisch, cautioned this week
about a "very challenging timeline" for her chamber to
receive the amended Senate bill, approve a counterproposal,
and get a final version on the books by the end of July.
The list of bills in play as Beacon Hill enters the home
stretch seems to grow faster than it shrinks. Reforms to
rein in the health insurer practice known as "step therapy"
landed in that group this week with House approval of a
bill; the Senate has not tackled the topic this session, but
did so in 2020 and will likely be inclined to return to the
issue now.
Many of Baker's top legislative goals for his final year in
office are still bottled up, including a previously stalled
measure to change how courts detain potentially dangerous
suspects and a tax relief package that Democrats continue to
keep under wraps behind the committee curtain.
The outgoing Republican indicated he might add to that pile,
too, offering a vague-but-eye-catching hint that he could
propose "something between now and the end of the year" to
support the MBTA's operating budget, which is set to careen
off a fiscal cliff in the face of sagging fare revenues and
expiring federal assistance.
Massachusetts stepped into another spending cycle Friday as
the calendar flipped to July 1 and fiscal year 2023 began.
As has become the norm, though, Fiscal New Year celebrations
will be muted for budget wonks because lawmakers again
failed to produce an on-time annual spending plan.
An interim budget to which lawmakers and Baker agreed will
keep government operations funded through the end of July,
relieving any pressure House-Senate negotiators might have
felt to find common ground before Friday.
The governor has been content to let Democrats take their
time, opting against using the bully pulpit to exert
pressure and criticize them for failing to meet deadlines.
Massachusetts stands among limited company: Pennsylvania and
Michigan are the only other states that have yet to finalize
FY23 budgets, according to the National Association of State
Budget Officers. The latter, whose fiscal year does not
start until Oct. 1, appears close with an agreement
announced between legislative leaders and the governor.
"I mean I don't, you know, I think that people are talking,"
said Sen. Cindy Friedman, one of three senators tasked with
negotiating a final budget alongside three representatives,
when asked Wednesday if a deal might emerge by the end of
the week.
State House News
Service
Friday, July 1, 2022
Advances - Week of July 3, 2022
As the calendar turns to the session's final month of formal
meetings, House and Senate Democrats are growing more
mindful that in addition to their own desire, or
unwillingness, to compromise, time is also now becoming a
potential enemy of the substantial work product they've left
to the proverbial last minute.
It's not just about getting the big bills to Gov. Charlie
Baker's desk by midnight on July 31 - don't forget the final
formals could occur on a Saturday and Sunday this year. In
order for the major new laws they're creating to look the
way they want them to, Democrats are sizing up the potential
for gubernatorial amendments and vetoes, and the impacts of
dilatory tactics allowed in the Senate, to muck up their
plans.
The governor gets ten days to review bills, and in some
cases could send legislation back with amendments, and then
take more time before vetoing the final product if it comes
back in a form not to his liking. For instance, in December
2020, during extended formal sessions, it took the
Legislature 25 days to overcome Baker's amendments to the
ROE Act and his subsequent veto of that bill.
Let's Make Deals?
By and large, Baker during his long tenure has been willing
to go along with most major bills steered to him. However,
the governor, whose cooperation Democrats may need on some
initiatives, has had some sharp disagreements with the
Legislature. He recently vetoed the bill authorizing
driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, for instance,
and in 2021 vetoed a sweeping climate roadmap bill after the
last session expired. But Baker is also looking for his own
policy wins in July, including a bill to make it easier for
police and the courts to detain criminal defendants deemed a
risk to the community.
The point in the session is fast approaching when Beacon
Hill powerbrokers can mix and match and make deals. Asked
last November if he could possibly trade a vote on sports
betting in the Senate for consideration of Senate President
Karen Spilka's mental health bill, House Speaker Ron Mariano
said: "I have seen things traded, so there's always an
opportunity for discussion, and whether it be those two
things for each other or something else for something else,
listen, it goes on and certainly I'm happy to talk about any
of this stuff with her."
To avoid any risk that Baker can stand in their way,
lawmakers may want to get controversial proposals to his
desk in the first half of the month. After that, risks rise
for them, and that's not even taking into account the
possibility that Democrats may not be able to agree among
themselves on major matters. They've proven that on numerous
occasions. Four years ago talks on major health care and
education proposals collapsed in late July.
Legislative leaders this year also need to refresh their
approach to the July deadline, since two years ago they took
the rare step during the teeth of the pandemic to extend
formal sessions through 2020. Spilka was just stepping into
her role as president in late July 2018, and Mariano was
majority leader then.
Endless Possibilities
It's shaping up as a fascinating month, with action possible
on energy and climate policies, sports betting, mental
health, and marijuana policies that are already before
six-member conference committees. Infrastructure spending,
economic development and tax relief bills face a longer
journey, but are still expected to reach the governor.
There's also the case of another overdue state budget. In
four of the last five years, budget accords were struck in
July, and that's a safe bet this year as well since the
budget is not going to get kicked into the five-month
informal session stretch that begins in August and runs up
until a new Legislature is seated in January.
The House has scheduled as many as three formal sessions
next week, an indication that leaders may feel a budget deal
is close. What makes July really chaotic though is the late
introduction of major new bills to the mix. The Senate, for
instance, plans to pass a sweeping early education bill (S
2973) on Thursday, even though House leaders appear reticent
about tackling another major commitment with so little time
remaining on the clock.
That's another point about this stage of the session: it's
the time when lawmakers start suggesting there's not enough
time to do important things, conveniently not mentioning
that most bills have been hung up in or idling in committees
for about 18 months.
One bill that may be on the Senate scheduling fast track
arrived from the House this week and represents a
comprehensive reproductive rights response to the Supreme
Court's rolling back of Roe v. Wade.
NO JUNE REVENUES: If it were any month but July, the
Department of Revenue would be due Wednesday to report on
the previous month's tax collections. August through June,
DOR details tax receipts of the month that just ended by the
third business day of the new month. But state law includes
a key exception for the last month of the state's fiscal
year: "[P]rovided, however, that the commissioner shall
submit the report for June on the day after the department
completes the processing of June tax revenues." Generally,
DOR reports June revenues -- and, with them, a good idea of
the size of the surplus the Legislature will have at its
disposal -- around the middle of July.
Through May, DOR had collected $36.969 billion in tax
revenue for fiscal year 2022 -- $4.726 billion or 15.5
percent more than the same period in fiscal 2021 and $1.965
billion or 5.9 percent ahead of benchmark.
The Boston
Globe
Monday, June 27, 2022
Baker: Mass. may ‘encourage’ employers in states that
outlawed abortion
to relocate to the Bay State
By Samantha J. Gross
Governor Charlie Baker said Monday the state may “encourage”
employers in places that have effectively outlawed abortion
to relocate to Massachusetts, where abortion rights are
enshrined in law and are among the strongest in the country.
“I do believe that having listened to and heard from a lot
of companies over the course of the past several days about
what this decision means with respect to their workforces
and their benefit plans that there may in fact be a big
opportunity here for Massachusetts to encourage some
employers to either come here or expand their footprint
here, as we are a state that takes this issue seriously,”
Baker said.
In the wake of a US Supreme Court decision that ended
constitutional protections for abortion, Baker told
reporters he has been “tracking” companies across the
country where chief executives have promised employees that
they would expense reimbursement for those seeking abortions
in another state or fund health savings accounts that could
pay for such services. After a memo previewing the high
court’s decision on the case leaked last month, companies
began to come out with such policies. On Friday, others made
statements expressing similar sentiments.
Some companies that stayed silent last month spoke up for
the first time Friday, including The Walt Disney Co., which
said it will reimburse employees who must travel out of
state to get an abortion.
Facebook parent Meta, American Express, Bank of America, and
Goldman Sachs also said they would cover travel costs.
Companies like Apple, Starbucks, Lyft, and Yelp reiterated
previous announcements taking similar action.
More than a dozen states have “trigger laws” that
effectively banned abortion at varying stages upon the high
court’s ruling last week.
Baker, a rare Republican elected official who supports the
right to abortion, signed an executive order last Friday
that he said aimed to “protect reproductive health care
providers who serve out-of-state residents.”
The order banned executive state agencies from assisting
another state’s investigation into a person or group for
receiving or performing abortions that are legal in
Massachusetts or extraditing those patients or providers.
The order also addressed laws imposed in states that
criminalize abortions and other services, and protects
Massachusetts abortion providers from losing their
professional licenses or receiving other professional
discipline based on potential out-of-state charges.
Baker, a Swampscott resident who is not running for
reelection, was one of the only Republican governors in the
country to take such a stance in response to the Supreme
Court ruling.
“We obviously spent the time between the time of [the leaked
Supreme Court ruling] draft and the issuance of the ultimate
decision, coming up with a plan that would . . . provide
relief to people who came here from other states seeking
those services safe,” he said.
Business groups applauded Baker’s executive order,
underscoring their opposition to the Supreme Court ruling
and promising to make Massachusetts a welcoming environment
for employers who support a person’s right to choose an
abortion.
The Mass Technology Leadership Council, a network of tech
executives and entrepreneurs, slammed the high court
decision for its “potential to limit [women’s] economic
independence and progress.”
Associated Industries of Massachusetts, which represents
3,500 businesses from various industries throughout the
state, said in a statement it supports the efforts employers
are making to respond to the high court ruling, and made
clear its “support for women’s equality on every front.”
Jesse Mermell, a consultant who used to work as an adviser
to Governor Deval Patrick and as a senior leader at the
state’s Planned Parenthood League, said it’s long been the
case that employers and workers have been lured to
Massachusetts by progressive state policies like a higher
minimum wage, paid family leave, and earned sick time. When
she worked for Patrick, the administration pursued a similar
recruiting effort for life sciences and clean energy
industries.
“We know that states that have policies that support workers
and support families attract employers and attract
employees,” said Mermell, who also served as president of
the Alliance for Business Leadership and ran for Congress in
2020. “Employers already want to come here for that . . . I
have every reason to believe that abortion will be on the
radar screen for major companies.”
In recent years, Massachusetts has expanded access to
abortion and repealed old antiabortion measures, helping
ensure it remains legal here regardless of federal judicial
action. In 2020, abortion rights were expanded and formally
codified in state law, despite Baker’s veto of the
legislation, dubbed the Roe Act.
At the time, Baker said he “strongly” supported aspects of
the legislation, but vetoed it because he said he could not
support sections “that expand the availability of later-term
abortions and permit minors age 16 and 17 to get an abortion
without the consent of a parent or guardian.”
— Material from the
Associated Press was used in this report.
The Boston
Globe
Thursday, June 23, 2022
‘We’re talking days.’ Supreme Court decision will put
Mass. gun laws at risk, experts say
By Matt Stout
The Supreme Court decision Thursday striking down a New York
firearm law left Massachusetts lawmakers searching for a fix
that could help maintain the state’s strict gun safety
regime.
In the 6-3 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that it’s
unconstitutional for New York to require someone to prove a
“special need” before getting a license to carry a firearm
in public. Legal experts expect the ruling to quickly affect
Massachusetts, one of five states besides New York that have
laws that the court considers “analogues” to the standard
struck down by Thursday’s ruling.
“It will not take long at all” until the gun licensing law
is challenged here, said Kent Greenfield, a Boston College
law professor. “The next person denied a permit under the
Massachusetts law can go immediately into federal court and
get an injunction requiring their permit be issued based on
this ruling. We’re not talking months, we’re talking days.”
Currently, Massachusetts law gives local police chiefs, who
serve as the state’s licensing authority, the discretion to
determine whether someone is suitable to have a license.
Policymakers say that provision is a key part of the gun
safety system in Massachusetts, which had the second-lowest
firearm mortality rate in the country in 2020, trailing only
Hawaii.
But the police chief provision of state gun law may be under
threat in its current form. The Supreme Court decision,
known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen,
prompted wide consternation Thursday, even as Massachusetts
officials are holding up their own laws as a model for other
states to follow in the wake of a spate of deadly mass
shootings in Buffalo, N.Y.; Uvalde, Texas; and elsewhere.
“We need to take urgent action,” said state Senator Jamie
Eldridge, the Senate chairman of the Legislature’s judiciary
committee. “We know that discretionary language is gone,
that essentially the police chief is not going to be able to
make a discretionary decision. It’s a significant loss. . .
. But it is possible for us to craft a bill that very
specifically describes the situations or history where a
person shall not get a concealed weapon.”
That could include, the Acton Democrat said, explicitly
barring those with certain records of violence or domestic
violence from having a license to carry, or increasing the
training requirements to get one.
What could ultimately emerge is not yet clear. Lawmakers
also face a tight deadline for action: Their formal sessions
are scheduled to end for the year on July 31, meaning any
package would have to emerge amid a bottleneck of other
major bills in coming weeks.
“One of the reasons that we have the lowest death rate by
handguns is because of the work that we did to create a
process that works,” said House Speaker Ronald Mariano. “Now
to have a blatantly political decision . . . throw that
policy out the window and create difficulty for us is really
something that is very, very disappointing.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion that
Massachusetts, New York, and four other states “potentially
affected” by Thursday’s decision may continue to require
licenses for carrying handguns, as long as they “employ
objective licensing requirements” like those in 43 other
states.
Under these so-called shall issue laws, an applicant can get
a gun license as long as they meet certain requirements
“without granting licensing officials discretion to deny
licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability,”
Kavanaugh wrote.
“We know of no other constitutional right that an individual
may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers
some special need,” Thomas wrote for the court. “That is not
how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular
speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the
Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right
to confront the witnesses against him.
“And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes
to public carry for self-defense,” he wrote.
Elected officials in Massachusetts were quick to note that
the decision would not spur any automatic changes in the law
here.
Terry MacCormack, a spokesman for Governor Charlie Baker,
said the ruling has “no immediate effect on the
Commonwealth’s gun laws, which all remain in place.”
“We’re not going to see people walking around in churches
and schools with guns on their side,” said state
Representative Michael S. Day, House chairman of the
judiciary committee. “Our scheme works. We believe it’s
constitutional and firmly within the strictures of the
Second Amendment. We’re going to look at what, if any,
impact this has on the underlying regulatory scheme we
have.”
Gun rights advocates who cheered the decision also said
they, too, hope for quick legislative action.
“I’d love to see the Legislature recognize our civil rights
and fix the laws that are in clear violation of this,” said
Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action
League. “We don’t want bad people getting guns. It’s not
like anybody — and I’ve heard it today, that this means
anybody can get a gun. It’s a flat-out lie.”
Still, legal observers warn, it’s simply a matter of time
until the ruling could weaken the reach of Massachusetts
law.
Jason A. Guida, an attorney and former director of the
Massachusetts Firearms Records Bureau, said lawmakers will
have to quickly reconsider what power local chiefs have,
including what elements of a past offense could prompt a
license to be denied.
“Otherwise,” he said, “it’s going to be local police
departments being dragged into court. It’s going to be case
by case — and there’s a very big possibility that chiefs’
discretion may be completely eliminated.”
In a statement, Attorney General Maura Healey, who is
running for governor, called the Supreme Court opinion
“reckless and anti-democratic,” adding it “poses a grave
danger to Americans as they go about their daily lives in
public spaces like supermarkets, hospitals, and
playgrounds.”
“I stand by our common-sense gun laws and will continue to
vigorously defend and enforce them,” she said.
The New York state law at issue requires people to apply for
a permit to carry a concealed gun, and to show “proper
cause,” or a special need to carry a gun outside their home
that goes beyond a generalized social danger or fear.
Massachusetts has a similar standard. Under state law, local
police chiefs may issue a license to carry — which allows
the purchase and carrying in public of a handgun — to
someone if that person shows a “good reason” to have one,
including if they “fear injury to the applicant or the
applicant’s property.”
The application of the Massachusetts law can also vary
widely, including in the restrictions local officials can
place on licenses.
In Boston, for example, city officials tell prospective
applicants they could restrict a license to just hunting or
recreational shooting, limiting a person to carrying the gun
to and from the range. Or, if a person says they are
applying for a license to carry because they want a gun for
work — they may carry a lot of money on them and want
protection, for example — the city could restrict the
license to “business activities” only.
The Supreme Court recognized the Second Amendment as an
individual right in 2008′s District of Columbia v. Heller,
but the ruling was limited, protecting the right to keep a
gun “in defense of hearth and home.”
Activists in Massachusetts hope Thursday’s ruling prompts
not just a legislative reaction, but a consideration to
expand other parts of the state’s gun laws. Ilyse
Levine-Kanji, an activist with Moms Demand Action, said
among the proposals the group has pushed is one banning
firearms at polling stations.
“Hopefully,” she said, “the Bruen decision will be a wake-up
call.”
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