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.
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.
Former state senator and current Congressional candidate Dean Tran was indicted Friday on charges that he stole a Colt .45 gun from an elderly constituent and then misled the investigation into the incident, Attorney General Maura Healey announced Friday.
![Beacon Hill legislative aides escalated their unionization push this week with a press conference at the front steps of the State House. Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steve Tolman, a former senator, called for legislative leadership to voluntarily recognize the union, which is organizing with IBEW Local 2222. [Sam Doran/SHNS]](https://www.statehousenews.com/content/frontpage_photo/2022/06-29_Legislative_employee_union_Tolman.jpg "Beacon Hill legislative aides escalated their unionization push this week with a press conference at the front steps of the State House. Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steve Tolman, a former senator, called for legislative leadership to voluntarily recognize the union, which is organizing with IBEW Local 2222. [Sam Doran/SHNS]")
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.
The attorney general's office and the Baker administration's public safety arm have spelled out for licensing authorities and law enforcement agencies how the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that struck down New York's concealed-carry gun licensing law applies to Massachusetts law.
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?
Senators on Thursday waded into a handful of topics, passing bills addressing protection of vulnerable children, access to HIV prevention medications, rights of foster parents, civil asset forfeiture, and judicial diversion programs for juveniles. Senators pitched the juvenile diversion bill as a follow-up to the 2018 criminal justice reform law, and said the asset forfeiture reforms would raise the evidence standard so it's more in line with those in other states.
The pile of major legislative proposals headed for private House-Senate negotiations grew Thursday with the addition of a borrowing bill designed to fund improvements in government infrastructure and operations.
Law enforcement agencies would face a more stringent standard to seize personal property in connection with criminal activity, under a bill the Senate passed Thursday.
![Sen. Jason Lewis, who co-chairs the Education Committee, said a new early education and care bill the Senate will debate next week would help "make sure our most needy children and families have access to the care they need." [Chris Lisinski/SHNS]](https://www.statehousenews.com/content/frontpage_photo/2022/06-30_Lewis_early_ed.jpg "Sen. Jason Lewis, who co-chairs the Education Committee, said a new early education and care bill the Senate will debate next week would help \"make sure our most needy children and families have access to the care they need.\" [Chris Lisinski/SHNS]")
Senate Democrats on Thursday added to the end-of-term flurry an early education and child care bill they said would help more families deal with rampant costs, boost provider capacity and increase quality-of-life for a depleted workforce, but with just one month left to wrap up major business, a top House leader is already concerned about the "challenging timeline."
With the final month for significant lawmaking now upon Beacon Hill, people with disabilities, their advocates and the providers that serve them are making a late-session push to get lawmakers to act on two bills they say will transform how health care is delivered to people with disabilities.
Massachusetts is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent compared to 1990 levels by the middle of this decade and by the minimum 50 percent required under law by 2030, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Beth Card announced Thursday as she set requirements for the next steps towards Massachusetts being a net-zero emissions state by 2050.
![[Sam Doran/SHNS]](https://www.statehousenews.com/content/frontpage_photo/2022/06-30_Mental_health_conference_Madaro_Cyr.jpg "[Sam Doran/SHNS]")
House-Senate negotiations toward a compromise mental health care legislation kicked off in the House Members' Lounge on Thursday afternoon led by Rep. Adrian Madaro (left) and Sen. Julian Cyr (right). "There's just a lot of good here. There's a lot of agreement even in the bills that we're starting," Cyr said.
![Mary Skipper. [Courtesy/Boston Public Schools]](https://www.statehousenews.com/content/frontpage_photo/2022/06-30_Skipper.jpg "Mary Skipper. [Courtesy/Boston Public Schools]")
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Thursday she is "absolutely thrilled with where the School Committee landed" in its selection of Mary Skipper as the district's next superintendent.
Hours after introducing the city's next superintendent of schools, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on Thursday named longtime Boston firefighter Paul Burke as commissioner of the Boston Fire Department.
Out of more than 8,500 law enforcement officers who must meet the state's new policing standards by Friday, at least seven will not be approved for recertification by the new Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission and could be barred from the profession in Massachusetts.
Representatives approved local bills Thursday before the House adjourned for an extra-long holiday weekend, guaranteeing that the fiscal year calendar will flip to 2023 on Friday without a finalized budget in place. Lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Baker lightened the pressure on negotiators, who will now deliver another late spending plan, by enacting an interim budget set to run through the end of July, and members of the budget conference committee have offered little insight into their private discussions.
Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito often highlights the fact that her almost eight years in office has brought her to visit each and every one of Massachusetts' 351 cities and towns. But not all of the Bay State's lieutenant governors have billed themselves as champions of local government.
Less than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the national right to an abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade, the House passed a major response bill aimed at ensuring that Massachusetts residents and those who travel here from other states can continue to access reproductive and gender-affirming health care without legal repercussions.
More than a dozen representatives, most of them women, took to the House floor one-by-one Wednesday afternoon to argue in favor of a bill designed to ensure access to reproductive health care, to support the patients who need it and to protect its providers in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that erases the nearly 50-year-old right to an abortion.