Lawmakers in the House and Senate can pat themselves on the back for a number of key legislative accomplishments during this two-year session: Opiate addiction prevention. A last minute save for the solar industry. Hell, even an emergency budget at the eleventh hour. But not everything’s going to come to the floor for votes in the remaining 30 days before the Legislature recesses for the rest of the year. Here are some of the much-celebrated casualties that will die quiet deaths this session.
In-state tuition for undocumented immigrant students: Undocumented students began their campaign to pass a bill that would grant the same tuition rates for state universities as in-state students get in a traditional way. They wore mortarboards and spoke out at a State House hearing on the bills they favored. Their tactics escalated very quickly from there, when many of the same students occupied Sen. Eileen Donoghue’s office in October and awarded the Lowell Democrat a “Trump Award”in an effort to shame her into advancing the bill out of committee.
The proposals the immigrant groups pushed for would grant in-state tuition aid for all students who complete three years at a Massachusetts high school or GED program, whether they’re here legally or not. Many of the demonstrating students were brought to the United States as children and succeeded in public K-12 education, where they could not be turned away.
BILL STATUS: In a legislative “study,” which is Beacon Hill-ese for DEAD this session.
Dental Practitioners: For years, Sen. Harriette Chandler has fought to pass legislation to expand access to dental health services. More practicing dental workers, she argues, would mean more and better access to dental care. Her bill would create a new classification for dental practitioners between hygienists and full-fledged dentists who could handle routine procedures like tooth extractions after specialized training. The bill was heard and many dentists and experts backed up the policy. Dentists have fought back. Massachusetts Dental Society president Edward Swiderski told WGBH News in September that 95 percent of medicaid patients live within five miles of a dentist who already accepts the insurance. In the end, it was shuffled off to “study” by the Health Care Financing Committee.
BILL STATUS: DEAD. Well, in a study. Which means it’s dead.
Ban on Plastic Bags: If you live in Cambridge or one of the other dozens of cities and towns that have bans of their own, the concept of a ban on plastic bags at retail checkouts is a familiar one. Rep. Lori Ehrlich put forth a statewide plan this session to make retailers charge $.10 for bags and eventually move away from plastic completely, in favor of recyclable paper and reusable canvas bags. Ehrlich was hopeful in April that the bill could get passed this session. And it sort of did, at least in the Senate. Senators attached a bag ban to the state budget when they signed off on their version of the spending plan. But after revenue shortfalls sent legislative budget writers into panic mode to produce a slashed back spending plan to send to Gov. Charlie Baker, the bag ban was nowhere to be found.
BILL STATUS: The Senate’s attempt to get the ban through the budget is DEAD. Ehrlich’s bill is wasting away in the House Ways and Means Committee, where it will almost certainly remain until time runs out on the session.
Universal Pre-K: Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stan Rosenberg have talked of it as a priority. Democrats even ran on the issue in 2014. But last week, the Education Committee shuffled off 10 different bills that would expanded early education to all of Massachusetts’s tiny scholars to a legislative oubliette.
“We’re just not in a position to expand until we improve quality,” Education Committee House chair Rep. Alice Peisch told the State House News Service about the move.
Her Senate counterpart wasn’t as down with killing the bills and waiting until 2017 to take up the issue again.
“There’s no defensible reason I can see to keep treading water while we study this issue to the nth degree. Decades’ worth of research affirms that high quality early ed is one of the single biggest levers available to us for closing achievement gaps, and has identified important criteria for successful implementation. At some point, we have to act,” Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz told the News Service.
On a brighter side, the chambers did agree to fund more for early education teachers in this year’s budget.
BILL STATUS: DEAD. All of them.
