The Massachusetts Legislature has less than a month to go before they break for the year and those with eyes on Beacon Hill are still waiting for a number of important policy debates to begin in earnest. The Legislature will gavel out of formal sessions for 2017 on Nov. 15, leaving just 18 business days to finish work on an eagerly awaited criminal justice reform package and other items considered top priorities.
The Senate is pushing along it's version of a package to reshape the state's criminal justice system. The bill from Sen. William Brownsberger released by the Senate Ways and Means committee would end most mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders. The version released this week moderates some of the language of Brownsberger's bill, limiting the legal window for teenagers in consensual sexual relationships by a few years to avoid riling members not willing to let older high schoolers legally have sex with younger classmates.
The House will offer its own version of criminal justice reforms in the coming weeks. House Judiciary Chairwoman Claire Cronin told WGBH News this week that she's had over 100 sit-down meetings with members to help craft the House's approach. If the two visions for reducing jail time for Massachusetts residents aren't too far from each other, leaders in both branches hope to reconcile a final bill for Gov. Charlie Baker's signature early next year.
But the criminal justice work between chambers could be the only major piece of legislation to move smoothly, as the House and Senate renew their rivalry as crunch time looms. What should have been a routine supplemental budget bill has been bogged down between the chambers, with House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey Sanchez accusing Senate lawmakers of "podium pounding" through their two-plus hour press conference on criminal justice reform, all the while stifling funds in the budget bill to pay for youth violence prevention.
It's the same budget bill that's the vehicle for two different versions of bans or restrictions on bump stocks, the weapon modification used in the deadly Las Vegas mass shooting. What was hoped to be a brisk legislative turnaround has plunged into a morass of procedural measures that's kept the ban off the desk of a willing governor.
Especially on the House's mind all this year has been what kind of law and policies emanate from Washington, D.C., now that both the White House and Congress are controlled by Republicans. House Speaker Robert DeLeo set up a special working group of House members in March to respond to changes in federal policy under President Trump. DeLeo's group is made up of senior House Democrats, with top lieutenants Majority Leader Ronald Mariano and Speaker Pro Tempore Patricia Haddad at the helm. Republicans weren't asked to participate.
Mariano says the group's attention has boosted several bills out of the regular legislative process and onto House leadership's agenda.
One of those bills is Falmouth Rep. Dylan Fernandes' effort to have the state continue the greenhouse gas emission reporting standards of the Paris climate change agreement, which Trump has pulled the country out of.
"I think it's really important that states step up. You know, it's really important that Massachusetts sends a message to the rest of the nation but also the rest of the world that a handful of climate deniers down in Washington D.C. do not speak for the people of Massachusetts," Fernandes told WGBH.
Another bill heard by the group Thursday from Rep. Frank Smizik would create a comprehensive adaptation plan for how to deal with the effects of climate change, like rising sea levels.
The results of DeLeo's group may be queued up in the same rush to the finish line that's become a hallmark of how the two chambers operate. The group's work so far has only resulted in one bill being passed by the House, Rep. Antonio Cabral's measure to stop Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson from sending inmates to work on federal projects, including Trump's planned southern border wall.
