
House Speaker Ron Mariano (second from left) and his top deputies address reporters in a State House hallway as the legislative session extended into extra innings in the early morning of Aug. 1, 2024. Photo by Chris Lisinski | State House News Service
After failing to complete action on many of their legislative priorities at the end of the session, Beacon Hill Democrats appear to be warming to the idea of finishing their work during informal sessions running through the end of the year.
Nothing official has been announced, but House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka raised that possibility early Thursday morning as it became clear that many of the bills they wanted to pass were not going to make it. Gov. Maura Healey also chimed in, urging action on her economic development legislation.
“My administration will continue to work with legislative leaders and urge everyone to find a way to pass these economic priorities before the end of the session,” she said in a statement.
But wishing for passage of the bills and making it happen are two different things. Wednesday marked the end of formal sessions of the Legislature and from now until the next Legislature is sworn in in January the House and Senate will only be meeting in informal sessions. Informal sessions are not well understood, even on Beacon Hill, but they offer second-chance opportunities to pass legislation lawmakers didn’t get done during the normal course of business.
Traditionally, only noncontroversial bills – bills that no one objects to – are acted on in informal sessions. A mythology around informal sessions has grown up over the years that a lone lawmaker’s objection to a bill in an informal session can prevent it from moving forward to passage.
House Majority Leader Michael Moran of Brighton raised that concern with the State House News Service after the marathon final session of the Legislature ended Thursday around 10 a.m. “Understand that all these things can be stopped by one person,” Moran said. “So some of them are complex policy stuff and any one person can stand up and object, which is why we were trying to get as much as we could done before the deadline last night and this morning.”
Technically, one person can block action on a bill in an informal session – not by objecting to the bill itself but by questioning the existence of a quorum. Since only a handful of lawmakers typically show up at informal sessions, the quorum call is usually enough to block action.
Republicans used that strategy multiple times late last year when Democrats tried to pass a spending bill to fund the emergency shelter system. Democrats were unable to come to agreement on the bill before formal sessions ended, so they took the unusual step of trying to pass the controversial legislation during an informal session. Republicans doubted the presence of a quorum, so the Democrats backed off and tried again at the next informal session.
After several attempts over several days failed, the Democrats called their members back, more than enough to establish the presence of a quorum (81 members in the House and 21 in the Senate), and approved the spending bill during a nonrecorded standing vote.
There’s nothing to stop the Democrats from doing that again this year to deal with their unfinished business. But there are some challenges and some limitations.
For example, the economic development bill Healey wants to see pass can’t be approved in an informal session because it is primarily a bond bill, which the state constitution requires must be approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate during recorded votes.
But it would be possible for the House and Senate members of the conference committee appointed to resolve differences between the economic development bills approved by the two branches to report out policy sections of their bills and pass them with nonrecorded standing votes during informal sessions.
For example, the economic development bills before the conference committee contain non-bond policy sections that would pave the way for a professional soccer stadium in Everett, raise the age of juvenile criminal jurisdiction, and codify into law a well-connected nonprofit company’s shared appreciation mortgage.
There are many other non-bond bills that stalled at the end of the legislative session that could be resurrected during informal sessions. But to do that, House and Senate leaders would have to call members back to their respective chambers at a time when many have taken off on planned vacations or are gearing up for reelection campaigns.
Most important, however, House and Senate members of those conference committees would have to settle their policy differences and reach agreement on a bill’s language, which was the big stumbling block Wednesday night and Thursday morning on climate, health care, and many other pieces of legislation.
Rep. Bradley Jones of Reading, the leader of the minority Republican Party in the House, said Democrats control the House, Senate, and the governor’s office, but they are still having problems finding common ground with each other. He said Democrats on Beacon Hill are behaving in a way that makes the US Congress “look functional.”
Jones is skeptical of what appears to be a new trend on Beacon Hill – if you can’t finish something by the long-established deadline of July 31, then extend the deadline until the end of the year.
“It’s part of trying to put lipstick on a pig,” Jones said. “This failure is a failure of our one-party government.”
This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.