Sen. Karen Spilka and fellow senators took their oaths of office in 2019 prior to Spilka's election to her first full term as Senate president. State House News Service Photo | Sam Doran

Up next on Senate President Karen Spilka’s agenda after passing major mental health access and carbon pricing bills: “comprehensive” housing legislation, transportation policy and one – or maybe two – more health care packages.

While she did not specify the order in which the bills would be taken up or a timeline, Spilka outlined those three topics as the next priorities the Senate plans to take up this legislative session following Thursday’s passage of legislation to improve mental health care access.

The Senate is eyeing action on transportation, she said, as the House prepares its own debate on transportation revenues. In a WCVB interview that aired Sunday, Spilka said she wants debate about new funding to be anchored by talk about policy and voiced support for lowering public transit fares.

“Clearly, we’re looking at transportation,” Spilka said after the session. “We’re working on that. As you know, the constitution requires the House go first on a revenue bill, so we are looking at that.”

When a reporter noted that the Senate had passed two significant bills in a three-week span, Spilka replied, “We’re cookin’, huh? We’re really hot.”

Spilka has hinted before that she is interested in a broader approach to housing than considering only Gov. Charlie Baker’s proposal to make local zoning reforms easier to effectuate. She said Thursday the Senate “will be doing a housing bill, a comprehensive housing bill.”

The Ashland Democrat also said additional action on health care could come in one bill or in two, addressing surprise billing, scope of practice and potentially more topics.

“By separating them out and not doing one humongous bill – we talked earlier, by doing just mental health, we were able to do a really deep dive and focus on the foundation, laying the foundation, that I do not think we could have done if we did a huge, comprehensive health care bill,” Spilka said.

Lawmakers have until July 31 every even year to wrap up major legislative business for their two-year sessions. Spilka said she hopes to see work spaced out more over the next five-plus months than the last-minute sprint featured in previous cycles.

Spilka and House Speaker Robert DeLeo oversee Democratic supermajorities in the Senate and House, but the branches over the years have often not advanced coordinated agendas, and both the substance of the bills that reach Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk, and the pace of that progress, is difficult to predict.

House plans for a carbon pricing bill, as well as health care and housing, are unknown.