The Senate last week agreed to change the Senate rules to hold a remote session during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then it made history when it held the first remote session with just a few members in the Senate chamber, while most members watched and listened to the debate on their computers and voted from their homes or offices.
There were no roll calls in the House or Senate last week.
The Senate, on a voice vote without a roll call, approved a bill that includes $300 million for cities and towns for the maintenance, repair and improvement of local roads and bridges. The $300 million is $100 million more than the state allocated last year.
The House had already approved the $300 million as part of a larger bill authorizing the state to borrow $18 billion for transportation projects and infrastructure over the next 10 years.
The legislation also establishes a new seven-member MBTA board of directors to succeed the current Fiscal Management and Control Board. The board of directors will be responsible for governing and exercising the corporate powers of the MBTA. The Senate version differs from the House version, which does not create a new MBTA board, but instead extends and expands the existing Fiscal and Management Control Board.
“I believe we need a reliable, sustainable, safe, accessible and equitable transportation system in this commonwealth, and this legislation puts us on the right path to achieving that goal,” said Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Ashland. “As a proponent of regional equity in transportation, I am thrilled to assist our cities and towns with increased funding for infrastructure projects. I also look forward to seeing the formation of the new MBTA board of directors and working with this new inclusive body on shaping a true 21st-century transit system.”
Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law a bill that would lower the number of voters needed at an open Town Meeting to have a quorum. Other provisions include allowing representative Town Meetings to be held online and allowing towns to hold Town Meetings outside the geographic limits of the town if the Selectboard determines it is not possible to conduct a meeting within the town in a way that ensures health and safety.
Another key section allows a mayor who is unable to submit an annual budget for fiscal year 2021 to the City Council within 170 days after his or her inauguration to submit the budget to the City Council within 30 days after the termination of the governor’s declaration of emergency, or on July 31, whichever is earlier.
Supporters said it is crucial to provide municipalities with the flexibility they need to run their local government. They said the bill would allow cities and towns to function while still being fiscally responsible and maintaining the health and safety of voters.
“Municipal leaders are working feverishly to manage and guide their local governments through the COVID-19 public health crisis, which has created major challenges to the process of governing and delivering service,” said Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) Executive Director Geoff Beckwith. “MMA and local officials deeply appreciate the tools and flexibility that our partners in state government are providing to make it possible to maintain operations. (This law) is the latest example, providing communities with options for holding municipal elections and Town Meetings, approving temporary budgets and using local revenue funds. We applaud the Legislature and governor for enacting these key provisions.”
The Higher Education Committee accepted written testimony on a bill that would require the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority and other public agencies and authorities to suspend payment and collection of student college or vocational training loans during the state of emergency declared by the governor until 360 days after the expiration of the emergency. The bill also waives interest on these payments and prohibits the imposition of additional fees as a result of the suspension.
Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, the sponsor of the bill, did not respond to repeated requests by Beacon Hill Roll Call for comment on her proposal.
The Revenue Committee accepted written testimony on legislation that would exempt facial coverings from the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax.
Supporters said the demand for face masks to help prevent the spread of the virus is expected to increase dramatically with new workplace regulations going into effect. They noted that while clothing is currently exempt from the sales tax, masks are not considered clothing and are taxed. They argued that the bill would reduce consumer costs for purchasing masks and help increase production by encouraging the growing cottage industry of non-medical mask makers.
“Local crafters selling face masks are playing an important role in meeting our need for more masks,” said the bill’s sponsor Rep. Josh Cutler, D-Plymouth. “The last thing we want is to see them run afoul of the tax collector or be discouraged from making more.”
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, D-Springfield, chair of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, met and then released a statement outlining the major points of a police reform bill that would ban officers’ use of chokeholds. Another key provision creates the new independent Office of Police Standards and Professional Conduct that would provide oversight of police certification and enhanced training, and develop minimum statewide policies and procedures for law enforcement, including the use of force. The two said they agreed to a goal of both branches approving and sending a reform bill to Gov. Charlie Baker before the end of July.
Other provisions include establishing an “affirmative obligation” for police officers to intervene if a fellow officer is improperly or illegally using force and creating a special legislative commission to study the civil service law for ways to improve minority recruitment of police.
“Together, we are outlining short-term actions required to help address structural inequalities that lead to racial bias — both implicit and explicit — while identifying ways to make continued progress on issues that require additional review,” DeLeo and Gonzalez said in the statement. “We are also focused on shared, overarching goals that will be part of future, separate discussions, including education and income inequality.
“As with any difficult task, the first step is to dig in and begin working,” the statement continues. “Today, we took that first step. And, we want to be clear, we view the ultimate enactment of this piece of omnibus legislation as our first step along the long road to ensuring the promise of equal justice for all the citizens of the commonwealth.”
The Senate adopted, on a voice vote without a roll call, a measure establishing temporary emergency Senate rules in light of COVID-19. The rules are similar to the ones approved by the House for its operation. They allow senators to debate and vote remotely from anywhere outside the chamber to limit the number of people in the chamber.
Members will be given access to a telephone line or other electronic means to allow them to speak remotely during the session. A staff person would coordinate participation in debate by any member who would like to speak from outside the chamber. The new rules prohibit anyone from entering the Senate chamber without an appropriate mask or other face covering that covers the person’s nose and mouth.
Supporters said the new rules will cut down on the risk of exposure to COVID-19.
“The rules adopted by the full Senate represent a bipartisan effort to ensure the Senate engages in a transparent and participatory process while protecting the health and safety of both members and staff during this public health crisis,” said Senate Majority Leader Cindy Creem, D-Newton.
A bill that would create a special 20-member commission to examine and make recommendations to reduce or eliminate racial disparities in the death of mothers before, during and after childbirth was given a favorable report by the Health Care Financing Committee.
The commission would look for problems and solutions by examining evidence-based practices, including approaches taken by other states or grassroots organizations to reduce or eliminate racial disparities in maternal mortality or severe maternal morbidity; barriers to accessing prenatal and postpartum care, how that care is delivered and the quality of that care; and how historical and current structural, institutional and individual forms of racism, including implicit bias or discrimination, affect the incidence and prevalence of maternal mortality in communities of color.
“As a House, we recognize that addressing racism must include tackling systemic and institutional barriers to equity,” reads a statement from Speaker DeLeo and Reps. Daniel Cullinane, D-Dorchester, Kay Khan, D-Newton, and Liz Miranda, D-Roxbury. “Maternal health has long been a red flag for racial and ethnic disparities within the health care system. Women of color die of pregnancy-related causes at a rate three times higher than white women in the United States.”
The 20-member commission would include the House and Senate chairs of the Committee on Public Health, a member of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Ellen Story Commission on Postpartum Depression. Others include a midwife, an obstetrician and a gynecologist; two members from a community of color; and a person who has lost an immediate family member to maternal mortality.
Attorney General Maura Healey held a hearing on implementing stronger price gouging protections for consumers and making permanent the temporary emergency price gouging regulations put into place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. These emergency regulations prohibit any business from selling any goods or services necessary for the health, safety or welfare of the public for an unconscionably high price during a declared statewide or national emergency. Prior to this, the only ban on price gouging merely prohibited price gouging in the sale of gasoline and other petroleum products.
“These price gouging regulations will not only protect us from excessively high prices during a crisis, it will also protect our health,” said MASSPIRG Legislative Director Deirdre Cummings.
Cummings also noted that according to MASSPIRG, over the last 90 days, the Attorney General’s Office has reported receiving at least 497 price gouging complaints against 178 different vendors.
“The bottom line is that if the price of something skyrockets during a crisis — or in anticipation of one — it’s price gouging,” Cummings continued. “Whether it’s COVID-19, a tornado, hurricane or blizzard, businesses should not jack up their prices just because people are vulnerable. That is wrong, and we support the attorney general’s efforts to stop it from happening.”
Sen. Jamie Eldridge, D-Acton, is leading the charge to oppose some parts of the Information Technology bill, including $92.5 million in spending on purchasing police cruisers and additional funding of Department of Corrections vehicles and construction of new prisons.
“We request that this committee reinvest in efforts and services that strengthen our communities and in technological improvements that include automating the process of criminal record sealing,” Eldridge and the others said in a letter.
“We strongly recommend decarceration and reinvestment in efforts and services that strengthen our communities and help vulnerable populations,” the letter continues. “Efforts should be made to create and implement a decarceration plan and be a model for the rest of the country. Sound policy and strategic investments in housing, mental health care, addiction treatment, education, employment and economic opportunity will address the reasons for incarceration and further decrease incarceration rates.”
Team Sharing, a Massachusetts-based organization comprised of parents who have lost a child to an opioid overdose, is urging Gov. Baker and other governors across the nation to fly flags at half-mast on Aug. 31, International Overdose Awareness Day, in memory of all the people who have died from an overdose.
“It’s the one day of the year that we, who have lost our loved ones, can share our child with the world in remembrance of them by holding vigils,” wrote Cheryl Juaire, the founder and executive director of the group, in a letter to Baker this week. “We have again started our campaign to try and get each of our states to lower their flags to half-staff. Because their lives mattered. This would not only honor those lives lost, but what a statement it would have to help end the stigma.”
The Department of Public Health released numbers last week that showed that 2,015 people died in Massachusetts of opioid overdoses in 2019. Although that number is a 4 percent drop from the 2016 peak of 2,102 deaths, it is almost exactly equal to the 2018 figures of roughly 2,031.