WHETHER YOU’RE EAGER to return to reality, or you’re dreading the arrival of the Monday of all Mondays, the new year is here for us all.

That extends to Beacon Hill, where legislators have been more or less on a holiday break since mid-November and now need to chart a course for the busiest stretch of the two-year lawmaking term.

Representatives and senators tend to bristle at the suggestion that they have not been productive, and sure, 2025 featured a not-insignificant amount of work to survey the landscape, gather input, and ponder appropriate next steps.

But a quick glance at the term’s new laws so far shows that legislative leaders are far from accomplishing the goals they set for themselves. Once the holiday decorations are taken down and stuffed back into storage, they’ll have plenty of work to do.

Here’s a look at what to expect from Beacon Hill in 2026.

Budget, budget, budget

After a bevy of spending last year — in fact, most of the substantial legislation approved in 2025 featured some degree of appropriations — policymakers will return to the topic quickly.

Healey must file an annual state budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 by January 28, which will kick off months of debate about how Massachusetts absorbs the impacts of federal policy changes.

Her deputies project the megalaw President Trump signed in July will decrease tax collections by nearly $950 million across this year and next combined. Lawmakers might be tempted to soften the blow by divorcing parts of the state’s tax code from the federal code, though that strategy could draw pushback from businesses, for whom compliance would become a heavier lift.

The state’s financial outlook is middling, with most revenues set for modest growth, so budget-writers have their hands full even before accounting for the federal changes.

There’s another big variable hanging over the next cycle, too: influential business groups are pushing a ballot question that would slash the state’s income tax rate from 5 percent to 4 percent. If approved, experts say that measure could cut available revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars in fiscal 2027 and by up to $4.8 billion annually once fully implemented.

Top Democrats are already antsy about the measure, and the frustration could prompt discussions about a compromise policy change to keep the question off the ballot.

Still in crisis: Health care and housing

Three of last term’s biggest laws took aim at the lack of available, affordable places for Bay Staters to live, boosted oversight of hospitals, and sought to control prescription drug costs.

And that won’t be anywhere close to the final word on housing and health care.

Insiders expect more debate this year about what else Massachusetts can do to boost housing production and rein in prices. It’s not clear what lawmakers and Healey have in mind, but they regularly cite the issue as one of the most pressing in the state, especially given its importance to the overused “affordability” and “competitiveness” slogans.

On health care, there’s growing interest — at least in the Senate and corner office — in reinvigorating the primary care sector, where an aging workforce and a lack of new physicians entering the field make it difficult for patients to secure timely appointments.

A task force lawmakers created to come up with solutions last month recommended essentially doubling the share of health care dollars that flow toward primary care, without increasing total spending.

That’s a potentially impactful move that could trigger a major political battle: Growing one slice while keeping the pie the same size means other industry segments, like specialists and pharmaceuticals, would earn less. Those who stand to lose are unlikely to acquiesce quietly.

Finding the right balance on energy affordability

Many of Healey’s top legislative priorities are still stuck somewhere in the pipeline as the new year unfolds, but one already had a short-lived stretch in the spotlight.

The House last fall appeared poised to use Healey’s energy affordability bill as a vehicle to defang the state’s 2030 statutory decarbonization requirements. Once that idea generated major blowback from environmental advocates, though, House leaders retreated.

House Ways and Means Committee chair Aaron Michlewitz said in November that stakeholders still need to “have a conversation at some point related to whether we can meet our goals for 2030,” but suggested that probably will not happen as part of any action on the governor’s legislation.

Left unclear in that assessment was what the final House rewrite will look like, not to mention what senators will do once they get a chance to stamp their own mark on the bill.

Healey’s underlying package wove together a suite of reforms, such as allowing the Department of Public Utilities to cap monthly utility bill increases, more tightly regulate third-party competitive electric suppliers, clear the way for new nuclear power, and more. The governor projected it could save ratepayers $10 billion over a decade.

While that proposal idles, Bay Staters are buckling down for another winter with significant rate hikes.

Election season is closer than you think

No matter how much the Legislature does, 2026 could still be a record-breaking year for policymaking… at the ballot box.

As many as 12 ballot questions are poised to go before voters, barring any proposals failing to clear the remaining eligibility hurdles or campaigns pulling the plug. That would blow past the record of nine measures that appeared on the ballots in 1994, 1976, and 1972.

Expect an awful lot of bellyaching on Beacon Hill about the measures, most of which reflect attempts to circumvent the Legislature on policies that do not have enough support among legislative leaders to move.

The Legislature will get a chance in the first part of the year to approve any of the initiative petitions or propose substitutions, though it seems unlikely they’ll feel inclined to stamp support on this field. Elected officials on occasion have brokered deals in which some campaigns agree to halt their efforts, and that could be on the table again.

Another safe bet: A lot of people will spend, and make, a lot of money on electioneering.

Ballot question campaigns are almost always expensive endeavors, with the most politically potent topics leading to slugfests. Stretch that dynamic across a historically large field, and it seems likely that campaign finance regulators will track tens of millions of dollars changing hands.

This year is also a major statewide election for individual officeholders. All of the state’s constitutional officers are up for election again, and most — including Healey, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and Treasurer Deborah Goldberg — have already announced plans to seek another term. Three Republicans are also aggressively jockeying for the chance to challenge Healey in the fall.

In the Legislature, there will be much less competition. History shows most Massachusetts lawmakers can expect an easy ride to reelection. But the Legislature as a whole still tends to operate with a fair degree of election-year logic, and the work accomplished by late summer will quickly become fodder for the few incumbents who need to break a sweat on the campaign trail.

Healey, too, will be eager for her Democratic compatriots to hand her some key legislative accomplishments to tout.