The meeting in Spilka’s office, which lasted about an hour, included Wu as well as her chief financial officer and assessing commissioner, and business community leaders, such as Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Jim Rooney and the Boston Municipal Research Bureau’s Marty Walz, a former House lawmaker, who have said there could be alternative approaches to Wu’s proposal, such as budget belt-tightening.
Legislature
Posted inEnergy
State House climate negotiators resume talks
“I think there’s a real interest in getting to yes,” said Sen. Michael Barrett, who had all but given up hope for a larger bill after the governor filed her close-out spending bill. “Not everything is aligned quite yet, but I think we can emerge from all this chaos with a deal.”
Posted inState Government
Healey spending bill bypasses climate talks in Legislature
Healey has expressed optimism that the Legislature will pass economic development legislation in a special session later this year, but the spending bill she filed on Wednesday suggested she isn’t confident that the House and Senate will reach a deal on climate legislation.
Posted inOpinion
Why can’t the Legislature do its job?
Surely, one might be excused for thinking the Legislature would act expeditiously to fix a statute it was in such a hurry to enact. But no. The Legislature did nothing.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: What type of progressive does Somerville want? | Marty Walsh rumblings | Eng on move
As she seeks election to a third term, Uyterhoeven is facing a challenge in the September 3 Democratic primary from Kathleen Hornby, who knows Beacon Hill well from her work as a legislative aide, most recently for Rep. Marjorie Decker of Cambridge. Hornby says she is just as progressive as Uyterhoeven but would approach the job differently to deliver more for the district.
Posted inState Government
A naked call to free breasts and minds
Organizers with the cheekily named “Equalititty” and GoTopless groups walked about with a simple proposition: In 2024, there isn’t a particularly good reason to bar women from taking their shirts off entirely in the summer heat wherever men are allowed to do the same.
Posted inOpinion
The compelling case for Massachusetts legislative reform
What’s the one thing businesses, climate advocates, and lobbyists can agree on? The need to overhaul the state’s broken legislative process. Here are six ideas to get the conversation started.
Posted inState Government
House, Senate leaders to call lawmakers back into formal session
Both Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano issued statements saying they are interested in resolving differences between the two branches on the bill and then holding a special session to approve it and send it along to the governor so she can sign it into law.
Posted inState Government
Democrats warm to continuing debate on unfinished legislation
Nothing official has been announced, but House Speaker Ron Mariano and members of his leadership team 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.
Posted inState Government
Lawmakers stumble through early morning hours with little accomplished
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s property tax shift proposal, which drew intense opposition from real estate interests, appeared dead, as did overrides of Gov. Healey’s vetoes from the $58 billion fiscal 2025 budget.
Posted inEnergy
Finger-pointing galore as climate legislation stalls
The House was content with a bill that did the siting and permitting changes and little else, but the Senate had additional priorities, including language that would begin to rein in the natural gas industry, eliminate the retail electricity industry, and overhaul the way clean energy is procured.
Posted inState Government
Spilka throws Mariano’s own words back at him
Unlike other state houses, it’s not Democrats fighting Republicans, or the executive branch battling the legislative branch. It’s the House versus the Senate.
Posted inPolitics
Why are so many amendments being withdrawn on Beacon Hill?
A lawmaker gets up to make a speech, notes how important it would be for his or her colleagues to pass the amendment, and then withdraws the very amendment that was supposed to be so important.
Posted inHousing
BlueHub court battle shifts to Legislature
The legislative push comes as the legal battle in Suffolk Superior Court appears to be nearing a resolution, with both sides seeking summary judgments that they are in the right. Both sides can point to customers on their side, some saying they were ripped off and others who insist BlueHub helped save their house.
Posted inState Government
Crunch time is coming to Beacon Hill
“It’s always been part of the process that no matter what you do, or who’s doing it, that there will be a lot of serious work left for the last few days of session,” said Marc Pacheco, a Taunton Democrat who is leaving the Senate after 32 years in the chamber.
Posted inPolitics
65% of incumbents in Legislature face no opponents
130 incumbents appear to be going without a challenger in either a primary or the general election. Democrats are expected to continue to hold a super-majority in both chambers.
Posted inOpinion
Dissecting the ‘toxic’ State House culture
The culture incentivizes a Stockholm syndrome-like relationship to power, where reps fall in line for crumbs from leadership, and advocates and organizations fall in line for access to the reps.
Posted inCourts
On 20th anniversary of same-sex marriage, here’s the story of how it almost did not happen
The story of how we stopped the “Defense of Marriage” amendment before the Goodridge ruling has never been fully told. And it’s a real banger of a tale.
Posted inState Government
Lawmaker who sent out phony mailer resigns job at Cape association
First-term state Rep. Chris Flanagan last week stepped down from his job as executive officer of the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod, the group said in a press release.
Posted inBallot Questions
Lawmakers, academics call DiZoglio ballot question a ‘power grab’
DiZoglio’s supporters come from both the right and left ends of the political spectrum, agreeing with her argument that the Legislature is one of the most opaque operating in the country.
Posted inEnergy
Chairs of divided energy committee call a truce
The legislative workaround resolves a particularly nasty fight between the two branches that resulted in an unusual committee standoff, with House members holding hearings separately from Senate members and witnesses forced to testify before both groups.
Posted inState Government
Republicans spoil Democrats’ shelter crisis compromise
Democratic leaders finally reached a compromise on a $2.8 billion spending bill that includes $250 million for the state’s emergency shelter program, but they couldn’t win legislative approval for the measure because a small band of Republicans in the House refused to let it move forward in an informal session.
Posted inOpinion
Beacon Hill dawdling comes with consequences
Despite months of opportunity to work with Gov. Maura Healey to accommodate migrants and other families and pregnant women under the state’s right-to-shelter law, lawmakers dawdled, seemingly content to let Healey take the political heat.
Posted inState Government
Campbell says DiZoglio lacks legal authority to audit Legislature
Attorney General Andrea Campbell concludes the state auditor lacks the legal authority to audit the Legislature without its consent.
