The state legislature failed to act on final versions of nine major pieces of legislation last week, including bills about hospital oversight, clean energy, economic development, maternal health care, prescription drug pricing, and long-term care reform.
Only three of 12 major bills that were in conference committee on July 31, the last day of the formal legislative session, actually passed: a bill to protect LGBTQ parents, a veterans bill, and a housing bond bill meant to address the state’s crisis in housing affordability.
State Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro blasted the legislative failure, calling it “completely unacceptable,” but pointed to one success — at least for the Outer Cape: “The seasonal communities piece of the housing bill is the biggest thing the legislature has done for the Cape and Islands since 2018,” he said, “when the short-term rental tax and the Cape and Islands Water Protection Fund were created.”
‘Seasonal Communities’
A few items in the House and Senate versions of the housing bond bill were dropped in the final legislation — including $1 billion that Speaker Ronald Mariano had sought for an expansion of the Mass. Water Resources Authority’s freshwater supply to the southern and northern fringes of metro Boston.
But Cyr said that the “seasonal communities designation” and Seasonal Communities Advisory Council, which survived, were enormous wins for the Cape and Islands.
The law allows all the towns of Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and the Lower and Outer Cape to enact a group of policy reforms, including year-round permanent deed restrictions, year-round middle-income housing trusts, and the right to develop housing specifically for public employees or artists.
The law also allows residential tax exemptions in seasonal communities to be increased to 50 percent of the median value of homes instead of the current maximum of 35 percent.
“The Cape and Islands generate a lot of tax revenue for the state but don’t receive a lot of resources back,” Cyr said. “Seasonal communities is a framework through which we can advocate for our needs — for policy remedies and ultimately for funding.”
The housing bill also includes statewide legalization of accessory dwelling units, overriding many limitations imposed by local zoning. Owner-occupancy requirements for either the ADU or the principal structure are no longer allowed, and zoning codes cannot require a special permit or more than one parking space for an ADU.
Setback rules, height and scale rules, and bans on short-term rentals in ADUs are still allowed by the new law, however.
The housing bond bill also contains a $5-million earmark for freshwater and roadway improvements at the 70-acre Walsh property in Truro, which is slated to eventually hold scores of new homes. “This is a bond bill, so that funding isn’t guaranteed,” said Cyr. “The next step is to get it into the governor’s capital investment plan.”
Another provision of the bill increases the bond that judges are allowed to impose on plaintiffs seeking to contest a special permit, variance, or site plan approval for new housing from $50,000 to $250,000.
Parentage Equality
The Legal Parentage Equality bill, which was sponsored by Cyr and Rep. Sarah Peake of Provincetown, updates state laws to make it easier for the parents of children conceived through in-vitro fertilization or surrogacy to establish their parentage.
Many LGBTQ parents have found it necessary to go through an expensive adoption process, Cyr said, to ensure that both partners are recognized as legal parents.
“Massachusetts was the only state in New England that had not updated its parentage laws,” Cyr said. “Too many states across the country are attacking LGBTQ people and our families, and parental rights need to be clear, especially when families travel out of state.”
Gov. Maura Healey signed the housing bond bill on Aug. 6 and has until Aug. 11 to sign the parentage equality bill, which she has endorsed.
After the ‘Impasse’
Negotiations between House Speaker Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka stretched almost until dawn on Aug. 1, according to the Boston Globe. Gov. Healey visited Mariano’s office on the evening of July 31 as well.
“There was an impasse in negotiations and a clear breakdown” that morning, Cyr said. “This all-or-nothing negotiating strategy isn’t serving us well.”
The legislature is now in “informal session,” in which most bills require unanimous consent from all legislators to pass, and some types of bills, including bond authorizations, cannot pass at all.
“Whether it’s the Bay State birth coalition or big business or everyone in between — labor, public health advocates, the biotech industry, climate activists — they all had policies that failed to pass,” Cyr said.
Peake, who is second assistant majority leader in the House and is in her seventh and final term in the legislature, refused to comment on the end of the legislative session.
“I’m traveling. I don’t have time to talk with you,” Peake wrote in a text message after several days of repeated inquiries from the Independent.
Cyr said he supports changes to the rules governing the special conference committees that are supposed to iron out differences between the chambers on important legislation.
“We should be getting things into conference committees as soon as possible so they can get done,” he said. The conference committees for the LGBTQ parents bill, which did pass, and a substance abuse bill and the maternal health bill, which did not, were all appointed on July 31, the last day of the formal session, Cyr said.
The committees for the economic development bill, long-term care reform bill, and prescription drug pricing bill, none of which passed, were appointed the week before, he said.
Cyr said that it should be possible to pass at least some bills under the unanimous-consent rules of the informal session — particularly the maternal health bill and the long-term care bill.
Healey also called on Aug. 2 for a “special formal session” of the legislature that could pass the economic development bill, which contained hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds for the state’s clean energy and biotech industries that require roll-call votes. Cyr did not know if it would happen before or after the November election.
