Late-emerging jobs bill becoming catchall legislation
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House Speaker Robert DeLeo with Gov. Charlie Baker.
It's a "jobs bill." It's a sports betting bill. It's a housing bill.
Could it also be an online Lottery bill? What about a carbon tax bill? And maybe the vehicle to cement the deal reached between craft brewers and beer distributors over contractual rights?
The House is kicking off what could be the final week of formal votes on Monday by taking up economic development legislation that has been packed with major proposals to legalize sports betting and reform local zoning rules to make it easier to build new housing.
The House's goal is to get the bill off its plate so it can move on to debating tele-medicine legislation on Tuesday and give the Senate time to take it up later this week, but members have filed 499 amendments for consideration, many of which are more complicated than simply peeling off a few dollars for a local senior center improvement.
The biennial "jobs bill" is always a chance for lawmakers to load up on earmarks for funding for local projects, and this year is no different. For instance, Rep. Harold Naughton, who is leaving the Legislature after this session, is seeking money for the Clinton Housing Authority and Rep. Gerald Parisella is hoping to set aside some funding for the Cabot Theater in Beverly.
But the pandemic-era economic development bill has also come to represent one of the last and best chances for legislators to move major policy proposals forward in what could be the waning days of the two-year session.
The House Ways and Means Committee did its part to establish the bill as a catch-all at the end of the session by keeping Gov. Charlie Baker's "Housing Choices" legislation attached, and adding the legalization of sports betting.
But how open House leaders are to adding more policy remains to be seen. Rep. Dan Cahill has filed an amendment to authorize the Lottery to move sales online, and Rep. William Driscoll has proposed a carbon tax to reduce pollution.
And then there's the compromise reached over a week ago and passed by the Senate between craft brewers and beer distributors to allow breweries that produce fewer than 250,000 barrels of beer a year to buy out their contract with a distributor without having to show cause.
Rep. John Mahoney of Worcester has filed an amendment to put the beer distribution issue on the table for this economic development bill, which would preclude the House from having to vote on the Senate's standalone bill.
Gov. Baker in early March filed a fairly straightforward $240 million economic development bill that funded many of the programs and initiatives Beacon Hill has come to expect in one of these jobs bills, including money for advanced manufacturing, the development of high-density affordable housing near public transit and expanded broadband access, among other items.
The administration in June then recommended upping the spending in the bill because of the COVID-19 pandemic to $275 million, including an additional $15 million for neighborhood stabilization investments in blighted and distressed homes and $10 million more for Community Development Financial Institutions to provide direct loans to small businesses.
The governor had also attached to the economic development bill his long-stalled housing production bill, which would lower the voting threshold for a local board to approve certain types of housing development from two-thirds to a simple majority.
Baker has been trying to push the change to local voting rules through for years in an effort to spur housing development in a tight market, but it has bogged down over concerns of local control and attempts by Democrats to write a broader housing and zoning reform bill.
The Ways and Means Committee put the "Housing Choices" proposal back into the jobs bill after it had been stripped by the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, which is co-chaired Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante and Sen. Eric Lesser.
The House also took a sports wagering bill written by that same committee and tacked it on to the economic development bill, advancing in the ninth inning of the two-year session a policy that would make Massachusetts one of 22 states, along with Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, to allow betting on sports.
The bill would legalize in-person and mobile betting on professional and college sports, and give oversight to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. Licenses would be available to the state's casinos and race tracks, as well as online platforms like the locally-based DraftKings.
"As we confront an economic downturn and budget shortfalls, this is a unique moment for the legislature to act to protect consumers, create jobs, and bring an infusion of tens of millions of dollars in much needed revenues to the Commonwealth," DraftKings, FanDuel, MGM and the Boston Red Sox said in a joint statement after the bill came out.
But all of these moving pieces means that getting a bill across the finish line by Friday at midnight could be a nearly impossible task.
Even if the House were to pass the bill on Monday night, the Senate still has to hold its debate and pass its bill. Senators on Monday signaled plans to take up their bill on Wednesday, adopting an order requiring that amendments be filed by 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Assuming senators could pass a version in one day, leaders in the two branches would have 48 hours at most to negotiate one of more complex bills they've produced in years, and do so with an understanding that whatever they produce must also be to the liking of Gov. Baker.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, at the conclusion of three days of debate over policing reform, floated the idea that the House and Senate could agree to extend the 2019-2020 session beyond July 31 to deal exclusively with an annual budget for fiscal 2021 and any bills that made it into conference committee -- meaning versions had passed both the House and Senate -- before the July 31 deadline.
DeLeo, however, said this is all still subject to negotiation with Senate President Karen Spilka.
Senate leaders remain focused on making as much progress this week as possible toward sending major bills to Governor Baker's desk but acknowledged that the idea of extended sessions for bills in conference committee is one of the scenarios under discussion with the House.
One thing a lot of lawmakers, and members of the public and the media, might be able to easily agree on is conference call etiquette in the age of social distancing and working from home. But Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli seems to think his colleagues could use a refresher.
Pignatelli filed an amendment that would require annual training for House members in how to mute their phones during a teleconference, including specific instructions on how to recognize the mute icon on a phone interface and "how to push a button in a phone interface."
"I heard about it," Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz said Friday night. "I didn't see it, but I heard about it."
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