Senate fall agenda sketched out
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg is looking forward this fall to addressing the issues of heroin addiction, public records and charter schools, while also dispersing his office's agenda-setting power among the membership.
"We're continuing with our approach here of shared leadership and trying to massage and perfect that because it's a totally different way of thinking about how we do things here compared to the past in terms of setting priorities and moving legislation," Rosenberg told the News Service during an interview last week in his office.
Sen. Daniel Wolf, a Harwich Democrat, whose assignments include chairing the Senate Committee on Steering and Policy, is "playing a very significant role in helping us identify the priority issues," Rosenberg said.
Budget crises and the desire to send the governor a timely annual spending bill dominated legislative activity in the early part of 2015. In the interview, Rosenberg sketched out a game plan for the second half of his first year as Senate president.
Though the membership is still "divided," the Amherst Democrat said he hopes the body will take action on a bill aimed at clearing the titles on previously foreclosed properties (S 882).
Critics say the bill will cut off a means of recourse for those who lost their homes to illegitimate foreclosure while proponents say it will limit the legal limbo faced by some homeowners when they attempt to sell their properties or refinance their mortgages.
"I'm hoping that we can act on that," said Rosenberg, who hopes the bill will be taken up in early fall.
After passing a state budget in July that overhauled the MBTA management structure and suspended a vetting process for privatization of services at the authority, Rosenberg expressed less urgency about taking up a standalone MBTA reform bill.
"The administration is playing out what they've been given already," Rosenberg said. He said, "I don't know that there's anything on the immediate horizon on the legislative side."
Mayors and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation have argued that additional reforms should be made such as the controversial proposal to allow the MBTA's management board to reject an arbitrated union contract. The Boston Carmen's Union opposes that idea.
"There needs to be that pragmatic accountability and checks and balances for taxpayers," Melrose Mayor Rob Dolan told reporters in July. Dolan said that after Proposition 2 1/2 passed in 1980 limiting property tax increases, municipalities were granted the ability to reject arbitration awards.
Informational caucuses - bipartisan get-togethers in the president's office where lawmakers can bounce ideas off experts in relative privacy - will continue to be part of the Senate's process.
"We're going to have some discussions in the early to mid-fall on charter schools," Rosenberg said. He said, "I expect there will be a robust conversation again."
Last year the Senate nixed a House-approved charter school expansion bill, and this year Gov. Charlie Baker plans to file a bill, while activists move to put a separate charter expansion bill before voters in 2016. Rosenberg said House Speaker Robert DeLeo wants the Senate to act first this time.
Baker also filed a $357 million bill (H 3676) to close out the books on fiscal 2015 and support programs aimed at reducing addiction to opiates. Rosenberg said he hopes the close-out budget bill is taken up earlier in the fall.
"We've been doing a lot of planning and organizing this summer in preparation for what we think will be about a nine-week period of formal sessions, and among the things we've been discussing is opioid heroin crisis," Rosenberg said. He said, "We may have some other things that we want to put on the table."
Earlier in August Rosenberg was in Wilmington, Delaware for the Council of State Governments' Eastern Regional Conference at the same time that Vice President Joe Biden was in his home city.
"We drove two blocks from his house, but that's the closest we got to Vice President Biden," said Rosenberg, who said he does not have any insight into the Delaware Democrat's reported mulling of a presidential bid.
Rosenberg said he is "anxious" to see action on public records reform legislation. A bill (H 3665) that has received flack from cities and towns appeared almost teed-up for floor debate in the House before the branches broke for a summer recess.
Rosenberg also brought up early education legislation that he said is set for a fall hearing, and said Sen. Sal DiDomenico and Education Committee Senate Chairwoman Sonia Chang-Diaz have been "leading the charge on the issue."
Legislation (H 462 / S 267) filed by DiDomenico and Education Committee House Chairwoman Alice Peisch would "provide access to high-quality pre-kindergarten programs for 3-and 4-year-olds living in underperforming school districts through a targeted, phased-in approach," according to a summary.
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