Sorting Out Where We Stand on Beacon Hill: Legislative Update from Preti Strategies for August 2024
Here’s the bottom-line: SPOA has a lot to celebrate at the moment, but we still have work to do; and a lot has been written and posted recently about how the Massachusetts Legislature “ended” their 2023-2024 session on August 1 (following an all-night session). Things aren’t that simple.
For background, under our state constitution, the 193rd General Court, (as the 2023-2024 session of Massachusetts’ Legislature is officially known), adjourns sine die, or “without a day,” on the December 31, 2024, with the 194th General Court being sworn in the next day. What that means is that any bill not passed by that date dies and we start the process all over again (bill filings, hearings, votes, etc.).
However, under a joint House and Senate rule adopted in 1995, neither chamber takes “roll call” votes after July 31 of the second year of the two-year session. What that used to mean is that for all practical purposes, but for non-controversial bills like local approvals or necessary bill-paying supplemental budgets, there would be no major legislation passed after July 31 in an election (even numbered) year. But this is just a rule, not a law or a constitutional requirement, so it can be suspended if 2/3rds of both the House and Senate vote to do so.
So, in the past, for the most part, anything policy-wise that didn’t get done by July 31 was dead until the next legislative session. For SPOA, this would mean that because the Housing Bond Bill, (which served as an omnibus bill which wrapped up almost all major housing-related policy into one legislative vehicle), passed without rent control, “right-of-first refusal,” credit report sealing, transfer taxes, or owner broker fees, those issues would be dead for the year. It would also mean that the Boston plan to increase the commercial tax rate beyond Prop 2-and-½ limits would also be dead, unless and until it was refiled in the new 2025-2026 legislative session.
However, this year is a little different. Due to a breakdown in negotiations, the House and Senate were unable to come to agreement before July 31 on a few major pieces of legislation, including a $3.6 billion Economic Development Bond bill. Because of the importance of this bill and the political pressure to get it done, both the Senate President and the House Speaker said they are willing to come back into session, suspend the rule, and take a vote on Economic Development.
What does this mean for SPOA? Our best intelligence as of the writing of this update is that we should still be in good shape, but there are some potential pitfalls to watch out for.
First, because the Housing Bond Bill is currently before Governor Healey, it is unlikely that new Housing legislation would be considered by either branch, with one big exception. It is possible that the Sente could pass Mayor Wu’s tax plan. This is most probably our biggest potential issue for the next few months.
Governor Healey also has the power to return sections of the Housing Bond Bill with proposed amendments, which would then be back before the Legislature and would have to be voted on individually. We won’t know if there are any problems on that front until she signs the bill into law (on or before August 10).
Second, if the Massachusetts Legislature comes back into session, it is likely, but not absolutely certain, they will limit their agenda to only Economic Development; or that, plus one or two unrelated bills. We will have to wait and see what happens on that front, but any time they come back into session there is always the chance for unexpected actions.
Third, assuming we make it through a special session maintaining our current status, there is always the specter of something we oppose moving in informal session. We will have to remain vigilant that nothing moves which could have intended, or unintended, negative consequences on rental housing providers.
Finally, this all starts again in 2025. Our opponents will refile all the bills we oppose and probably come up with some new ideas that we will need to battle. Therefore, in addition to monitoring the unusual situation described above, we need to use 2024 to continue our efforts to raise the voice of rental property owners on Beacon Hill. For years, the predominant voice in this debate was owned by tenant activists, many of whom painted an unfair and untrue picture of landlords and their role in providing desperately needed rental housing to Bay Staters. Thanks to SPOA, that is beginning to change. Put simply, the more legislators we talk to and work with in 2024, the better chance we have of winning on our issues in 2025 and 2026.
by Jim Eisenberg
