(*This story was updated at 7:01 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, with additional reporting.)
The sun rose over the State House in Boston on Thursday morning in much the same way that it set on Wednesday: With state lawmakers still awaiting deals and votes on key bills dealing with the commonwealth’s housing crisis, spurring economic development, and fighting climate change.
Lawmakers worked through the night and into the early hours of Thursday morning, shoveling through bills as they ignored the midnight deadline signaling the end of formal sessions for the year.
Shortly before 7 a.m., lawmakers appeared to have reached an agreement on a highly anticipated housing bond bill totaling about $5.16 billion, according to The Boston Globe.
Details of the legislation were not immediately available. But the bill, which is intended to create tens of thousands of new homes in the coming years, did not include a Senate-backed plan to have landlords cover broker’s fees, the newspaper reported.
By dawn, one bill had emerged and won passage: Legislation expanding how family is defined in Massachusetts, a move intended to protect parents and children who use paths such as surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization, State House News Service reported.
Lawmakers tasked with finalizing the legislation gathered just before midnight to file the deal with the House clerk’s office.
Both chambers accepted the compromise bill around 2:20 a.m. Thursday morning, and took the final votes to send it to Gov. Maura Healey about half an hour later.
“This has been a bipartisan legislative effort. Massachusetts is the only state in New England that has not updated our parentage laws,” Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Cape and Islands, one of the lead negotiators, said, according to the wire service. “For so many families, for LGBTQ families like mine and so many people, this is really essential, particularly given, unfortunately, what we’re seeing in too many states across the country that are attacking LGBTQ people and their families.”
Lawmakers also stalled on a vote on a compromise bill that includes policy changes and tax incentives for veterans, the wire service further reported.
Around midnight, talks also broke down on a clean energy bill, according to The Boston Herald.
State Sen. Michael Barrett, D-3rd Middlesex, who’d been leading the talks for the upper chamber, told reporters that he’d been hoping to celebrate the bill’s approval.
But “I’m not sure we’re going to have quite the celebration that I had been planning,” the Lexington lawmaker told reporters, according to the Herald. “I’m not sure the House subscribes to the idea that we should give people relief, even as we expand the grid and make people pay a significant amount to do so.”
The protracted debate that started Wednesday and dragged into Thursday appeared to be a record-setter, according to State House News Service.
The housing and economic development bills are top legislative priorities for Healey, who had taken victory laps earlier this week as she signed this year’s state budget and legislation expanding the state’s gun laws.
“I can tell you the senators are working really hard. I know that they’ve been preparing and sending proposals and giving responses and trying to talk with their House counterparts,” Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk, told the Herald. “So I think that as long as we can continue working together collaboratively, we should, I’m hopeful that we get it done.”
An intraparty spat between Democrats, who control all the levers of power on Beacon Hill, may have slowed the pace some.
Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, spent part of the day on Tuesday complaining about each other and the 11th-hour pushes to get their respective priorities over the goal line, Politico reported.
Meanwhile, the Senate’s top Republican said it was “disappointing” lawmakers were once again racing to beat the clock and pass a brace of complex legislation.
“It’s extremely unfortunate that we’re in the situation that we’re in. And I think that’s the most important point. And we have a lot of things that are priorities for both parties and both branches,” Senate Minority Leader Bruce E. Tarr, R-1st Essex/Middlesex, told reporters in a brief interview outside the Senate chamber on Wednesday afternoon.
During an appearance on WGBH-FM in Boston earlier in the day on Wednesday, Healey seemed optimistic that lawmakers would hit their deadline.
“Well, it’s going to be a really busy 24 hours, and there is a lot, there’s a lot in conference committee,” Healey told the station, referring to the joint House-Senate committees working to iron out the two chambers’ differences on about a half-dozen proposals.
