To an outsider, it can all seem a bit arcane — who really cares when the Legislature approves the state budget, for instance, as long as it does? But doing legislative business the same way college students write term papers has real drawbacks because it leads to rushed and secretive policymaking, keeps agencies that need to plan their own budgets waiting, and inevitably dooms some worthy legislation.
The budget and every bill now in conference committee will be decided by six lawmakers (three from each branch) completely out of public view.
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Here’s a few examples of what’s bottled up on Beacon Hill at the moment: a major gun reform bill, a bill to finally punish revenge p*rn, and Governor Maura Healey’s $4.1 billion housing bond bill and an economic development bill.
And then there’s the $58 billion budget. Precisely because lawmakers know how hectic and uncertain the end-of-session logjam is, they often load up the budget — the one thing on Beacon Hill that really has to pass — with policy sections that in a well-functioning Legislature would be standalone pieces of legislation openly debated.
That has happened again this year, with lawmakers adding provisions to the budget about a possible online lottery and aiming to stop home equity theft.
So now the conference committee that will need to reconcile the House and Senate budgets has to work through those policy sections, in addition to the work of writing the actual budget. A July 1 deadline looms for the start of the next fiscal year, but lawmakers almost always blow right through that.
The Senate wrapped up its version of the budget just before Memorial Day — the looming long holiday weekend providing the extra incentive to get the job of dealing with 1,100 amendments, most of them earmarks, done expeditiously.
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According to an analysis by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, three days of debate added nearly $90 million, to bring the budget to $58 billion — $2.1 billion more than last year and a mere $9 million more than the House version. It also added 513 earmarks — most of them (443) supporting local projects and organizations, and representing $29.9 million in new spending. For those counting, the House added 748 earmarks.
The hyperlocal spending included $125,000 for an arts center in Hyde Park named for the late Tom Menino, nearly $600,000 for the Lawrence Theater Festival in Merrimack Valley, and $175,000 for the Parkway Little League in West Roxbury.
And as MTF reminded, “While individual earmarks carry a modest cost, combined they can make up a sizeable portion of spending.” And unlike programs run by, say, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, there is no merit-based competition for grants. Or one might ask why one Little League team over another?
As for the policy matters, one piece of legislation added as an amendment during the budget debate is a long-delayed effort to stop the so-called theft of home equity by cities and towns (or the private entities they employ). That practice involves cities and towns taking advantage of homeowners who have fallen behind on their taxes by confiscating not just what they owe the town but the entire property in question. The US Supreme Court ruled the practice unconstitutional a year ago, but Massachusetts has failed to catch up and outlaw the practice here.
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Senator Mark Montigny in an interview with the editorial board last month vowed to attach his bill to anything that had a shot of moving — like the budget. He succeeded at that — though of course, now it needs to survive the conference committee.
“This should not be the starting point of negotiations with the other branch or the executive branch,” Montigny said of the language approved in the budget amendment. “This should be where we end up, or perhaps when advocates and others who have been aggrieved look at this, perhaps they’ll teach us even more. And our goal should be to make this the strongest bill in the country.”
But House budget negotiators will have to agree. The measure’s opponents — like the Massachusetts Municipal Association and Tallage, the private firm that makes a killing off the current system, will no doubt do what they do best — lobby behind the closed conference committee doors.
None of this would be necessary if the Legislature could simply take up standalone legislation in a timely way, which would also let it be scrutinized by the public and lawmakers. And who knows — if the budget could just be about the budget, maybe it would be produced faster too.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
