BOSTON (SHNS) – Beacon Hill will be buzzing with activity Thursday with both the House and Senate set to convene formal sessions where lawmakers could send some high-profile bills to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk.
It’s the House’s turn to take up compromise legislation (S 2924) that would make mail-in voting and expanded early voting permanent features in the Massachusetts electoral landscape and to finalize the annual Chapter 90 road funding bill (H 4638), both of which the Senate approved last week.
House leaders plan Thursday to advance their version of a mental health care access bill (H 4879), and by the day’s end top Democrats in both branches will likely be thinking about convening another conference committee to hash out their divergent approaches.
Across the building, senators filed 174 amendments to a $4.97 billion general government bond bill (S 2926) up for debate, most of which seek to bulk up the borrowing legislation’s bottom line and steer additional earmarks to local projects in their districts.
Both the roughly $5 billion version of the bill the House unanimously approved last month (H 4790) and the Senate Ways and Means Committee redraft would order a five-year moratorium on any correctional facility construction or expansion, a move that could halt the Baker administration’s consideration of a new women’s prison in Norfolk.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr filed an amendment (#172) that would carve out an exemption in the temporary ban and allow construction or expansion of prisons and jails that do not increase the Department of Correction’s “net aggregate capacity.”
