As the Legislature closes formal sessions with a spending bill, ballot initiatives begin to pile up

AARP thanks the Massachusetts House for passing H.4706, An Act to Improve Massachusetts Home Care, creating the state’s first Family Caregiver Commission. During National Family Caregivers Month, we urge the Senate to pass this vital bill and give the state’s 1.4 million caregivers the support they deserve. Learn more: aarp.org/ma

Sometimes lawmaking sounds like late-night debate, gavels crashing down and the ping of a counterproposal into a negotiator's inbox; other times, it’s 74,574 pens scratching signatures across the state.

The final week of formal sessions before the Legislature’s six-week holiday season recess offered a revealing snapshot of the political year ahead — one defined increasingly by a push-and-pull between what the elected officials on Beacon Hill are trying to accomplish and what outside forces are readying for the 2026 ballot.

Lawmakers spent the week stitching together another spending bill accord, but campaigns across the state submitted signatures for a slate of ballot questions that collectively represent a major shakeup of state laws.

MASSterList Job Board
Commissioner — NEW!, Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance
Vice President for Massachusetts — NEW!, Conservation Law Foundation
Senior Planner, Public Engagement — NEW!, Boston Region MPO
Mechanic or Senior Mechanic — NEW!, Town of Easton
Video Producer — NEW!, Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General

Jobs continue below the fold — post a job

Beacon Hill entered the week with some policy priorities queued up for a mid-November push. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to advance many of them before the formal-session window closed though they didn't close final deals on many bills, leaving the majority of that work for the second year of the cycle.

The centerpiece was a $2.3 billion budget to address accounts that ran deficiencies last year — the major hole showing up at MassHealth and certain hospitals that commanded a whopping $2 billion outlay.

Lawmakers who last year were dodgy about answering the question of whether they were directing money to fund hospitals left in limbo by the Steward Health Care collapse had no qualms this November about announcing that there was another $374 million for payments to former Steward hospitals in the bill.

The supplemental budget also ties funding for county sheriffs to an inspector general review and opens patient records from more than 25 shuttered state institutions.

In the House, the workplace violence bill for health care settings — dormant for more than a decade — cleared the chamber unanimously. Its success reflects broad agreement among unions, health care workers and hospital executives, and the accumulation of data and testimony about the toll of violence on nurses and other frontline staff.

The House also approved its version of the BRIGHT Act, a sweeping capital plan for public higher education buildings funded largely through the income surtax. The state’s public higher education campuses — many full of mid-century buildings with mid-century heating systems — have become a tangible metaphor for the state’s broader struggle to modernize aging infrastructure while meeting decarbonization goals.

Another priority for some members of the House that appeared to be gaining momentum screeched to a halt, when House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz threw cold water on a controversial energy bill.

Facing intense public attention, Michlewitz said his committee would pull back a proposal that would have softened the state’s mandatory 2030 emissions reduction limit. But the broader bill, framed as an affordability play, is now delayed until at least January, at a time when people's heating bills are beginning to rise for the season. Legislative leaders publicly said they need more time; privately, it seems the chamber lacks consensus on how to reconcile climate commitments with short-term energy costs.

Big Pharma has a new scheme that will make them even more money: undermining patients' bargaining power and blaming anyone who gets in their way. If we want to solve the Rx cost crisis, we need to hold Big Pharma accountable. To find out how, go to saveourbenefitsma.org.

After years of turmoil at the Cannabis Control Commission — infighting, delayed regulatory efforts, prolonged vacancies and mixed directives — Beacon Hill seems to finally be catching up with what everyone else has been talking about for a long time: dysfunction at the agency.

The Senate took up its version of the House-approved bill on Thursday, leading to hours of debate.

The Senate bill would reduce the commission from five members to three, with a split appointment structure between the governor and attorney general. The House wants a three-member panel fully appointed by the governor. Both want clearer lines of authority and a more functional leadership chain. They also both want to double the amount of marijuana a person can legally possess.

Wednesday's debate surfaced topics that have received relatively little airtime in Massachusetts. Sen. Patrick O’Connor and others raised concerns about rising rates of cannabis use disorder and highlighted emerging research on the effects of heavy cannabis use on adolescent mental and physical health. Those arguments, rarely front and center in past cannabis debates, may foreshadow a shift in how policymakers talk about cannabis at a moment when legalization is normalized but public health data is evolving.

The discussion unfolded just days after Commissioner Ava Callender Concepcion resigned, leaving the CCC with its second new vacancy in less than a year. Senators framed their reforms as a necessary modernization, but also as a catch-up effort: Beacon Hill is, in many ways, just now aligning its responses to concerns that industry members, regulators and advocates have been raising for years.

_{-Sponsored by BlueHub Capital-}

New Report Shows How BlueHub Capital's 40 Years of Investments, Guided By Local Leadership, Spurred Lasting Change in Roxbury

Findings from the multi-decade analysis show how $147 million in investments resulted in 3,225 units of housing, 756 early childcare slots, $6.95M in home equity for a group of homeowners at the brink of foreclosure — LEARN MORE

If lawmakers were focused this week on closing out 2025's internal agenda, activists and advocacy groups were busy shaping the policy landscape for 2026 — one signature sheet at a time.

At least 10 initiative petitions appear poised to advance toward the ballot, with three more awaiting certification. The subjects read like an index of the state’s most contested policy spaces: rent control, tax cuts, public records access, a revenue cap, voter registration options and more.

Several of these topics have lingered on Beacon Hill for years with no clear path forward. Rent control and tax cuts are unpopular in the State House. Efforts to reform the Legislature's stipend process and open their public records touch on long-running institutional sensitivities — also unpopular among most lawmakers.

The November 2026 ballot, in addition to the usual slew of statewide and district candidates, could also feature a dozen controversial policy initiatives, each with its own political constituency and spending potential. That could force lawmakers to spend much of next year balancing their agenda with the ballot question agenda.

Viewed together, the week’s developments reveal a common thread: Beacon Hill is trying to make progress on institution-led reforms while the broader political ecosystem is preparing to legislate beyond it.

While the Legislature prefers meticulous, internally negotiated policy, the burst of initiative petitions represents a more impatient public — one willing to bypass the building altogether when legislative timelines don’t align with the pace of public concerns.

When lawmakers return in January, they’ll face not only the unfinished business of 2025 — energy affordability, climate policy, early literacy, child welfare, data privacy — but also the mounting pressure of a 2026 ballot season that could reshape state law in ways the Legislature may not prefer.

THE SUNDAY SHOWS

KELLER AT LARGE: 8:30 a.m., WBZ-TV. The station is running an encore edition of the show hosted by political analyst Jon Keller. The guest is WBZ Security Analyst Ed Davis, the former Boston police commissioner. They discuss the possible deployment of National Guard troops to cities, the expansion of ICE, the crime rate in Boston and the proliferation of bike/scooter mobs.

@ ISSUE SIT DOWN: 9:30 a.m., NBC 10. Reporter Matt Prichard interviews John Deaton, who recently launched a second attempt at a U.S. Senate seat.

ON THE RECORD: 11 a.m., WCVB. The guest is Senate President Karen Spilka.

JOB BOARD

Do you have an open job you'd like to feature here? Click here to place a job board order, or email Dylan Rossiter at [email protected].