What to watch for at the NCSL gathering in Boston

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Over three days next week, Boston will become the hub of the legislative universe.

Roughly 9,000 people are expected to stream into the Thomas M. Menino Convention and Exhibition Center starting on Monday for the bipartisan National Conference of Legislatures (NCSL). The list of attendees includes current and former elected leaders and their aides, as well as lobbyists looking for some facetime.

​​Richard Moore, the former state senator, plans to be among them as the organization celebrates its 50th anniversary. Moore served a stint as the group’s president between 2010 and 2011, the second Massachusetts lawmaker to hold the title after the late Kevin Harrington, who was NCSL’s first president in 1975, when three organizations merged into one.

Moore, who spent more than three decades on Beacon Hill before he lost reelection in 2014, started attending NCSL meetings in 1979, forging lasting relationships that sometimes helped his constituents. Now in his 80s, Moore recalled a woman from Uxbridge who moved to South Carolina and was struggling to get on Medicaid. He reached out to a Palmetto State lawmaker he knew through NCSL and “within three days, she was on Medicaid,” he said.

He expects federal cuts, particularly the ones to Medicaid, to be a hot topic this year, as lawmakers from other states compare notes on the impact. “That affects the red states as much as the blue states,” he said.

Other topics likely to draw interest include artificial intelligence and tariffs. Special sessions will focus on foreign-owned corporations and lobbyists seeking to influence state government; how states can reduce housing costs while increasing supply; U.S. Supreme Court rulings on “ghost guns,” free speech and TikTok; and property tax relief.

There is also expected to be an active social scene, which has contributed to Boston’s popularity as a host over the years.

A nerd prom on the schedule? Not quite. That’s several days later, when Boston’s big comic con, known as Fan Expo, moves into the convention center.

For NCSL, there’s the opening celebration at TD Garden on Monday; “Massachusetts Night” on the pier next to the USS Constitution in Charlestown, complete with fife and drums, on Tuesday; and a sunset concert at Leader Bank Pavilion on Wednesday, when both House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka will get a turn at the baton in front of the Boston Pops. (Boyz II Men will also perform.)

Moore did have some parting advice for attendees. He recalled an NCSL gathering in San Francisco, where a colleague was snapped by a Boston newspaper photographer taking golf clubs out of his car. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to see on the front page of the Globe or the Herald,” Moore said.

If you’re going to NCSL, let me know which topics strike your interest the most. If you’re going to Fan Expo instead, let me know that, too: [email protected].

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