Senate Passes Legislation Supporting Special Needs Trusts for Disabled Seniors

The Massachusetts State Senate passed legislation to promote the wellbeing of senior citizens with disabilities by clarifying their right to create and access pooled trusts while also receiving MassHealth benefits. Pooled trusts can provide funding to help seniors with disabilities to pay for items and services which are not covered by MassHealth, such as home care services, uncovered medical, dental and pharmacy costs, transportation, clothing, and household items.

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Sarah Blodgett
Massachusetts Legislature Passes Comprehensive Legislation Protecting Access to Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Care

The Massachusetts Legislature passed comprehensive legislation designed to further protect and expand reproductive health care and gender-affirming services in the Commonwealth. Although abortion remains legal in Massachusetts due to the Legislature’s efforts to codify and expand access to reproductive rights in 2020, the Legislature today took additional action to further protect these rights and establish additional safeguards following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

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Sarah Blodgett
Senate Passes Legislation to Promote Economic Growth and Give Residents Relief

The Massachusetts State Senate passed a $4.57 billion spending package to promote economic development in the Commonwealth and give relief to residents facing the continued effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic turbulence. The bill includes a broad-based tax relief package that will result in permanently lower taxes for many households and hundreds of thousands of residents receiving rebates from the state.

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Sarah Blodgett
Massachusetts Legislature Passes Major Clean Energy Legislation

The Massachusetts Legislature passed a sweeping clean energy bill, An Act driving clean energy and offshore wind. The legislation bolsters green transportation, green buildings, and clean power production, including offshore wind, solar, storage and networked geothermal, while creating thousands of new jobs and economic benefits in the process.

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Sarah Blodgett
Massachusetts Legislature Passes FY23 Budget

The Massachusetts Legislature unanimously passed a $52.7 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23). This budget upholds fiscal responsibility and makes targeted investments to strengthen the state’s economic foundation, protect the most vulnerable residents and support the everyday needs of communities and families in the Commonwealth.

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Sarah Blodgett
Senate Passes Legislation Expanding Protections for Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Care

The Massachusetts State Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan bill protecting providers, residents, and visitors to the Commonwealth who engage in legally-protected reproductive and gender-affirming health care. The bill includes provisions preventing the Commonwealth’s cooperation with ‘bounty-style’ anti-abortion and anti-gender-affirming care laws in other states, mandates health insurance coverage for abortion and abortion-related care with no cost-sharing, ensures access to emergency contraception, and provides confidentiality to providers of reproductive and gender-affirming care.

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Sarah Blodgett
Senate Passes Animal Welfare Legislation

The Massachusetts State Senate passed three bills which promote animal welfare. An Act protecting the health and safety of puppies and kittens in cities and towns ensures the safety of puppies and kittens during breeding, sale, and boarding. An Act Protecting Research Animals, previously passed by the Senate in 2018 and commonly known as the ‘Beagle Bill’, encourages research facilities that use dogs and cats to offer these animals up for adoption after finishing research, rather than automatically euthanizing them. Finally, An Act further regulating the enforcement of illegal hunting practices takes measures to discourage the illegal hunting and sale of game animals, including endangered species.

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Sarah Blodgett
State Senate Passes Transformational Bill to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Child Care

The Massachusetts State Senate unanimously passed bipartisan legislation to transform early education and child care in the Commonwealth by making it more accessible and affordable for families, providing high-quality care for young children, strengthening early education providers, improving compensation and professional development for the early education workforce, and addressing the workforce needs of Massachusetts employers.

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Sarah Blodgett
Senate Passes Important Legislation to Increase Access to HIV Prevention Medication

The Senate passed legislation which would increase access to the life-saving HIV prevention medication pre-exposure prophylaxis, commonly known as PrEP, by allowing pharmacists to prescribe it to patients on a short-term basis. This important bill, which was passed on the last day of Pride Month, will support the Commonwealth’s efforts to prevent the transmission of HIV, which continues to disproportionately affect members of the LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, and low-income individuals.

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Sarah Blodgett
Senate Passes Juvenile Court and Civil Asset Forfeiture Legislation

The Senate passed three bills which reform various aspects of the criminal legal system to create fairer processes and encourage rehabilitation. Two of the bills would address how criminal courts divert convicted youth from jail and improve processes which allow certain youth to stay out of jail while their cases are pending. A third bill, S.2944 An Act relative to forfeiture reform, would raise the burden of proof required for civil asset forfeiture, which allows law enforcement to seize items alleged to have been connected to a crime.

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Sarah Blodgett
Senate Passes General Government Bond Bill

The Senate on Thursday passed a $5.07 billion general government bond bill to fund construction projects related to health care, higher education, information technology, workforce development, the environment, affordable housing, and more. The bill also includes a moratorium on the construction of new prisons in Massachusetts.

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Sarah Blodgett
Ceremonial Bill Signing Celebrates Passage of Work and Family Mobility Act

The Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka and Speaker of the House of Representatives Ronald Mariano held a ceremonial bill signing for the Work and Family Mobility Act, which allows Massachusetts residents who lack federal immigration status to apply for a Massachusetts standard driver’s license. Last week, both chambers voted to override a gubernatorial veto on the bill, meaning that it is now law.

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Sarah Blodgett
Senate Passes Landmark Voting Reform Legislation

The Massachusetts State Senate passed An Act fostering voter opportunities, trust, equity and security (the VOTES Act). This landmark legislation permanently codifies the popular mail-in and early voting options used in Massachusetts in 2020, increases ballot access for voters with disabilities and service members overseas, and takes steps to modernize the Commonwealth’s election administration process.

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Sarah Blodgett
Senate Passes Legislation Authorizing Chapter 90-Plus Funding

The Massachusetts State Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would approve the authorization of $350 million towards transportation needs in the Commonwealth, including $200 million for Chapter 90 funds, which provides cities and towns with a funding source for investments in local transportation-related projects, including road and bridge repairs.

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Sarah Blodgett