House seeks to narrow audit and rent control compromise plan divides industry

Ask your Senator to support S. 1114 and S. 1124 for Clean Slate legislation because an old CORI should not mean a lifetime of blocked opportunities.

Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll relabeled federal "headwinds" surrounding healthcare cuts as a "federal hurricane" this week, and Beacon Hill delivered its own tsunami of legislative updates as the calendar turned to June.

The tidal wave approaching July 31 unexpectedly picked up controversial legislation in the House to restrict the contours of Auditor Diana DiZoglio's long-sought audit, plus a popular bill to extend last call at Massachusetts bars during a blockbuster summer featuring FIFA World Cup matches and 250th anniversary celebrations. After sessions of resistance, the Senate leapt on the House wave of granting enhanced retirement benefits to veteran teachers long shut out of a program after a messy administrative rollout.

The branches also shipped to Gov. Maura Healey's desk a $1.56 billion supplemental budget that steers $595 million to the MBTA, a local road and bridge funding bill, and a bill that removes offensive and outdated language from statute surrounding individuals with disabilities. That latter measure has percolated in the Legislature for 22 years, Rep. Jay Livingstone said, as lawmakers continued to comb through all instances of problematic language and ensure vulnerable individuals would not be disqualified from certain programs by changes.

DiZoglio on Monday secured her narrow trove of records from the Senate, according to Sen. Cindy Friedman, following last week's resolution looking to insulate the branch from further audit probes that conflict with constitutional separation of power principles.

Then with a hurricane-level force, the House on Tuesday unveiled a bill that effectively rewrites the 2024 voter-backed audit law and establishes a tighter framework for DiZoglio to scrub only administrative records. The bill also creates a process to request legislative records that are largely already public, and subjects the governor to the public records law without also installing the same level of transparency for the Legislature.

All Republican representatives and three Democrats voted against the measure Wednesday, which House Minority Leader Brad Jones characterized as a "shit sandwich with extra pickles." The North Reading Republican chastised the House for not resolving long-standing constitutional worries by seeking the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court, which under the legislation would be barred from resolving disputes between the auditor and the Legislature.

"This is not a step in the right direction. This is craziness," DiZoglio said Tuesday

By Friday, which happened to be the auditor's birthday, a fed-up DiZoglio said House Speaker Ron Mariano is acting like an "authoritarian" and called on him to resign. 

"The speaker needs to retire, resign, move on," DiZoglio said on GBH News' Boston Public Radio. For her birthday, DiZoglio asked residents to contact Healey and ask her to "veto any legislation that gets sent to her desk from the Legislature seeking to change the voter-mandated law that you voted for."

Mariano spokesperson Ana Vivas said the House will provide documents to DiZoglio once the bill becomes law. But there's no guarantee the Senate will follow suit.

Danielle Allen, founder of the Coalition for Healthy Democracy that's behind a potential ballot question to apply the public records law to the governor and Legislature, said it's "hard to have confidence in any transparency and good-government legislation that is introduced and voted on within 24 hours, with no public review, testimony or legislative hearing."

Bay Staters feeling disgruntled or blindsided by the House and Senate approaches to the audit may have missed their chance to upset the status quo. The House and Senate did not take steps to address the audit until right after the May 26 deadline for candidates to file nomination papers with Secretary of State Bill Galvin's office had passed.

Jobs continue below the fold — post a job

In perhaps a distraction from fraught intergovernmental disputes, the House on Thursday passed a sweeping data privacy bill and did try to curry public favor as it passed a fast-moving bill for bars to stay open an extra hour and as late as 3 a.m. through July.

The move could spur economic activity as Massachusetts is bustling with tourists, though Mothers Against Drunk Driving stressed the importance of having a universal cutoff time on alcohol sales to prevent barhopping and potentially fatal consequences. Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr also has reservations, telling the News Service on Thursday that he "of course" is worried about drunk driving.

Proponents of the statewide rent stabilization ballot question also contributed to the news deluge Tuesday morning. Keep Massachusetts Home disclosed a potential compromise was at play to scrap the question, should the Legislature by July 1 pass a bill enabling local-option rent control with a higher cap than the one slated for the ballot.

But rent control opponents say there's "no compromise" yet and signaled there is still industry discontent with the policy that critics say could hamper housing production.

As electricity demand rises heading into the summer cooling season, National Grid is already taking steps to reduce risk, improve the customer experience, and support businesses and economic activity across the Commonwealth, helping bring energy to power possibilities for customers and communities. Investments in system reliability, coupled with proactive planning and newer technologies, help minimize disruptions and avoid costs that ultimately impact customers. — LEARN MORE

The Massachusetts Democratic Party ignited a fight Wednesday against two Republican statewide candidates, calling for Michael Walsh and Anne Manning Martin to withdraw from their attorney general and lieutenant governor races.

MassDems filed two separate complaints with the State Ballot Law Commission and accused the pair of "knowingly and willingly" filing fraudulent signatures to make it on the ballot. Just last month, GOP lieutenant governor candidate Anne Brensley missed the threshold and accused the signature gatherer she hired of failing to do his job and handing in forged papers.

On the bright — and colorful — side this week, lawmakers and LGBTQ advocates unified at the annual State House pride flag raising. Speakers repeatedly decried Washington's attacks on the transgender community.

"I want to make sure that we are fighting the real enemy together and not picking internal petty battles, because I'm over that shit," Rep. Sam Montaño said. "There is a real enemy, and it is the federal Republicans."

Under the leadership of incoming state Medicaid director Dr. Ryan Schwarz, healthcare officials will need to band together as they address a gaping hole in the Health Safety Net Fund. The account, partially funded by assessments on hospitals, could have a $600 million deficit in fiscal 2028 as "more and more people become uninsured" due to federal eligibility changes, said Undersecretary of Health Amy Rosenthal.

Speaking ahead of Rosenthal at the Health Equity Trends Summit, Driscoll said the massive federal healthcare cuts "target the most vulnerable members of our society in the cruelest ways."

"There's no other way to describe it other than wrongheaded. But it's also dumb," Driscoll said, drawing audience laughter. "And that's like, to get them both to be mean and dumb, is a skill."

How will Boston navigate federal policy challenges and economic woes in a time of political uncertainty? What are the challenges and opportunities facing Boston in 2026? Kicking off a blockbuster summer featuring the World Cup and America 250, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu joins MASSterList columnist Jon Keller for an in-person fireside chat at the MCLE Conference Center in Downtown Crossing. Register here.

KELLER AT LARGE: 8:30 a.m., WBZ-TV. Political analyst Jon Keller's guest is Peter Cohan, Babson College business expert. They discuss the AI revolution and Massachusetts' role in it, and investor perceptions of the state’s economy.

@ ISSUE SIT DOWN: 9:30 a.m., NBC 10. Reporter Matt Prichard interviews Scott Brown, former U.S. senator for Massachusetts and Senate candidate in New Hampshire.

ON THE RECORD: 11 a.m., WCVB. The guest is Auditor Diana DiZoglio.

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

Hellman and Simons Fellow for Science, Engineering, & Technology, American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Communications and Digital Media Coordinator, Longwood Collective

Associate Fiscal Officer, MA Supreme Judicial Court

Associate General Counsel (Environmental and Energy), Massachusetts Water Resources Authority

Advocacy Policy Counsel, ACLU MA

General Accounting Manager, Merrimack Valley Transit

Director of Development, Boston Private Industry Council

VIEW ALL JOBS