There’s a towering pile of legislation still in play as July 31 inches closer

For many on and around Beacon Hill, the July 31 deadline that usually crashes with a bang onto unfinished legislative business will instead whoosh by more gently this year, its impact softened by a new rule that will let talks continue on any bills that are conference committees by the end of this week.

While lawmakers may not be sweating Friday’s once-daunting deadline, it still holds plenty of meaning for the advocates who want their policies to have the best chance possible of landing on the governor’s desk.

The Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, for instance, is urging the Legislature to act in the next few days on a bill to build up the state’s response to unsolved homicides. To make its case, the nonprofit is highlighting the voices of survivors who have spent years seeking answers around their loved ones’ murders.

Institute founder and president Clementina Chéry says that for those families, the end of regularly scheduled legislative sessions marks “another moment when they are left wondering whether their loved ones and their continued search for answers will remain a priority.”

The bill the group backs would create a new office under the state attorney general focused on killings that have gone unsolved for at least three years, along with a statewide unsolved homicides task force to lead investigative teams.

"We know people do care, and we also know that if there's no pressure put on it, nothing moves," Chéry said.

The unsolved homicides bill is one of more than 2,000 still sitting in the House or Senate Ways and Means Committees.

Much of the focus lately is on the 11 closely watched bills that have made it into conference committee. But at this point, that’s not where the intrigue is — those 11 bills will stay alive whether or not the House and Senate strike deals this week.

The potential for true drama lurks in the legislative waystation that is the Ways and Means Committees, where the chairs will decide what last few items to pluck from the towering pile of bills still in their custody and move over to the official to-do list. Under the new rule, any late-moving bills, too, would only need to make it as far as a conference committee by the time Saturday dawns.

Maybe advocacy pressure is mounting too high. Maybe late votes were the plan all along. Maybe something simply fell through the cracks, or maybe it’s just to keep us all on our toes. But even a softer deadline is going to bring a flurry of activity as it nears, and probably a few surprises, too.

What bills do you want to see get a vote before August arrives? Fill me in at [email protected]

10:00 | Lt. Gov. Driscoll gives remarks at the Veteran Pathways of New England’s Leominster Campus ribbon cutting | Journey Home Campus, 99 Church St, Leominster

11:00 | House meets in a formal session. Roll calls start at 1 p.m. Action is expected on bills addressing care for Alzheimer’s and dementia, home care services, the structure of the Commission of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, and local bills | House Chamber

11:00 | Gov. Healey participates in "Ask the Governor," a one-hour segment on GBH News’ Boston Public Radio. | GBH Studio at the Boston Public Library, Copley Square, Boston | Airing on GBH 89.7 FM

11:00 | House-Senate negotiators in charge of hashing out the details of legislation creating a licensure process for home care workers (H 4706, S 3183) meet for the first time | Room 319

11:30 | Tenant advocates hold a rally urging lawmakers to take action on local-option rent control legislation before the end of scheduled formal sessions. Renters, homeowners, small landlords, and labor and community advocates with the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign will also deliver to Beacon Hill leaders the 124,000 signatures they collected as part of their failed ballot question push | State House

12:00 | Lt. Gov. Driscoll chairs a meeting of the Governor’s Council | Governor’s Council Chamber

12:00 | Following their lawsuit in April, Lowell residents appear in Middlesex Superior Court to seek a preliminary injunction for the expansion of Markley Group's data center | Middlesex County Superior Court, Courtroom 15, 7th floor, 370 Jackson St., Lowell

1:00 | Senate meets without a calendar | Senate Chamber

1:00 | The conference committee charged with bridging the gap between the House and Senate's energy affordability legislation (H 5175, S 3166) meets for the first time | Room 428A

3:30 | Lt. Gov. Driscoll chairs a virtual meeting of the Seaport Economic Council | More Info

6:00 | MassDOT holds design public hearing on the Power Point Bridge replacement project in Duxbury | Duxbury Performing Arts Center-Duxbury High School, 73 Alden St., Duxbury | More Info

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ON DECK: The House plans to vote today on a bill looking to bolster the state's ability to care for people with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, plus another bill to make home care services available to people with ALS regardless of age. | State House News Service

LIGHTS, CAMERA, TICKET: Traffic cameras could be coming to Massachusetts under a Senate-approved plan, if the House agrees. | Boston Globe

TPS IMPACTS: Gov. Healey is urging the U.S. Senate to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, saying the sudden loss of legal status and work authorization would be "devastating" for Massachusetts and the more than 45,000 Haitian TPS holders who live here. | MassLive

STEWARD FALLOUT: Officials in Norwood and nearby towns are waiting for a Senate vote on a bill to let the state to take the Norwood Hospital property by eminent domain, in hopes of bringing hospital care back to the region. Norwood Hospital closed in 2020 after severe floods, and repair work stalled during the Steward Health Care bankruptcy saga. | NBC10 Boston

TROOPER TEXTS: Lawyers for the four state troopers charged in the 2024 death of Enrique Delgado-Garcia at the state police training academy are seeking the text messages of Col. Geoffrey Noble and other officials to figure out why no one on the command staff faced charges. | Telegram & Gazette

FLOOD WATCH: Civil engineers warn Massachusetts, with some of the oldest stormwater infrastructure in the country, needs billions of dollars in upgrades to keep up with heavy rains like those forecast for this week. | GBH News

TODAY IN COURT: A group of Lowell residents is asking a judge to pause Markley Group’s data center expansion, arguing against the way the state Department of Environmental Protection handled the project. | WBUR

ALCOHOL HEARING: The Saugus restaurant that authorities say served nine drinks, seven of them free, to the driver who crashed into State Trooper Kevin Trainor in a fatal wrong-way collision in May, faces a series of alcohol violations. | Boston Herald

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