House, Senate to move quickly on abortion, environmental and mental health protections

As the Legislature draws to the end of its two-year session it finds itself in the midst of a classic dilemma: too much to do and too little time to do it.

House Speaker Ronald Mariano, in May, said that the end of the session is often when lawmakers get the most work done, as legislators labor to find compromise ahead of deadlines.

On Tuesday, Senate President Karen Spilka echoed that enthusiastic energy, saying she looked forward to “these busy and productive final weeks” of the session even as many large bills, including the two chambers’ nearly $50 billion spending plan for fiscal 2023, remain to be approved.

“I am hopeful that we will meet many of the goals I have outlined throughout the year, including transformative reforms to our mental health and health care systems, a commitment to build up our early education ecosystem, providing tax relief to help working families, reaching our net-zero 2050 goals and advancing equity and inclusion in the cannabis industry,” Spilka told the Herald.

Mariano, through a spokesperson, espoused similar priorities ahead of the July 31 end of the session.

“The Speaker’s end-of-session legislative priorities include protecting community hospitals by strengthening the regulatory process for health care expansions, bolstering the offshore wind industry, legalizing sports betting, establishing legal protections for abortion providers and out-of-state patients seeking reproductive care in Massachusetts, and addressing long-standing issues within our behavioral health care delivery system, among others,” the spokesperson told the Herald.

The House has sent the Senate bills on patient safety and hospital expansion, a rule which would criminalize the sending of so-called “revenge porn” and legal protections for patients seeking reproductive care in the state and the providers of that care.

Spilka said the Senate will move to consider those protections with all due haste.

“What is happening with reproductive rights in America is a national emergency,” she said. “I applaud the House for adopting much of the language the Senate already passed in the bill that they passed last week, and we look forward to debating a version of this bill when it comes to the Senate.”

The House will meet in informal session Wednesday, the Senate in formal session Thursday.

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