Massachusetts Legislature passes budget with abortion protections

Five months and multiple fits and starts later, the Massachusetts Legislature has passed a budget.

The House and Senate both approved an agreement to spend $46.2 billion in this fiscal year, which began July 1. The bill now heads to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk, where the Republican governor will have to figure out what to to with the fact that the allocation comes with an section that would enact new abortion protections.

To help bridge the ultimately $3.6 billion shortfall, Beacon Hill leaders are tapping into the state’s $3.5 billion “rainy day” fund by $1.7 billion, in addition to various one-off savings steps. The details were worked out in conference committee between House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz and Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues, and the budget adds about 5% in spending over last year’s.

“It is undeniable that in fiscal terms it is raining, and that this relief is badly needed,” said Michlewitz, a Democrat from Boston’s North End, calling the pandemic-era budget “one for the history books.”

Rodrigues, D-Westport, said lawmakers “thought it was critical” to make “targeted investments” in education, including early education and child care, housing, mental and public health amid the pandemic.

Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, questioned why the withdrawal from the rainy day fund had increased from the original Senate budget proposal, but he applauded the budget for not raising taxes “at a time when household budgets have been severely impacted by the economic climate that we’re in.” He also cheered the inclusion of a provision he drafted to require ignition interlocks for first-time drunk-driving offenders.

The House passed the budget on a 147-11 vote, and the Senate did so 40-0.

Since the start of the fiscal year in July, the state has been subsisting on interim budgets, waiting to hear more about the possibility of further stimulus money coming from Washington, D.C. — though those discussions have been mired in stalemate, too.

The budget bill includes language that would codify the right to an abortion in state statute and make abortions legal for women after 24 weeks of pregnancy in cases where a doctor has diagnosed a fatal fetal anomaly. Progressives pushed to implement that change after President Trump named Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court, shifting the nation’s highest court rightward.

Baker has 10 days to review the state budget proposal and act on it. His office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on what he plans to do with the budget — and the section on abortion.

The accord includes a $50 million investment in the Rental Assistance for Families in Transition program, which represents a $33 million increase over fiscal year 2020 at a time when housing security is a great concern. The conference budget also increases funding for the emergency food assistance program by $10 million over last year, to a total of $30 million and doubles the Healthy Incentives food program to $13 million.

— State House News Service contributed to this report.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/33Nuc9c