Gov. Maura Healey asked, the Legislature delivered.
Healey called on the Legislature, which had failed to complete work on two key pieces of legislation during a messy, late-summer end to formal lawmaking, to return to work to tie off a massive jobs package and energy reform proposal that the first-term Democrat argued were critical to making Massachusetts more competitive amid skyrocketing costs of living.
But just don’t call the move political pressure.
“I didn’t see it as pressure at all because I knew that there was a strong shared interest and commitment on the part of both the House and the Senate to get this legislation done,” Healey told the Herald this past week by phone as she was traveling in Washington, D.C. “While we ran out of time at the end of formal session, we all knew there were ways to continue to work together and get this done.”
Hindsight could be 20-20 for the governor.
Top Democratic leaders had just finished pointing fingers at each other and trading blame over whose fault it really was that the policy-packed $4 billion economic development and climate bills had succumbed to inter-chamber disagreements during the early morning hours of Aug. 1.
Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, the House’s top budget writer and lead negotiator on the jobs bill, did not mince words that morning.
“There was just no engagement. We kept trying and trying and trying and just ran against brick walls. And eventually, we had to stop running into the brick wall. So here we are,” the North End Democrat told bleary-eyed reporters after a 23-hour marathon session.
Senate President Karen Spilka chalked up the chaotic end to the “complex” nature of the jobs and climate bills.
“You can make blame, but that gets us nowhere. I believe that these are complex bills. They take a lot of time and energy, and I’m proud of the Senate (for) rolling up their sleeves and working hard,” the Ashland Democrat said later that same day.
Just 32 hours later, Healey publicly flexed her political muscles on the Legislature for one of the first times to push the two chambers back to work amid a chorus of disappointment from on and off Beacon Hill.
In a statement sent the afternoon of Aug. 2, Healey said the jobs bill was “absolutely essential” for economic growth. Several days later she would add the climate bill to her fall legislative wish list.
“To that end, I am imploring the Senate and House to return as soon as possible and work together with me and my team to get this done. The people of Massachusetts deserve it and are counting on us,” she said in the Aug. 2 statement.
House Speaker Ron Mariano and Spilka agreed in less than two hours to return to work sometime during the five-month stretch between the start of August and the end of session in December when lawmakers typically focus on their reelections and then go on break from major business.
And because they did, Healey inked her signature just over three months later to both the economic development and climate bills — though she said she’s “not claiming any credit for helping folks come to an agreement.”
The governor said administration officials and top lawmakers were in the middle of “ongoing discussions” as formal business was winding down for the year at the end of July.
“My expectation and understanding was that we were going to continue to talk and try to work on things even though the formal session had closed,” she told the Herald. “I wasn’t surprised when they came back and … my position was, we always were at the ready to continue to work on things to get this done and signed up.”
It could be the last time Healey has to deal with the pesky July deadline that quickly creeps up on lawmakers during the second year of their two-year session.
Mariano and Spilka have said they are willing to rework the major due date that was first implemented in the 1990s to prevent legislators from passing policies after voters decide their political fate on Election Day.
“I think it is time that we sort of reassess the difficulties that we had this year and ways that we can maybe improve and not have a repeat performance that necessitates us going to the end of the year,” Mariano said earlier this month.
