These 12 Beacon Hill committees heard no bills and held no hearings last session. This year they're back.

Boston Globe

05-03-2025

Spilka's office didn't respond to Globe questions about why the Senate was reconvening committees that didn't consider any bills or host any hearings during the previous session. Instead, a spokesperson reissued the Senate president's statement on her latest leadership picks, which declared that Spilka has 'great faith that our chamber will continue to be proactive and responsive' in its work.
Traditionally, committees are the engine of any legislative body; these smaller groups of lawmakers develop expertise about specific policy areas, gather information via public hearings, and shape bills on those subjects. Still,
Massachusetts legislative leaders, and the committee chairs themselves, defended the non-legislating committees, whose chairs can now earn as much as $44,862 per year in additional
pay for leading one of the panels.
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Some legislative committees were never intended to consider legislation, a spokesperson for Mariano said, but rather take on advisory or management roles, such as offering feedback about
bills before other legislative panels, updating the employee handbook, or allocating office space in the State House.
In many cases, though, the Globe found those committees' responsibilities overlap heavily with the remit of other, busier legislative committees, or the work of permanent staff offices. For example, three legislative committees were tasked with identifying federal funding opportunities, taking on similar work to the governor's
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State representative Angelo Puppolo Jr., a Springfield Democrat, will again chair the
Again this year, both the House and Senate have a committee devoted to the climate crisis, an urgent policy matter. But neither panel had a single bill referred to it last session. Instead, legislative work on
climate issues took place in the busier Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy. Nevertheless, the separate House and Senate panels still come with leadership stipends of tens of thousands of dollars.
This year, Andover Democratic Representative Tram Nguyen was appointed to lead the newly renamed House Committee on Climate Action and Sustainability, a role that comes with a $22,431 stipend.
In a
Last session, state Senator Mark Montigny, a Democrat from New Bedford, chaired two panels, neither of which considered a single bill. He earned
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'The Senate President determines all bill assignments to committees as well as the flow of all legislation,' said Audra Riding, general counsel and legislative director in Montigny's office. 'Senator Montigny is hopeful, given the dynamics and increasingly complex relationship between Washington and the states, that [the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee] will play a very active role this session.'
The leadership stipends legislators earn to chair these panels grew this year as part of pay increases lawmakers have
baked into state law. Committee chairs saw their extra pay grow by nearly 10 percent, rising to either $44,862 or $22,431, depending on which committee they lead. That's on top of their base pay, which increased from $73,655 to $82,044.
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State Senator William Brownsberger, a member of Spilka's leadership team, is continuing in his role leading the chamber's committee on the Census, which didn't consider any bills or host any hearings in the previous legislative session. The decennial census will next be conducted in 2030.
Brownsberger said last week that it is unlikely any legislation would be referred to the panel over the next two years, but he expects to convene hearings to prepare for
'The Census is a ten-year process,' he said. 'The Census is happening every year. The process to prepare for the next Census begins as soon as the last one ends.'
Some committees, such as the House Committee on Operations, Facilities and Security, have been charged with new responsibilities. For example, that committee is now tasked with appointing the House business manager. That position is currently filled, House officials said.
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Mariano has said the reshuffled leadership posts this year were an attempt to elevate new faces after several experienced lawmakers left the House. Asked last week
what he expected from his newly appointed committee chairs, he pointed to their legislative mission: 'to go through with their staff and evaluate the bills and start to give us … a set of priorities.'
'We weren't getting that in every committee,' Mariano told reporters. 'Different committees did it differently, so we're trying to bring some unification to that.'
House officials emphasized that not every committee is charged with considering legislation, and compared those panels with similar models at the federal level, such as Congressional oversight committees. At the US Capitol, though, the lawmakers leading those committees do not earn extra pay for them, as the Massachusetts committee chairs do. They also hold frequent public hearings and conduct various investigations, often producing reports, albeit in many cases partisan ones, that they share with the public.
By contrast, the Legislature's Joint Committee on Racial Equity, Civil Rights, and Inclusion has not held a hearing since 2021, and hasn't considered a single bill since it was created in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the national reckoning on racism that followed. Its chairs, Representative Bud Williams of Springfield and Senator Liz Miranda of Boston, will earn additional leadership stipends of $22,431 this year for their roles.
In an interview, Williams said he hoped to hold hearings this year, but was not sure whether any bills would be referred to his committee.
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'We'll just have to wait and see,' he said. He noted that he can weigh in on bills before any other committees.
'It's going to be a very strong committee,' Williams said. 'We're ready to make a difference.'
Matt Stout of the Globe staff contributed reporting.
Emma Platoff can be reached at