Mass. Democrats look to advance controversial budget bill over Republican objections

Representatives trudged back to Beacon Hill Monday to again consider a $3.1 billion budget bill that includes public sector employee raises and emergency shelter funding after Democrats let Republicans block the proposal for three straight days.

Democrats, who hold a supermajority in each branch, could call in enough members to overcome a procedural tactic conservatives have used to block the bill over concerns they have with funding for the state’s emergency shelter system.

The House gaveled in to session at 10 a.m. and immediately recessed until 11:30 a.m. Neither party in the House scheduled a private party meeting for Monday, according to spokespeople House Speaker Ron Mariano or Minority Leader Brad Jones.

Rep. Paul Donato, a Medford Democrat who presided over the start of the House session, said Democrats are hoping that by 11:30 a.m. “there’ll be a number of members who are interested in the issue to be here to make sure that, hopefully, it gets done.”

“I’m not aware of any formal request by anybody,” Donato said when asked if Mariano’s office put out a call to members to attend the informal session.

With a handful of committee hearings scheduled for Monday, Mariano said Saturday he believes enough members could be in the building to overcome a Republican objection.

“It’s a workday. Members will be in here,” he told the Herald over the weekend.

Unions have piled criticism on Republicans for holding up the bill, which includes nearly $400 million for 95 public sector union contracts containing pay raises as the holiday season arrives.

But Republicans have expressed concerns with $250 million for Massachusetts to respond to an influx of migrants and a struggling shelter system that they argue did not receive enough major policy changes during private negotiations last month.

The party has called on Democratic leadership to convene a formal session — where debate and recorded votes are permitted — to consider the bill, arguing it is too large to take up during an informal session, where no debate is allowed and any one lawmakers can block advancing policy.

Rep. Todd Smola, a Warren Republican who is the ranking minority member on the chamber’s budget writing committee, did not say whether Republicans planned to object to the budget bill Monday.

“It’s the prerogative of any member to object in an informal session, to doubt the presence of a quorum. So I guess we’ll see if that happens,” he told reporters.

Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair Steve Kerrigan said Republicans should be “ashamed of themselves.”

“While Democrats have delivered a closeout budget that supports working families, obstructionist MassGOP legislators are shamelessly advancing their MAGA agenda at the expense of Massachusetts workers right before the holidays,” he said in a statement. “It’s time to put party affiliation aside and do what’s right for Massachusetts working families.”

But even if Democrats manage to move the bill out of the House and over to the Senate, Republicans in the Senate have pledged to block the bill’s path forward through the use of a different procedural tactic.

This is a developing story…

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