With the beginning of a new legislative session, I wanted to take this opportunity to briefly highlight some of the things we accomplished together in the session that just ended. The past two years have been extremely productive for the Massachusetts Legislature, with a number of major bills being passed throughout 2023 and 2024.

The 193rd session of the Massachusetts General Court saw major investments in our residents and the of future of the Commonwealth, with landmark tax relief, economic development and housing investments, and veterans benefit expansion:

• Comprehensive Tax Relief: Provides $1 billion of targeted tax relief to parents, seniors, and middle-class families, including increases to the Child and Dependent Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, Senior Circuit Breaker Tax Credit, and Rental Deduction Cap, benefiting hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts families and enhancing the state’s economic competitiveness.
• Economic Development Investments: Authorizes nearly $4 billion to stimulate Massachusetts’ economy, supporting small businesses, workforce development, and talent retention. Invests in life sciences, ClimateTech, and clean energy sectors to ensure long-term competitiveness. Enhances economic strategies to benefit communities and promote innovation statewide.
• Affordable Housing Investments: Addresses the state’s housing affordability crisis with the largest housing investment in Massachusetts history, authorizing $5.16 billion in bond authorizations and tax credits to boost housing production, preserve public housing, and facilitate affordable housing development.
• Veterans Support and Benefits: Expands benefits for disabled veterans, Gold Star families, and LGBTQ+ veterans. Establishes comprehensive programs for active-duty service members and military families, enhances behavioral health and dental care, and updates the definition of a veteran to increase eligibility. Creates new recognitions for military service and initiates reviews of PTSD, veteran mental health, and quality of life.

A major focus in the House of Representatives during this legislative session was healthcare, helping to improve access, strengthen oversight, and keep healthcare and medication costs down:

• Pharmaceutical Access and Cost Reduction: Addresses health inequities and promotes affordability for essential medications, lowering out-of-pocket costs for diabetes, asthma, and heart condition medications by eliminating cost-sharing for one generic drug and capping brand-name drug co-pays at $25 per month. Increases transparency in the pharmaceutical industry and prohibits insured patients from being charged more than the cost without insurance.
• Health Care Oversight and Regulation of Private Equity: Promotes a more sustainable health care system and safeguards patients from exploitative practices by closing regulatory loopholes in the health care market exposed by the collapse of Steward Health Care, enhancing transparency in hospital and provider finances, and requiring disclosure of parent company and private equity involvement.
• Substance Use Disorder and Recovery: Promotes comprehensive approaches to harm reduction, treatment accessibility, and long-term recovery. Expands access to non-opioid pain treatments and life-saving overdose reversal drugs like naloxone, establishes licensure for recovery coaches, and supports pregnant individuals and children exposed to substances.
• Long-Term Care and Assisted Living Reform: Improves access, quality of care, and workforce support in long-term care settings. Strengthens oversight of nursing homes, enhances anti-discrimination protections for facility residents, and permanently allows assisted living facilities to provide basic health services. Implements stricter licensure processes and oversight for underperforming entities.
• Maternal Health Reform: Establishes licensure pathways for midwives and lactation consultants, expands freestanding birth centers, and creates a grant program for maternal mental health and substance use disorder. Expands postpartum home visiting programs and mandates insurance coverage for screenings of postpartum and perinatal depression. Addresses racial inequities in maternal health and improves access to equitable care statewide.

In addition to investments in housing and economic development, the Legislature made investments into digital infrastructure and made changes to allow the state to access more federal infrastructure funding:

• Infrastructure Investment and Federal Funding: Utilizes interest from the $8 billion Stabilization Fund to secure up to $17.5 billion in federal funding for transformative projects. Supports investments in transportation, housing, climate, economic development, and technology. Establishes a funding mechanism to assist municipalities with federal matching grants and accelerate long-term liabilities repayment.
• Digital Infrastructure and Cybersecurity:Authorizes $1.26 billion to modernize Massachusetts’ digital infrastructure, enhance statewide cybersecurity, improve service efficiency for residents and state agencies, and position Massachusetts as a leader in digital innovation. Invests in emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, and creates a fund to secure federal funding for health and human services projects.
• Climate and Energy Reform: Reforms siting and permitting for clean energy facilities, expands the electric vehicle charging network, and incentivizes technologies like battery storage and advanced metering. Modernizes the gas distribution system and includes measures to protect residents from high energy costs. Supports Massachusetts’ transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

This session also saw advancements in transparency and equity, once again reinforcing Massachusetts’ commitment to building a community that works for all its residents:

• Pay Transparency and Wage Equity: Mandates employers with 25 or more employees to disclose salary ranges for job postings and allows employees to request salary ranges for their roles. Builds on the 2016 Massachusetts Equal Pay Act to address gender and racial wage gaps and promote fairness. Enhances workers’ ability to negotiate equitable salaries and ensures competitive practices across workplaces.
• Parentage Equality: Modernizes parentage laws to provide full legal recognition to LGBTQ+ families and families formed through assisted reproduction, ensuring equal rights regardless of marital status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Establishes a path to legal parentage for de facto parents and eliminates outdated barriers to parenting responsibilities. Enhances protections for children and parents, aligning Massachusetts laws with modern family structures.

Critical advancements in public safety were also passed this session to protect our residents and address emerging challenges with forward-thinking reforms:

• Firearm Safety Reform: Modernizes gun laws in response to emerging threats and Supreme Court rulings and provides law enforcement with tools to address illegal firearms and reduce gun violence statewide. Cracks down on ghost guns, strengthens red flag laws, updates the definition of assault-style firearms, and limits firearm carrying in polling places, government buildings, schools, and school transport.
• Abuse Prevention and Survivor Protections: Criminalizes non-consensual sharing of explicit images (“revenge porn”) and defines coercive control as domestic abuse. Extends the statute of limitations for certain domestic violence offenses from six to 15 years and empowers victims to seek harassment prevention orders. Addresses AI-generated “deep fakes” and introduces diversion programs to educate minors on the risks of sharing explicit images.

I thank you for entrusting me with the responsibility of being your representative once again and I am looking forward to the good work we will continue to do together in the next two years to keep Cape Ann and Massachusetts moving forward.