As part of the Healey–Driscoll administration’s continued efforts to ensure Massachusetts remains a state where people want to live, work, and raise families — and businesses want to start and operate companies — the administration announced the proposed Mass Leads Act earlier today. The proposed law calls for investments of $1 billion each in the life sciences and climate tech industries over a 10-year period, with the latter category of funding providing critically important support to the administration’s goal of making Massachusetts the global leader in climate tech and clean energy development. 

Read about AI-focused task forces formed in the House of Representatives and by the governor of Massachusetts in the latest edition of AI: The Washington Report, a joint undertaking of Mintz and ML Strategies covering potential federal legislative, executive, and regulatory activities related to AI.

It does not look as though Massachusetts will be state number 6 to enact a comprehensive data privacy law – or at least not the one that people have been talking about.  The Massachusetts Joint Committee on Health Care Financing has voted to send House Bill 4514, An Act Establishing the Massachusetts Information Security and Privacy Act to “study.”  This action by the influential legislative committee signals that this particular bill is not likely to advance during the current legislative session which concludes at the end of the calendar year.

On February 2, 2022, the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity released a new draft of a bill designed to provide mechanisms for how personal information is used and to control how companies use such information.  This 65-page bill, known as the “Massachusetts Information Privacy and Security Act” or “MIPSA”, would be the first major piece of legislation related to data privacy passed since the Legislature updated the data breach legislation in 2019.

Today, Governor Charlie Baker released his Fiscal Year 2023 (FY2023) budget recommendations.  This is the unofficial start of “budget season” in Massachusetts that will culminate with a legislative conference committee agreeing on a budget bill sometime around late June or early July.

On Wednesday, September 1st, Attorney General Maura Healey certified 17 out of 30 ballot proposals filed in August to continue on the path to securing a spot on the 2022 ballot.  Of the 17 proposals certified, 16 were initiative petitions including, but not limited to, proposals relative to alcohol reforms, requirements for presentation of identification to vote, and the employment of app-based drivers.  The seventeenth proposal is a constitutional amendment providing for no-excuse absentee voting.

Those seeking to amend Massachusetts law or the Massachusetts Constitution through the state’s unique ballot initiative process had until Wednesday, August 4, 2021 to file their proposals with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. By the time the deadline was reached, 30 proposals were filed.

With less than a year to go until the end of formal sessions on July 31, 2020, Massachusetts legislators are back in action this month to begin tackling a robust policy agenda. We are poised to see action on both new and pending legislation this fall on a number of priority policy areas.

On Wednesday, April 11, the House Ways and Means Committee proposed a $40.991 billion budget for FY2019 that represents an increase of $1.24 billion, or 3.1 percent, above FY2018 spending levels. The budget proposes $83 million more in spending than Governor Charlie Baker recommended in the FY2019 budget he filed in January.

Massachusetts lawmakers have returned from summer recess and are preparing to tackle a robust legislative agenda this fall. Legislators will meet formally through the third Wednesday in November, at which point formal sessions will end until 2018.