The Legislature concluded its 2007 session yesterday with a whimper, not a bang, pushing off until 2008 consideration of the cornerstones of Governor Deval Patrick's agenda: casino gambling, biotech incentives, and property tax relief.
On the last day of formal debate and voting of the year, lawmakers' main focus was politics. The most important measure they took up was legislation moving up the state's presidential primary by a month to Feb. 5, adding Massachusetts to the list of 21 other states that will hold their primaries on that "Super Duper Tuesday." Patrick has said he will sign the bill.
"Feb. 5 will be the deciding day for the Democratic and Republican nominations in all likelihood," said Representative Garrett J. Bradley, a Democrat from Hingham and chairman of the House Committee on Election Laws. "Massachusetts has an opportunity by moving this day to be relevant once again."
It was an unremarkable conclusion to a year that many hoped would be action-packed: For the first time since 1990, Democrats held the corner office and huge majorities in both legislative chambers, and many voters thought they would work quickly together on major legislation.
Richard Tisei, the Senate minority leader, said, "I think the Legislature has been in a funk all year."
House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi yesterday e-mailed reporters a six-page list of the House's accomplishments, which included establishing a film tax credit, requiring cities and towns with underperforming pension systems to join the state's, and allowing municipalities to buy health insurance for their employees through the state. Lawmakers also enacted one of the governor's pet initiatives, creating an organization called Commonwealth Corps to encourage community engagement and volunteerism.
But DiMasi's list also included such routine achievements as passing the annual state budget, approving an August sales-tax holiday for the fourth year in a row, and placing a moratorium on Internet hunting, which lets people shoot live, penned-in animals with the click of a mouse.
Therese Murray, Senate president, provided an eight-page list of the Senate's accomplishments. She included what was perhaps the most dramatic and substantive event of the session: the Legislature's rejection in June of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
It was among the few moments when all three top Beacon Hill leaders worked closely together on a major undertaking.
Patrick has proposed a litany of ideas, such as licensing three casinos, approving an array of measures to reduce local communities' dependence on the property tax, and a sweeping package of tax breaks, incentives, and investments to nourish the biotech industry. But they have languished in the Legislature.
Some lawmakers have criticized the governor, saying he has failed to whip up sufficient support in the Legislature to push through his initiatives; others have said the governor has tried to do too much, too fast, and that has resulted in little action.
But the Legislature has not only been slow to act upon the governor's initiatives; even the speaker's energy bill passed in the House only last week, nearly a year after he first floated the idea.
Still, DiMasi pronounced the year a success.
"The members of the House have built an impressive record of success this year, and we have much to show for our hard work," DiMasi said in a written statement.
Republicans, numbering just 19 of the 160 House members and five of the 40 senators, see it differently. They tweaked the Democratic leaders about the pace of lawmaking.
The office of the House minority leader, Bradley H. Jones Jr., handed the press Thanksgiving cards from "the Massachusetts Taxpayer" addressed "To Those in Charge" at the State House. The cards featured a print of Norman Rockwell's famous painting, "Freedom from Want," showing a large, happy family sitting down to a big turkey dinner.
"Thanks for Nothing!" the card said inside. "Where is my property tax relief? What are you going to do to reduce crime and improve our schools?"
Jones said in an interview that moving the primary date is one of the Legislature's few accomplishments this year.
"It used to be that the excuse for why things weren't getting done was that there was a Republican in the corner office," he said. "Well, they're not there."
A number of lawmakers and State House workers attributed the Legislature's production to the fact that this is the first year of the two-year legislative session, which means lawmakers have until July 31, 2008, to act on bills filed in 2007 and 2008.
The number of bills passed in odd-numbered years, therefore, tends to be significantly lower than in even-numbered years.
Before yesterday, 168 laws had been enacted in 2007, according to records listed on the Legislature's website, equaling or exceeding the total for every odd-numbered year since 1999.
