Overview

• On Wednesday, February 2nd, under a biennial reporting deadline known as Joint Rule 10, most joint legislative committees report whether to advance or spike bills under their purview; though the Legislature tends to provide extension orders to give itself more time past the original deadline. Bills that earn favorable reports advance in the lawmaking process, though clearing one committee does not guarantee a measure will emerge for a vote in either chamber, while adverse reports usually kill legislation until the next two-year session. Notwithstanding, the dispositions of the committee’s reports are still forthcoming, and our office will follow up with a complete legislative update once the entirety of committee reports are available.

• On Wednesday, February 2nd, former Boston City Councilor and mayoral contender, Andrea Campbell announced her candidacy for Massachusetts attorney general. The first Black woman to serve as Boston City Council president, Campbell previously worked as deputy legal counsel under Governor Deval Patrick, as a legal services attorney for the EdLaw project, general counsel to the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission and as an employment attorney at Proskauer LLP. Campbell's team said her run for attorney general will highlight the office's power "to make progress on the issues of education, economic development, climate change, affordable housing, public health, public safety, and equity." She enters the field among Labor lawyer and 2020 Senate candidate Shannon Liss-Riordan and Quentin Palfrey, the 2018 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor. 

• On Thursday, February 3rd, first-term Representative Jake Oliveira (D - 7th Hampden) announced his Senate campaign for the seat that Senator Eric Lesser (D-Longmeadow) is vacating to run for lieutenant governor. The Ludlow Democrat noted he planned to officially announce his campaign in the next week, though his campaign issued a press release Thursday morning detailing his intentions. Oliveira updated his status with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to indicate that he is seeking the Senate Hampden, Hampshire, and Worcester district, a reshaped district that includes three communities: Ludlow, Springfield, and Palmer. Oliveira previously spent 12 years on the School Committee, four years as a representative Town Meeting member, and he also worked as then state Representative Michael Rodrigues' legislative director from 2008 to 2009 and worked on Senate President Karen Spilka's first two Senate campaigns when he was a student attending Framingham State University.

• On Friday, February 4th, Quentin Palfrey, the 2018 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor and a former state prosecutor, announced that he will run for attorney general. He enters a Democratic field for Massachusetts’ top law enforcement role that already includes former Boston city councilor Andrea Campbell and labor attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan. A former assistant attorney general, he served as the agency’s first health care division chief from 2007 to 2009, leading it during the rollout of the state’s universal health care law. He’s been a political appointee in both the Biden and Obama administrations, the latter within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. After the 2018 election, he founded the Voter Protection Corps, which targets voter suppression across the country.