New England Public Radio

The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

The week ahead brings the likely enactment of a bill aimed at ensuring driving rights to convicted drug offenders who have served their time. Lawmakers will gavel in public hearings on Governor Charlie Baker’s economic development plan, legislation aimed at ensuring health care access for all and the so-called public option for insurance, and an initiative petition aimed at adding one more casino in Massachusetts.

Lawmakers working on a public records overhaul head back to the negotiating table, and the CEOs of Twitter and General Electric visit Boston. Both branches plan to resume formal sessions – the House on Wednesday followed by the Senate on Thursday – with a trio of higher education bills on the docket in the Senate and pressure building on lawmakers to turn a corner in their prolonged energy bill deliberations.

Click on the audio player above to hear Henry Epp’s conversation with Andy Metzger of the State House News Service about the week ahead on Beacon Hill.

The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

House and Senate leaders head into February with opioid abuse, solar energy and a driver’s license bill important to those with criminal backgrounds before conference committees, awaiting resolution. A fourth major bill, a planned overhaul of the public records law, may also be heading to conference in early February, since the House approved its records law bill last year and the Senate is ready to adopt its version on Thursday.

The week ahead also features Tuesday primary contests in House special elections in Brockton, Fitchburg and Peabody, a report on tax collections during January, and the reconvening on Wednesday of a Constitutional Convention, the forum where a citizens-backed millionaire’s tax proposal will be considered if lawmakers agree to bring it up or manage to work through other items on the agenda.

Lawmakers are gearing up for public hearings around the state on Gov. Charlie Baker’s $39.55 billion fiscal 2017 budget. The meetings give legislators a chance to probe administration officials about proposed spending levels and budgetary initiatives. According to a tentative schedule, the hearings will kick off on Tuesday at the State House where Administration and Finance Secretary Kristen Lepore, the primary architect of Baker’s budget, is scheduled to testify, followed by constitutional officers and the inspector general. Members of the House and Senate Ways and Means committees will then hit the road for six mostly invite-only hearings around the state before letting everyone have their say on March 4 at the State House.

On the political front, the Massachusetts presidential primary is about a month out and the first votes of the election will be cast at the Iowa caucuses on Monday, followed by the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire presidential primary on Feb. 9. So expect a stampede of major party candidates to the Granite State in the coming days. Despite their strong views on public policy issues, two of the Bay State’s most popular elected officials have opted against saying who they’d like as the next president. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, and Republican Gov. Baker have kept out of the race to date.