By MICHAEL NORTON
BOSTON — Before addressing a Boston business breakfast last Thursday, Senate President Therese Murray pointed out several of her colleagues in attendance at the Westin Copley.
Sen. Stanley Rosenberg of Amherst, who is expected to succeed Murray, and Sens. Harriette Chandler of Worcester, Gale Candaras of Wilbraham, Anthony Petruccelli of East Boston and Thomas McGee of Lynn were all there to hear Murray, who is not seeking re-election, deliver her final speech to the Greater Boston Chamber.
“So we might have a quorum actually,” Murray joked. “If we had a conference committee, we could have done it just like that.”
It was part wishful thinking for Murray, and a comment that seemed to convey some frustration and annoyance over the pace of talks between House and Senate Democrats on major legislative issues.
After Chamber President Paul Guzzi asked her to outline other challenges that legislative leaders might take up in the coming weeks to help the state economy along, Murray was more direct about the tasks at hand.
“We have a number of challenges because this is May and our session ends on July 31,” Murray said. “So we have a lot of committees that are in conference that have not finished their conference that we would like to have that happen.”
Although Democratic legislative leaders like to point out that they get along with Republicans and that Beacon Hill lacks some of the partisan sniping that’s poisoned relations in Washington, top House and Senate Democrats on issue after issue this year have been unable to find common ground, in some cases after months of negotiations.
The House and Senate last year resoundingly approved welfare reform bills and legislation imposing strict regulation on the drug compounding industry, which came under fire after tainted steroids linked to a Framingham company killed 64 people. Both issues remain tied up in conference.
Six-member conference committees, which closely guard their closed deliberations and whose members refuse to discuss differences or specifics, have also been unable to agree on consensus proposals governing election reforms, natural gas leaks, domestic violence, and mercury product recycling.
The situation, whether by accident or design, is fueling a scenario under which Beacon Hill leaders will have the opportunity to engage in ample amounts of the proverbial end-of-session horse trading or grand bargaining, under which unrelated policy ideas are the subjects of trades and concessions as spring turns to summer.
Other major interrelated issues – raising the minimum wage, reforming unemployment insurance and granting rights to domestic workers – have yet to even reach the conference committee level, even though proposals on all three issues have cleared both branches. And the Senate this week and next week plans to focus on proposing and passing a fiscal 2015 budget bill, which will demand the attention of legislative leaders in the weeks leading up to July 1, the target date for having an annual spending in place for the new fiscal year.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo on Monday said he believed the conference committee negotiating election law reforms, including early voting and same-day voter registration, may be close to issuing its final report, and put a $145 million mid-year spending bill and not-yet-finalized gun reform legislation on his near term agenda.
DeLeo, however, seemed uncertain about the next steps for minimum wage legislation more than a week after the Senate debated and voted for a second time to raise the $8 an hour wage floor.
“If I’m correct, didn’t we appoint a conference committee? Not today? I would presuppose that might be the next thing that we may do,” DeLeo told reporters.
Reminded that House and Senate clerks have said the House must first reconsider the bill before it goes to conference because of the way it was handled in the Senate, DeLeo said, “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” His office later confirmed the bill must come before the House again, but an aide could not put a timetable on that vote.
On May 1, when the Senate for a second time passed proposals raising the minimum wage and delivering unemployment insurance rate relief to some businesses, Labor Committee Chairman Sen. Dan Wolf said, “The task before us today is to pass a bill that we can then get into a conference committee with our colleagues over in the House that will result in legislation going to the governor before the end of our legislative session.”
While focused on priorities tied up in conference, Murray did identify other priorities, including passage of a bill to facilitate the $1.1 billion expansion of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. DeLeo also supports expansion of the BCEC.
“We want to make sure that convention center gets through this session and that’s off our plate, onto your plate so that you can move forward with that,” Murray told business officials. “I think that’s going to be awesome for Boston.”
Murray also saluted Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s efforts to keep city life humming later into the evening with late-night MBTA service. International visitors, particularly those from South America and western European countries, are accustomed to later dinners, Murray said.
“They’re used to having dinner be beyond nine o’clock at night. I’m serious – this town closes up and they’re always surprised, ‘Where can we go get a drink and where can we go and get dinner that’s not pub food after nine o’clock?’ ” Murray said. “And I think that opening his mind to that and having that happen is going to go a long way to saying ‘Hey, let’s go to Boston instead of New York.’ ”
In March, Walsh announced the Boston had approved a late-night pilot for food trucks allowing them to stay opening until midnight starting April 1 at select sites on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Walsh, saying he’s “thinking globally,” has also formed a Late Night Task Force charged with “exploring ways to grow a more vibrant late night culture in Boston.” The task force will look at neighborhoods that are favorable for later closing hours, public safety requirements, liquor license restrictions, entertainment license expansion, and transportation issues.
Matt Murphy contributed to this report.