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# This September 1st, Unfinished Business Is on the Ballot
- URL: https://www.newenglandledger.com/this-september-1st-unfinished-business-is-on-the-ballot/
- Published: 2026-08-31T01:51:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-31T01:51:03.000Z
- Description: Beacon Hill left roughly a dozen major bills unfinished when formal sessions ended July 31. Housing, child care, energy, and end-of-life care all carry into the next term. In 118 of 200 districts, voters have only one candidate to choose from.
- Author: New England Ledger Staff
- Tags: Politics, #newsletter

Massachusetts will elect all 200 members of its Legislature this fall, but in 118 districts, voters have only one listed candidate.

As of the May filing deadline, 25 incumbent senators and 91 incumbent representatives faced no listed opponent in either the primary or the general election, according to candidate lists compiled by Secretary of State William Galvin's office. Two open House seats drew a single candidate. That leaves voters a choice in 82 of 200 districts. Just 14 percent of incumbents seeking reelection face a primary challenger. House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka are unopposed. In Ballotpedia's 2024 assessment, the most recent nationwide comparison, Massachusetts ranked last in state legislative competitiveness for the fifth consecutive cycle.

The easy conclusion is that the consequential races are elsewhere on the ballot. The Legislature's own calendar argues otherwise.

Lawmakers gaveled out of regularly scheduled formal sessions on July 31, sending Gov. Maura Healey bills expanding abortion protections and restricting book bans, and leaving roughly a dozen major negotiations unfinished. Under rules adopted in 2025, conference committees formed by July 31 may keep working, and both chambers may return to formal session to take up their agreements before the term ends Jan. 5\. A lawmaker who loses in September or November could still cast consequential votes in December.

The biggest fights remain alive under that rule. An energy bill is in conference after the House voted for roughly $1 billion in reductions to Mass Save, the state's flagship efficiency program, while the Senate declined the cuts. So are proposals on data privacy, cellphones in K-12 schools, primary care, government transparency, and economic development. The Senate's economic development package alone calls for $575 million in capital investments across 365 policy sections.

Spilka has defended the pace, arguing that getting complicated legislation right matters more than getting it done quickly. The new rules give lawmakers more time to prove that case.

Other priorities have no such protected path.

Healey proposed a local-option real estate transfer fee in 2023, and lawmakers omitted it from the housing law they passed. Supporters returned with standalone bills letting cities and towns tax high-dollar property sales to fund affordable housing. The Senate version sits in Ways and Means, its House counterpart before the Revenue Committee, and neither reached conference before July 31\. If it does not move by Jan. 5, the issue returns to a Legislature chosen this fall.

Rent stabilization follows voters into the next term for a different reason. On June 23, the Supreme Judicial Court barred a statewide rent-control initiative from the November ballot, ruling that the petition violated Article 48 of the state constitution because an exemption for facilities operated solely for religious purposes made religion a factor in how the law would apply. The court did not decide whether rent control is good policy. It removed the ballot route, not the argument.

The pattern extends beyond housing. The End of Life Options Act, which would legalize medical aid in dying for certain terminally ill adults, again cleared two committees before landing in Senate Ways and Means, the same place similar legislation stalled last session.

Child care shows a different failure. Major provisions of the 2024 EARLY ED Act became law through the fiscal 2025 budget, making Commonwealth Cares for Children grants permanent and capping what subsidized families pay. Yet as of March, roughly 32,000 children remained on the income-eligible child-care waitlist. A $31.2 million appropriation from the fiscal 2026 Fair Share supplemental budget, signed in June, should move up to 2,000 into care.

Education poses the longest-running question. The fiscal 2027 budget reconvenes the Foundation Budget Review Commission to reexamine the formula Massachusetts uses to fund public schools. The previous review produced the Student Opportunity Act, the multibillion-dollar overhaul enacted in 2019\. This year's budget provides $7.66 billion in Chapter 70 aid and orders the commission to report by October 2028\. Legislators elected this fall serve through the entire review.

Few of these fights break along party lines. Democrats disagree with Democrats over rent, energy, taxes, development, and transparency. The House and Senate, both held by supermajorities of the same party, routinely produce bills different enough that the year's largest proposals end in negotiations rather than on the governor's desk.

Where party control is not in question, the identity of the individual legislator matters more, not less. And in districts where voters do have a choice, the decisive election is the Sept. 1 primary.

In an Aug. 24 editorial assessing one of those Senate contests, the *Boston Globe* editorial board called a campaign centered on the effectiveness of the Legislature "a fair issue to raise" and said Beacon Hill deserves criticism for being "slow and lacking transparency." A legislative race is not only a verdict on an incumbent's attentiveness. It is a choice about who gets authority over the questions already waiting at the State House.

Campaigns invite voters to look backward. Incumbents cite accomplishments, challengers cite failures. The more consequential question is forward-looking: who will be sitting in the House and Senate when the fights that stalled, split the chambers, or never reached a vote return in January.

Competition is scarce, and where a real choice exists it often comes in September, long before attention settles on November. Those races deserve scrutiny precisely because so many others offer none. Beacon Hill has carried its unfinished business into the election. The legislative ballot decides who inherits it.