As dawn broke Thursday on Beacon Hill, Massachusetts lawmakers brokered a deal on a long-awaited $5.2 billion bond bill targeting the state’s housing crisis, but they failed to reach accords on an array of plans touching everything from health care to a potential professional soccer stadium in Everett.
Legislative leaders unveiled the newly hatched housing agreement — and the deaths of several others — nearly 20 hours into a final marathon session that stretched until 9:57 a.m. on Thursday in the Senate, nearly 23 hours after it started. Among the bills to collapse was a substantial economic development bill, the second in as many sessions in which talks faltered at the end of formal sessions despite lawmakers blowing past a midnight deadline to finish their work.
Lawmakers’ failure to reach consensus cast uncertainty on several major plans, including ones that would allow the Kraft Group to build a new home for the New England Revolution in Everett, and funnel hundreds of millions of dollars toward the state’s life sciences and climate technology industries, a top priority of Governor Maura Healey.
Lawmakers blamed one another for the chambers’ dysfunction in the waning hours of what is a 19-month-long formal session. Among other bills to stall in closed-door talks was one that would tighten oversight of hospitals, especially for-profit systems such as bankrupt Steward Health Care, and the Legislature’s latest attempt at addressing clean energy.
State Representative Aaron Michlewitz, the House’s budget chief, said deteriorating relationships between the chambers’ Democratic leaders hampered their ability to get long-promised bills across the finish line.
“We kept trying and trying to engage and just ran against brick walls,” the North End Democrat said. “Eventually, we had to stop running into the brick wall.”
Senate President Karen E. Spilka shrugged off the criticism. “You can make blame,” the Ashland Democrat said, “but that gets us nowhere.”
Lawmakers entered the last day of formal sessions on Wednesday with at least nine major bills bottled up in closed-door negotiations before they teed up several more for talks by Wednesday night. By the time they gaveled out Thursday, lawmakers had pushed just three of those agreements to Healey’s desk, including a bill expanding who legally qualifies as a parent, a change long-sought by LGBTQ advocates, and another that would increase the benefits that veterans receive.
Lawmakers also passed a significant housing bond bill that would authorize $5.16 billion in borrowing to invest in affordable housing and tax credits as well as make other changes aimed at the housing crisis, such as legalizing accessory dwelling units — so-called granny flats — in Massachusetts. It would dedicate billions toward public housing and spurring more production around the state.
Other legislation appeared to be in limbo, or worse: A plan to add more than 200 liquor licenses in Boston sat unfinished as of Thursday morning, though state Senator William Brownsberger, who helped negotiate it, said “it’ll get done” at some point.
A bill intended to strengthen oversight of the state’s hospitals was a priority of House Speaker Ron Mariano especially, though the Quincy Democrat said he hopes to pass it in the informal sessions that will dot the Legislature’s calendar the rest of the year. In such sessions, any individual lawmaker can oppose a bill’s passage, making approval a riskier proposition.
“I’d rather have something that makes sense . . . without mistakes, without screw-ups,” he said.
Another casualty was a multibillion dollar borrowing bill designed to grease the state’s economic engine. The House and Senate both passed plans that would dedicate hundreds of millions to the state’s life sciences industry, though there was a wide gap in the proposal: Senate lawmakers propose to borrow $225 million over five years for the sector — less than half of the $500 million over a decade that Healey and House lawmakers sought.
Senator Michael Rodrigues, the chamber’s budget chief, called the bill’s collapse “certainly a disappointment.”
“But we live to fight another day,” he said.
The bill’s failure left in doubt a provision that would allow the Kraft Group to build a 25,000-seat waterfront stadium near the Encore Boston Harbor casino for the Revolution.
The proposal would remove 43 acres in Everett from what’s known as a Designated Port Area, a state designation that limits certain waterfront parcels to industrial uses. The property currently is home to a decommissioned section of a power plant that Wynn Resorts acquired last year, and sits on Boston’s doorstep, just across the Mystic from Charlestown. Slicing the parcel from the port area is viewed as one of the first steps to enabling a stadium to be built there.
Boston officials, including Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, chafed at the proposal, which was included in the Senate version of the bill but not the House, lamenting the city was left out of negotiations between the Kraft Group and Everett. Some environmental groups also criticized the plan, calling it as a product of backroom dealing.
State Senator Sal DiDomenico, an Everett lawmaker who pushed the proposal, said “multiple options” remain for trying to get it passed, including pursuing a standalone bill. “I’m not giving up, I’m committed,” he said. “It’s the right thing for my community.”
With several priorities on the line, Healey, a first-term Democrat, inserted herself into talks. She arrived on Beacon Hill late that night, and according to lawmakers, her staff had been deeply involved in discussions on the clean energy bill. At one point, Healey hustled into Mariano’s office for roughly a half-hour before emerging shortly before 11 p.m. and declining to speak with reporters.
In a statement Thursday, Healey urged lawmakers to “find a way” to pass the funding for the life sciences and climate technology industries included in the economic development bill.
“The book should not be closed on this bill. It is too important,” Healey said, while also thanking lawmakers for acting on some of her other priorities.
How is unclear. To pass the hundreds of millions of dollars in borrowing the bill proposed, lawmakers are required to take a roll-call vote, something they need a formal session to do. Legislative leaders have historically been reluctant to call special formal sessions.
While the Legislature’s rules require that formal lawmaking conclude by midnight on the last day of July, lawmakers can — and often do — suspend their own rules to continue working into the early hours of August. Two years ago, lawmakers also worked for 23 straight hours to complete their work, only to see a major tax relief proposal die at the close of session.
Democratic leaders had already begun Wednesday’s sessions short on agreements and long on tension. Frustration began spilling over Monday, when Mariano chafed at the Senate’s 11th-hour proposal to allow cities or towns to approve sites that could offer supervised consumption of illegal drugs — a measure the House had not debated.
“It sort of tells me you’re not really serious about passing the bill to begin with,” Mariano said.
The next day Spilka batted back at Mariano after the House passed a bill sought by Wu that would allow Boston officials to temporarily change the city’s taxing authority, mimicking his critical line: “It sort of tells you that they’re not really serious about passing the bill to begin with.”
Neither of the two proposals made it to the finish line Thursday.
The earth recorded its hottest day ever a few weeks ago, but early Thursday, lawmakers indicated they couldn’t reach a compromise on climate legislation. Senators said they wanted to pass a full, comprehensive package, not a slimmer version focusing on siting and permitting issues favored by the House, and would instead prefer to wait until the next two-year session to take it up again.
“My hope is that we come out with a bill that would have priorities for both bodies,” Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Stone Creemcq told reporters. “That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen right now.”
Across the building, Representative Jeff Roy, the House’s chief negotiator on the climate bill, criticized the Senate for having “gone back on its word,” saying the chambers and Healey had all agreed on language that would reshape the way that energy projects are approved and sited in Massachusetts.
That, however, was before the Senate added a range of other proposals, including ways to rein in natural gas usage, that Roy said they couldn’t agree on.
”And without [the changes to] siting and permitting, there’s not much else that can be done,” Roy said.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout. Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross. Anjali Huynh can be reached at anjali.huynh@globe.com.