 I am James Milan, and this is Talk of the Town, and it is a legislative update as we get to have regularly, but in an irregular way in that Sean Garvely, our state representative who represents big part of Arlington and also West Medford, is here in person for the first time we were noting in fully two and a half years. So let me actually shake your hand. Good to see you, James. Good to see you too. And I do mean that literally, obviously. So we tried to get you in maybe three or four months ago for the last legislative update, and it just didn't work out logistically. In the end, you were a little bit too busy, actually. And so we had to do virtual number 13 or something like that, right? Anyway, great to have you here. Let's talk about do what we usually do here, and let's talk about what is pending for you in terms of legislation that you are sponsoring or legislation you're involved in. And then just we'll also get a general kind of flavor for how things are in the state house at the moment. And I know that we're coming up to the end of session at the end of July, so things must be a little bit even more frenzy than usual. But let me start by asking you, with that, the fact that July 31st marks a clear end to this session, and there is much business still to be done. Tell us what the biggest things are to get across the finish line between now and the end of next month. Well, first of all, James, thanks so much for having me, and thank you to ACMI for doing this. It has been two and a half years since I have physically been in the studio, so it's great to be here and see all the interns and all the staff who are here. But it's important to note, too, that we've been doing these remotely for the past few years. And it's just so important to keep our constituents in Arlington and Medford engaged and informed, and you and ACMI do that so well. So thank you so much. So it's great to be here in the middle of June. As you noted, July 31st is the legislative deadline. So we get elected as reps every two years, and we filed the bills that January when we get sworn in. And you have two years to get your priorities over the goal and to the governor's desk for his action one way or the other. And we have literally a month, a little more than a month, to get it done. And that is because July 31st, the clock runs out, and then we have to file everything again the following January after a new legislature is elected and sworn into office. So right now, there's a lot of things that I am working on, a lot of my priorities that are in conference committee. There's a lot of issues in conference committee. First of all, let's just go over the landscape up on Beacon Hill. We have a budget proposal, the FY 2023 budget that we do every year that is critical to Arlington and all the other 350 cities and towns across the Commonwealth when it comes to local aid, when it comes to Chapter 70 Education Aid, you name it. Yeah, we did well last year, I know that. Absolutely. So there is a conference committee that has just been formed that is meeting now until a budget can be agreed on. And so that is probably, I would think, the most impressive matter before the legislature right now because we want to start getting local aid to cities and towns, so that is very critical. Excuse the interruption, Sean. I just want to clarify for folks, when you say it's in conference committee, tell us what you mean. So a conference committee is comprised of six individuals, three members of the House that are appointed by the Speaker of the House, three members of the State Senate that are appointed by the Senate President. And you have a budget that looks different in the House and a budget from the budget that was done by the State Senate. And the goal of the conference committee is to reconcile the differences of the legislation, whether it's a piece of legislation to do with mental health or the budget to try to get one budget that will go back to the House and the Senate for an up or down vote. If the Senate agrees to that and the House agrees to that, then it gets laid upon the governor's desk for him to do his action. And he can either sign it into law or he can veto it, offer amendments and send it back to the legislature where we have some time to go over those changes to either reject them and what's known as an override if we can get two thirds of the House and the Senate, both, to agree to that then we can do that or accept his changes. We're kind of getting very wonkish, but Massachusetts is one of the states that allows the governor to use what's known as a line item veto. So he can actually go into the different line items and scratch them out and zero them, but then we can go under the constitution back on each of those line items for a separate vote and override those line items. And a line item is just eight numbers separated in the middle by a dash and they represent an appropriation that the state gives to cities and towns, programs, critical services to the commonwealth. But in reality, what they resemble or what the, it's much more than a symbol, right? These are programs that are critical for state government to continue and to really serve what I believe are programs to meet the needs of the most vulnerable citizens of the commonwealth. So these are not just nice things to have, these are critical services that we're trying to deliver to individuals and families across the commonwealth. So every decision that is made by either the legislature or the governor, especially when it comes to the budget, has serious ramifications, both good and bad, which is why it's so critical and why the work of the conference committee is so essential. There's a number of other bills as we talked about earlier that are in conference committee. So we have the budget, we have the mental health bill that's now before the conference committee. Again, three members of the House, three members of the Senate. And that really focuses on mental health parity and making sure that mental health is treated the same as physical health. And that we finally address the needs of those suffering with mental illness in our communities across the commonwealth. I think we've been doing a better job over the past several years than how we've addressed mental health in the past but not good enough. And we need to continue to get better to address the needs of those living with mental health needs that go addressed or unaddressed across the commonwealth. We also have an energy bill that is currently before the conference committee. And this energy bill is very, very important to address climate change and trying to reduce the amount of dirty sources of energy that still are far by used in the commonwealth. And as you may know, I serve as the house chair of the House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change. So I was very active in steering the houses bill to address these needs. And we really focused on creating a 21st century offshore wind industry here in the commonwealth that can be the most competitive really in the world but certainly in the country. And also focusing on grid modernization and making sure that we have the capacity to handle this new green renewable energy in the commonwealth. The Senate's legislation really focused on electrifying our transportation system, focusing mainly on cars and creating the infrastructure in charging stations necessary and the incentives to do that. Both are critically important and the conferees are working out the differences on both. And my hope is we're going to have a robust, progressive and jealous piece of legislation for the rest of the country to look at that addresses all of these issues. So President Biden has put forth his energy goals for offshore wind. If what we put forward passes the conference committee and assigned by Governor Baker, we would make up one third of his agenda for offshore wind for the entire nation. So when I say robust and forward thinking, that's what this legislation would do. But it's currently in conference committee, so it's really up to the conferees. But I've been advocating to them and really hope that we'll have a robust dialogue and a great bill that gets out of conference committee to meet the needs of everything I stated to you when it comes to addressing climate change. Yeah. So, sorry, but I just wanted to comment quickly on that, which is really nice laying out of the priorities, the respective priorities of the two chambers because that often, I think people know that something gets passed or it doesn't or whatever, and they don't understand that sometimes the Senate has a particular perspective, as you were saying in this case, much more focused on electrification of our transportation system. And you're describing that the House side is being more focused on that renewable energy sources and wind in particular. Just nice inside baseball, so to speak, to know that, yeah, that's what they're looking to reconcile is those two priorities that we all agree are very important, but nonetheless, one of them is gonna kind of carries a little bit more weight in each respective chamber. As you know, I'm the sponsor of the 100% Renewable Energy Bill with clear dates and goals on how to achieve 100% renewable energy. We can't get there without robust offshore wind and robust electrification of vehicles, the MBTA, commuter rails, home heating. So it's all critically important. And so it's pretty exciting to have a conference committee that's looking at both of these. And so I'm really hopeful for a strong bill once the conference committee can reconcile the differences. Yeah, and I just wanna pause for a second. We'll get right back into the legislation itself or pending legislation to say that it's not like everything gets to conference committee, right? As you said, this is work that you either started or restarted in January of 2021 and is after all this time coming finally to conference committee. And that in and of itself must be kind of exciting that the ball's that close to the goal line, you're 10 yards or 15 yards out, whatever the right metaphor is. But still, I guess there's no way of knowing, right? So not everything gets to conference committee. That's absolutely true. And not everything gets out of conference committee. So it's really, we try to do whatever we can to get our common priorities in the district and across the Commonwealth to the position where we can get it passed and laid upon the governor's table. And so I will articulate for you and we've talked about these bills in the past. I have two pieces of legislation that are currently in conference committee and to certainly our disability related focuses, but certainly priorities of mine for many, many years. One of them we've been talking about, I wanna say for eight years. For as long as we've been talking. And it's a program called the Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Program. And it is funded by a line item that I sponsor every year to the budget that allows students with autism and down syndrome to be able to go to college. One of our public higher education institutions and 12 of our institutions have this program that's funded by the state. But it is not part of state law. And we don't really have the, what I would say the appropriate funding to make sure this program is able to be successful. And so in conference committee right now is a bill that I've been working on for many years that would expand it to all 29 public higher education institutions across the Commonwealth. That's UMass, state universities and community colleges and increase the funding to make sure that it's successful. And the question some people may ask is why do we want this? Why do we want students with autism and down syndrome to be able to go to college? To be able to have that experience. And it really all comes down to inclusion. Many decades ago actually maybe not even that long ago the idea of a student with autism and down syndrome being educated in a K through 12 classroom would have been seen as with skepticism. And that's what we're finding with public university or 12 through 16. But the truth is those students were extremely successful in a K through 12 setting and more importantly their peers benefited just as much to have that interaction because that's what the real world is about. And if you look at surveys of students from across the country with autism or down syndrome who have taken college courses that have been included within college campus and college activities just like their peers, when it comes to their future, when it comes to independence, when it comes to employment, they are 30 times or 30% more likely for success than their peers, right? Other students with autism and down syndrome that were not given the same opportunity. So to me this is the most important thing we can do when it comes to inclusion in the Commonwealth. And I'm really hopeful that, we talked about it's in conference committee and I'm really hopeful we can get it out and sent to the governor before July 31st. Can I ask you, Sean, just as an aside, because as you said, we have been speaking about this in my conversations with you going back probably eight years. And so I imagine also people need to understand that this is the way it works with legislation, right? Somebody has a good idea, especially if you're changing policy or creating more funding for something or making something into a right, you know, et cetera, or a law, obviously. It takes a while. So you've been at this a long time. Have you been at a stage where this legislation or a previous version of it was at conference, was in conference committee before? No. So this is as far along as this has gotten. So we've been in a position where the bill was passed by one of the, you know, one of the legislative branches, but not the other. But this is the first time it'll be before conference. And to me, that's very satisfying. And I'm very hopeful that we can use this momentum and get it over the last legislative hump. Yeah, yeah, it's been a long time coming, as you said. But of course, you know, time is flying, but I want to hear about, you know, whatever, because you'd mentioned that there's a second bill that you're also. There's a second one that is yours. That I'll be brief, but it's also in conference committee. And it's the creation with funding, a special commission to study the history of state institutions throughout the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. So there is a. And what you mean by state institutions, you mean like mental, people who have been installed or incarcerated, one might even say. Right, and I noticed your voice change when you talked about institutions, because it's an uncomfortable conversation. It's an uncomfortable history. It's not a positive history in the Commonwealth. Individuals, especially the 1800s or the early 1900s before some of the reforms took shape in the 1970s were not treated well. They were treated subhuman in many ways. And we actually have unmarked hundreds and possibly thousands of unmarked graves from Boston to Belcher Town. Just numbers. There's a forest, if you will, or a conservation area in Waltham. And if you walk through it, you come head to head with a cemetery. And there's no names on the markers. They're kind of overgrown, but they're just dashes. They're letters, numbers, and dashes. And they represent individuals who passed away in these institutions. We don't know their stories. We don't know their histories. They are literally less human because those stories of their individuality hasn't been told. I have a family story. You have a family story. Everyone in the studio has a family story that's unique. We know it. We should know it. We don't know it with these individuals. We don't even know their names. We don't even know their names. And it's a very uncomfortable history, which is why this issue hasn't been tackled in the past. And I'm not suggesting we do something radical. We're just saying that people in Massachusetts, young people, old people alike, should know the history of what happened to these individuals because history is critical in making sure that doesn't get repeated. And so I'm really excited about this commission. I think it's gonna be very emotional, but I think it's gonna be very successful and have Massachusetts, again, be the leader nationwide on a lot of these important topics. And the action really in your bill is to the creation of the commission, which will then begin its own study of this history and then make those findings public for everybody to grapple with, most likely, really. And how we can pay tribute to these individuals, whether it's to a museum or whatnot, but these histories need to be taught to the people of the Commonwealth. I don't want to shortchange your ability to communicate to your constituents other things that are going on that are important to you and they should know about. So let me give you another minute or two to do that, but I also have a couple of other things that I want to ask you about. And we've got maybe eight minutes or so left. Okay. So another bill that we're working on that is not in conference committee yet, but which very promising that the house is going to pass it very soon is around a bill I filed around, a healthcare bill around people living with multiple sclerosis. So currently in Massachusetts, let's say you live with MS and you found a drug to treat your flare-ups which happens when you have multiple sclerosis and it's been very successful. You've been able to live a terrific life. You've been able to control your flare-ups, stay out of the emergency room for 20 years. All of a sudden, unbeknownst to you that your insurance company decides that they're not gonna cover the cost of that treatment that's been working so well and you get kicked off that drug. And not every drug that is created to control flare-ups for people living with MS helps people the same way as other drugs, right? So there needs to be a test and a trial, you living with MS, you need to go find which drug won their covering and you don't know by looking at it if it's going to control your flare-ups so you need to experiment. That happening can cause serious pain to you and also cause you to go into the emergency room for direct care. It's just wrong. You know, it's not right to treat people like that especially when what we want them to do is to get healthy, right? And to take the drug that's working for them and you know, through no fault of their own, their insurance companies decided that they're not gonna cover that treatment anymore and they literally kicked them off the only drug that they know that works for them. And so my bill would cover that cost and not allow, it's a health insurance mandate but would not allow a drug insurance company to kick a patient off their medication that's working. And so we're very, very close. The speaker has said he wants to do this bill and my hope is we're gonna do it in the next couple of weeks. As you have mentioned, we are coming down to the wire with July 31st, fast approaching. You know, and after July 31st comes early November when we are in full on election season both here in the state of Massachusetts and the Commonwealth as well as federal midterms. I'd like to talk to you a little bit about that. First of all, we've got state races and a gubernatorial race as the biggest one, obviously. That means that of course Charlie Baker by his own decision, our current governor is a lame duck for all intents and purposes between now and November. How does that affect as far as you can tell legislation that you've just been talking about and legislation in general that's making its way to the governor's desk? So it certainly does have an impact. The governor will not be here come January. We will have a new governor. Most likely for the first time in the Commonwealth's history a first elected female governor. A lot of what we're trying to discuss in the legislature around ARPA funding, infrastructure funding that President Biden signed into law. A lot of it we have not had that conversation with in due deference to a new governor to give her the opportunity or him the opportunity to enter this conversation with the legislature on meeting the priorities of the people of Massachusetts. So I think in that case there is some impact to Governor Baker being a lame duck governor sort of speak, but we're working very closely with the administration to try to pass his priorities our priorities that are common of mutual interest to try to get things done before July 31st. So just because he is term limited doesn't mean the legislature stops our cooperation with the executive stops. It certainly doesn't. But certainly we are mindful of a new governor coming in and wanting to do deference to her for how decisions are made, certainly on money matters. Yeah, and I can't help but think that there's gotta be some temptation on the legislature's part to push things a little bit further down the road until perhaps you have a democratic governor to be working with. You know, we worked very well with Governor Baker and I worked well with Governor Patrick, I worked well with Governor Baker and I'm assuming I'll work well with the upcoming administration. The fact is, you know, for the legislature and for the governor to get anything of meaning and substance done for the people of the Commonwealth, we need to work together. Certainly there are differences of opinions on policy, but that doesn't stop us from working together. I mean, I've had a lot of differences with this administration, especially on environmental matters and educational matters, but we still worked well together to serve the people of Arlington, Medford and people across the Commonwealth. So I hope we can continue to do that for the rest of this governor's term and for the next one. Okay, last thing, Sean. You know, as I mentioned, we also have federal midterms coming up in November and hopefully we'll be able to talk to you between now and then. Absolutely. With another update at least. But just on the federal level, on the federal level generally, and in terms of the federal government, in terms of the Supreme Court upcoming decisions, decisions we've had whiffs of or hints about which way they're going, et cetera. Just your thoughts in general about where things stand and how the work of the federal government and again the Supreme Court affects your work as a state legislator here in Massachusetts. So it's pretty alarming and I would say terrifying, especially for women across the Commonwealth and women across this country. But to put it in perspective, our session ends as we said on July 31st. So we're trying to get legislation passed, we're trying to get a budget passed, but this is all in the shadow of knowing that the Supreme Court, it's not sure when, but we do assume that sometime this month or early next month, I believe, the Supreme Court is going to come up with decisions that are going to greatly impact individuals across Massachusetts and across this country. We know because of the leaked memorandum from the Alito report that they are going to be possibly overturning Roe v. Wade, which has horrific consequences for women across the Commonwealth and across this country, if you believe strongly in women's reproductive healthcare, it's very alarming. Same with decisions around guns, right, in the Commonwealth and across the country, there's a decision around that that is coming up. So we need to take this seriously. There are steering committees right now that are before the legislature that is looking at what these changes to federal law by the Supreme Court will mean in Massachusetts, and we're gonna be ready to respond whether through legislation to address this issue. Certainly reproductive care is absolutely critical in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and we need to support that. And I will also say, if I may, if they do repeal Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court, that is a decision that will be entirely unpopular across this country, it's important to remember that abortion and safe legal abortion is not going to go away. Wealthy women across this country will be able to access reproductive healthcare. My biggest concern is our women who live in some of these states that will try to, for the first time that I can remember, take away a constitutional right of a woman. Some of the poorest vulnerable women in these states will not be able to get access to safe legal reproductive healthcare. And that's unconscionable, and that's something that should scare everybody across this country, certainly here in Massachusetts. But we are watching these decisions carefully. These are not decisions that are happening in a vacuum, and we are preparing legislative response and remedy in action if these things come down the pike between now and July 31st. Forcefully put, we appreciate it. Thanks so much, James. Thank you. I'm gonna bring this conversation to an abrupt end. I have been speaking with Sean Garverly, who is our state representative here from Arlington and Medford, and for this legislative update as part of Talk of the Town. We will, as I said, hope to talk to Sean in the coming months and before the elections that we were just mentioning, and we will get a chance to find out which of his bills, in fact, made it all the way through. We look forward to that. We thank Sean very much for his time. We thank you for yours. We'll see you next time.