How the Massachusetts Legislature scams its citizens: One State Rep singlehandedly passes bill to spend $730 million of “supplemental budget” items

A long, nearly incomprehensible catalogue of spending.

Corruption on a scale found nowhere else in America.

MassResistance has organized across the state to permanently derail this!

November 27, 2024
VIDEO: Here's how quickly just one state representative passed a $730 million bill in an informal session! (32 sec)

After the House Clerk reads the title of the bill, Rep. Paul Donato "votes" to pass it before an empty chamber (except for staff). No other state except Massachusetts does this.

Be thankful you don't live in Massachusetts! (And if you do, join the fight!)

On October 17, a so-called “informal session” of the Massachusetts House of Representatives with only one member present “voted” to pass a bill to spend $730 million of of the people's tax money on a cavalcade of “supplemental” items!

What is an informal session? Since August 1, the elected members of the Massachusetts Legislature have been on their regular five-month paid vacation. But there’s still legislative work that must be done. So they do it in unconstitutional “informal sessions” where one or two members meet in an empty chamber and “pass” laws.

(A disturbing amount of anti-family legislation is passed this way, since there's no roll-call vote of the body.)

The Massachusetts Constitution (Article 33) requires a quorum of half of the body to transact business. But the legislators ignore that. They pretend there's a quorum. Unless a member shows up and specifically "doubts the presence of a quorum," they continue on and pass bills. The Republicans and Democrats are both in on the scam - after all, it beats going to work!

No other state in America does anything like this. Even relatively corrupt legislatures like in New York and California at least legally vote on everything they pass.

An additional outrage is that the Boston media has been going along with this charade for so many years - reporting on "informal session" actions as if they're legitimate - that now that we're exposing it, they refuse to cover it and basically admit their guilt. We've approached the Boston Globe, Boston Herald and even "conservative" radio hosts. They don't say we're wrong - they just refuse to talk about it.

Passing a “supplemental budget”

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Legislature met for weeks to hammer out the state budget. There were committee meetings and floor debates. The process was not completely transparent (this is Massachusetts, after all), but draft versions and the final version were available to read. There were roll call votes of all the House and Senate legislators when the budget passed.

Then in October, the governor decided that she needed more money – well over half a billion dollars – to pay for some more “necessary” stuff. She delivered a list of the spending she wanted to the Democrat leadership, which controls the Legislature. They dutifully concocted a bill to give her what she wanted.

On October 17, an informal session consisting of only Rep. Paul Donato (D-Medford) passed this massive bill. Donato took a “voice vote” on it, which was both comical and maddening to watch (see video above).

What’s in this spending bill?

Most of the $730 million – over $556 million – goes to pay for MassHealth deficits. MassHealth - the state's version of ObamaCare - has always been a scam for taxpayers. But now that it’s apparently covering the flood of illegal aliens in the state, it’s completely out of control. We’re told that at some point the federal government will reimburse the state for most or all of the MassHealth part of it. We’ll see.

What about the remaining $165 million? You can try to read the bill yourself and figure it out. It’s complicated. It appears to be a slush fund of the governor’s pet projects. Some examples:

Are these items really needed? Is this a good way to be spending taxpayer dollars?

There are currently 157 members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. It’s a safe bet that none of them (except a few in the leadership) even bothered to read this, much less ask questions or debate the merits of it. (After all, they’re on their paid vacation!) They simply don’t care and are willing to let one State Rep “pass” it. Both Republicans and Democrats – even the “good” legislators – are in on this corruption.

On October 24 the Senate took up this bill - and actually met with a quorum that day. They debated the bill, and added as amendments some of their own pet projects. For example, one of the amendments expands “gender affirming care” – though in a manner that’s difficult to figure out. They purposely passed it on a voice vote instead of a roll call.

Supposedly, a conference committee will iron out the differences between the two versions. So this bill hasn’t reached the governor’s desk yet – but it will surely get there soon.

And many more are being passed

And this is just one of several horrible bills that have been “passed” in informal sessions of the Massachusetts Legislature since August. We will continue to document these on our website.

MassResistance is determined to permanently stop this illegal and unconstitutional practice! (And we're also going to force the corrupt media to cover it!)

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