2025-2026 Legislative Session Beginning With Association Filing New Proposals
The 2025-2026 legislative session will get underway on New Year’s Day with the swearing in of the 194th General Court. Part of the process of a new session is the election of leadership in both branches. The House of Representatives will elect a Speaker of the House and Minority Leader, and the Senate will elect a Senate President and Minority Leader.
A leadership team will be selected in both branches and the announcement of Committee Chairs and appointments of members to the various committees will take place shortly after. The Association will be monitoring these appointments, in particular the appointments to the Joint Committee on Public Service, where the majority of the Mass Retirees legislation will be heard.
A new session is also marked by the filing of legislation to be heard and reviewed over the two-year session. The Association has prepared a legislative package that is a mix of bills that are considered refiles and new legislation. All legislation filed by the Association is relative to issues that will impact public retirees. Subject areas include the COLA, pensions, insurance, and survivor benefits.
Some highlights include refiling legislation increasing the Veterans Bonus, allowing surviving spouses to retain their health insurance if they remarry and protecting local retirees by requiring any changes to the premium splits to be prospective and capping the out-of-pocket cap on prescription drugs at $2000 across all plans. Also, on the list of refiles is the bill to have the GIC implement a Medicare Buy-In process.
In addition, there will be several new bills related to municipal health insurance and legislation to require a minimum contribution to a pension system by the public employer when full funding is achieved.
Once drafted or updated, the Association will secure House or Senate members to file the legislation on behalf of the Association as well as cosponsors. All legislation filed will be given a House or Senate bill number and will be assigned to a Joint Committee for a public hearing.
A detailed list of the bills with summaries, sponsors and bill numbers will be included in future editions of The Voice, as well as our website and other media outlets. Work will continue on the COLA Special Commission as well as the Post Retirement Taskforce in the new year. Recommendations, resulting from the work of these bodies, are anticipated in the beginning half of 2025.