Mass. legislators scrambling to finish work

BOSTON — Welcome to crunch time on Beacon Hill.

The Legislature has a mountain of unfinished business and less than three months until formal meetings end July 31. Tasks include sending Republican Gov. Charlie Baker a $41 billion budget for the coming fiscal year.

The two-year session began with lawmakers voting themselves a pay raise, and since then, the House and Senate have been generally meeting only once a week, if at all, on a formal basis.

The Senate was plunged into months of turmoil over an ethics investigation that ultimately led to the resignation Friday of former Senate President Stan Rosenberg.

A few major bills, including a criminal justice overhaul, have become law, but many others are in various states of incompletion.

OPIOID TREATMENT

Baker proposed a bill last year to improve opioid addiction treatment. It includes expanded access to the overdose-reversal drug Naloxone and a provision that would authorize police officers and medical professionals to take high-risk individuals to substance abuse treatment centers, even against their will, for up to 72 hours. A House committee backed its chamber’s version of the bill Thursday. It has yet to be debated.

GUN SAFETY

The House plans to vote on a bill later this month that would create a process for removing firearms from people who legally own them but have exhibited unstable or potentially dangerous behavior. The measure also would need Senate approval. The Legislature also faces an approaching deadline to regulate stun guns after the state’s highest court ruled last month the existing blanket ban on those devices is unconstitutional.

IMMIGRATION

Another high court ruling, issued last summer, found state law does not allow police and other law enforcement officers to hold people solely on the basis of a federal immigration detainer request. Baker — who says he opposes making Massachusetts a “sanctuary state” — filed legislation that would allow cities and towns to honor federal detention requests for people considered dangerous or violent. But there seems little to no consensus in the Legislature on how to proceed, with many Democrats favoring a so-called “safe communities” bill to sharply limit cooperation between local police and immigration officials.

AIRBNB TAXES

Both chambers agree that shortterm rentals, including online platforms such as Airbnb, should be regulated and taxed.

What they don’t agree on is how. The House calls for a multi-tiered system for taxing short-term rentals, while the Senate wants to simply impose the state’s existing 5.7 percent lodging tax on those transactions. House and Senate negotiators are seeking a compromise.