Senate approves IDs for those leaving jail

BOSTON (SHNS) – The Senate approved a handful of statewide policy bills Monday, adding to the late-session hopper legislation dealing with identification cards for people leaving incarceration, camera-based enforcement of dedicated bus lanes and more.

Some meatier issues await the Senate later this week, namely a $432 million supplemental budget and a disability pension bill on the agenda for Wednesday and a long-term care bill due to be debated Thursday. But a handful of senators meeting in an informal session Monday advanced the type of bills that can get overshadowed by late July’s frenzy of conference reports and agreements.

After a brief introduction from Sen. Sal DiDomenico of Everett, the Senate passed a bill ( S 2883 ) that aims to ensure every person who reenters the community from incarceration will have an ID upon their release.

“ID cards are one of the most fundamental ways that a person can prove their identity in our society, which is the key to accessing services that allow a person to survive, and then to thrive, and to become productive members of our community. Many people who are released from incarceration do not have ID cards when they reenter society. So immediately, they are barred from accessing services and benefits, like government assistance programs, housing, food, employment, education, and many other services,” DiDomenico said.

The bill would require the chief administrative officer of a correctional facility to begin the process of securing a Massachusetts identification card — which differs from a driver’s license — from the Registry of Motor Vehicles no later than 120 days before the person’s release. The card would be provided at no cost to the incarcerated person.

“Some do this, some do not. And it’s luck of the draw based on where you are currently coming out of prison from,” DiDomenico said.

The senator said the bill would also make it easier for someone being released without a permanent address to get a state ID by expanding the list of alternate addresses to include a family member’s home, a temporary group residence, a place of worship, a community center, or certain nonprofit organizations.

The Senate also passed a bill ( S 2884 ) that looks to crack down on drivers who stop or park in bus-only lanes or at bus stops.

Sen. Brendan Crighton said the bill would “allow the MBTA or any regional transit authority to use bus-mounted camera systems to enforce the priority of dedicated bus lanes and bus stops.” A Senate Ways and Means Committee summary says the bill would also explicitly prohibit a motor vehicle from parking or standing in a bus lane unless otherwise specified, establish fines of between $25 and $125 for bus lane violations and $100 for bus stop violations, and makes clear that a camera-enforceable violation is not to be considered a conviction of a moving violation for insurance purposes.

“Dedicated bus lanes are intended to give bus riders a safe, fast and reliable public transit option. But far too often, cars stop and park in these lanes, which has a significant impact on bus service. These violations not only slow down buses, but create hazards for passengers, in particular those individuals with disabilities,” the Lynn Democrat said. “Far too frequently, these cars prevent buses from pulling up fully to the curb and leave the driver with no choice but to open the doors further away for passengers to disembark, creating real safety risk for these customers.”

Crighton, the Senate chair of the Transportation Committee, said MBTA bus drivers on certain routes have reported dealing with bus lane or bus stop violations on practically every trip. He said bus-mounted cameras are already in use all around the country.

“In San Francisco, bus-mounted cameras have improved bus travel times by up to 20 percent. In Philadelphia, data collected from a pilot program found 36,000 bus lane violations … and 32,000 bus stop parking violations in only 70 days and on just two of their bus routes. In New York, the number of collisions has decreased by 20 percent on average, and only 8 percent of ticketed drivers have received more than two violations,” he said. “This obviously is a prevalent problem that is not unique to Massachusetts. But without camera enforcement, these dangerous infractions will continue.”

Crighton also explained a bill ( S 2885 ) the Senate passed Monday to create a special commission to study and make recommendations about the ability of the Massachusetts School Building Authority to meet the needs of current and future school facility projects.

School building projects have become more complicated in recent years amid economic volatility and supply chain issues, and the escalation in construction prices outpaced the growth in MSBA funding limits. That led lawmakers and Gov. Maura Healey last year to increase the annual cap on the amount of grants the agency can award each year and make other changes meant to give the agency greater flexibility to deal with inflation. Crighton has been a proponent of overhauling the MSBA funding mechanism.

“If you look across all of our districts, we recognize that we have, in many instances, crumbling infrastructure in our school system. In the city of Lynn alone, we have 12 schools — 12 schools — over 100 years old. Now, the best teachers in the world, the best families, best students, would still have a very difficult time learning and buildings that are far outdated, do not have the technology, do not have the public health protections there,” he said. “It’s a serious problem and one that this body has time and time again, seek to remedy by taking a deeper dive by rolling up our sleeves and having a hard conversation.”

The Senate has tried to address the MSBA issues by making the special commission language part of its budget in the last several years, Crighton said, “but unfortunately we’ve not been able to have it signed into law, which has significantly delayed our ability to address this issue through future legislation.”

“So I’m hopeful this bill will be passed once and for all, so that we can roll up our sleeves next session and take these recommendations and have an informed debate about how we can provide equity when it comes to our public school facilities,” he said Monday.

The fourth bill that the Senate passed Monday ( S 2886 ) deals with direct wine shippers and how the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission issues those licenses. There was no discussion of that bill during Monday’s session.

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