The State of the Union: MA MassResistance, Taking on the Informal Sessions

Massachusetts citizens are preparing to derail their despotic State Legislature – by forcing them to follow the law.

Corrupt state legislature blatantly violates its own constitution to conduct business.

Corrupt practice gives them opportunity to pass oppressive, radical bills for LGBT lobby and other interests.

But that is about to be halted!

August 11, 2024

Corrupt "informal session" on June 3, 2024 where three state representatives (standing behind podium, with staff and guards) met before an empty chamber for 14 minutes and voted on 15 bills. [PHOTO: State House video]

As bad as Congress is, many state legislatures across America present a much bigger problem. And it’s not just among Democrats. Many Republicans are just as guilty.

But in Massachusetts, MassResistance is working to turn over the tables!

The Massachusetts Legislature is a full-time body (meeting all year long). There are hundreds of bills to debate and vote on, and bills go through various preliminary votes. But the Massachusetts representatives and senators don’t want to “waste” their time voting on bills they consider unimportant or “non-controversial” (even though others may disagree on that). So they pass them in so-called “informal sessions.”

What are informal sessions?

The Massachusetts Constitution specifically says that a majority of the members of each branch shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. The House has 160 members and the Senate has 40 members.

An informal session is where two or three representatives or senators (sometimes just one!) meet and pass dozens of bills before an empty chamber. They pretend that there’s a quorum, but of course there is not. This happens two or three times every week. (And of course, there are no roll-call votes taken.) But these sessions are treated as if they’re legitimate. You can even watch the videos of the House and Senate informal sessions on the State House website.

No other legislature in the country does anything as blatantly offensive and illegal as this. Probably 60% of all bills in Massachusetts get passed through this sleazy, illegal practice.

So if a representative or senator were to show up at an informal session and announce, “I doubt the presence of a quorum,” then the gig would be up and the phony session would have to stop (until the next one). This occasionally happens. For example, last December some Republicans did that because the Democrats were trying to push funding for illegal aliens through an informal session – and the Republicans wanted a full roll-call vote.

But the leadership of both the Republicans and Democrats are in collusion to keep this scam going because they all consider it expedient.

“Formal” sessions are held to do the “important” business

The House and Senate do hold a few “formal” sessions each month where all the representatives and senators are present. They debate and vote on the “important” bills – or the ones they consider “controversial.” These include the bills that the public would likely want to see a roll-call vote on.

But they don’t want to “waste” their time on all the other bills that fall under the public’s radar, or which the legislators don’t feel like debating. And certainly not if they would have to drive to the State House for it.

The Massachusetts State House needs cleaning up by the citizens!

Our plan to derail this corrupt practice – and upend the workings of the Legislature

Our plan is simple, though a bit challenging: Our goal is to get a legislator to go to every informal session and call the quorum! (Only a legislator can do that, not the public.) And we intend to do it as quickly as we can!

That will grind the Legislature to a halt as bills pile up! It will ultimately force the leadership to schedule numerous weekly formal sessions, force everyone to show up almost every day, and upend their sleazy way of doing business. They’ll hate it!

But most importantly, it will send these elected officials a strong message that the people are tired of their oppressive behavior.

This won’t be as easy as it should be. Out of 200 representatives and senators, we currently only have one conservative representative who has agreed to do this – if we can get a few others to join him. So far, even the “good” ones have been giving us a lot of lame excuses. But we’ll be organizing in their districts – to make it harder for them to side with their corrupt leadership than with the people. This will be an interesting battle!

Why is this important right now?

The legislators have a lot of extra time, so use their “formal” sessions for crafting tyrannical leftist bills against the citizens.

In our last post, we reported that the Massachusetts Legislature unanimously passed an LGBT bill radically redefining the family in state law.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Massachusetts Legislature has been spending most of its “formal” sessions catering to the far-left special interests that converge on the State House. The result has been a range of oppressive, offensive, and often very expensive legislation.

Here’s a sample of what else they’ve passed this session. Note that none of these were passed because average people were asking for them.

For the LGBT lobby: Tens of millions of dollars for LGBT propaganda, including the LGBTQ Youth Commission (which recommends legalization of prostitution and lowering the age of sexual consent). Taxpayer-funded “sex change” medical procedures. About to be passed: Requiring the LGBT sexuality agenda in all schools and banning school libraries from removing obscene children’s books.
For the illegal immigrant lobby: Over $1 billion to feed, clothe, and house illegal immigrants. Over $5 billion to build (or convert from office buildings) thousands of new apartments. Closing prisons to house them. Free community college tuition.
For the anti-gun lobby: The most oppressive anti-gun law in America, making it nearly impossible to legally carry a firearm in public.
For the DEI lobby: Forcing businesses in Massachusetts to file extensive paperwork regarding salaries paid, sex, and race of the employees.
For the climate change lobby: An oppressive bill (partially passed so far) to halt new gas stoves and gas heating systems.
And MANY more too numerous to mention here.

One of many pro-illegal immigration special interest groups protest outside the State House demanding more money to house the flood of "migrants." [PHOTO: State House News Service]

Climate change lobby parades its activists through the State House demanding passage of legislation to ban new gas stoves and heating systems. [PHOTO: State House News Service]

Further insult to taxpayers: The Legislature is taking a five-month paid vacation starting this month.

The Massachusetts Legislature has enacted a policy that on state election years (i.e., even-numbered years) the House and Senate members take a five-month paid vacation – from August 1 until early January. This gives them time to campaign for the November elections, do other personal business, and not have to drive to work at the State House.

During those five-months there are no “formal” sessions. All the business of passing bills (and there are still lots of them pending!) is done in the phony informal sessions, which are held about three times a week.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get regular five-month paid vacations from your job? How many of their constituents who work for a living have that luxury?

This is all the more reason why the unconstitutional informal sessions need to be stopped! These politicians are elected to come to the State House and do their work! It’s about time that happened.

Not surprising: The media takes a dive on reporting this issue

Informal sessions have become institutionalized at the State House and the media – even almost all the conservative media – have shamefully gone along with this scam for years. So it’s not surprising that virtually none of them want to report on our efforts to expose and stop it.

We recently reached out to every media outlet we could find – newspapers, radio stations, conservative media, etc. Only the Boston Broadside (a statewide conservative newspaper) and the Ed Lambert Talk Show on WXTK (a popular Cape Cod station) would cover this issue. All the others – including the “conservative” media – so far won’t touch it. But eventually we’ll make it so they have to!

Final thoughts

Angry Massachusetts citizens began the American Revolution.

But now, mobilizing that kind of energy has become a challenge. In recent years, Massachusetts conservatives have become a bit like, well, Canadians. They’ll attend rallies, and even hold signs. But when it comes to actual activism, too many of them want to appear respectable and not provoke the Left. Maybe it’s a result of being beaten down for so many years.

But MassResistance has been organizing a cadre of fearless Massachusetts people willing to take back their rights. They are hitting the ground running on this issue. In our next report we’ll show you our recent State House activist encounter!