House backs change to new headlight law
The House unanimously voted to add protections to state law for drivers who commit headlight infractions, including violations of a new requirement that they use their lights when conditions require windshield wipers.
Facing some backlash, Transportation Committee Chairman Rep. William Straus filed a budget amendment to make sure a violation of the state's headlight requirements will not be considered a moving violation for insurance purposes. The new headlight requirement, originally pushed by Natick Democrat Rep. David Linsky, passed during informal sessions late last year and took effect earlier this month.
Straus, a Mattapoisett Democrat, said the revision to the headlight law would be applied retroactively to April 7, 2015.
"We are left with what is a pure public safety statute that encourages in bad weather conditions that require the use of windshield wipers that headlights be on," Straus said.
Straus's amendment was included in a bundling of budget amendments concerning transportation, constitutional officers and state administration assembled by the House Committee on Ways and Means. The consolidated amendment passed Monday 154-0.
The bulk amendment did not include language proposed by South Boston Rep. Nick Collins that would have stripped the recommended five-year moratorium for the MBTA of the "Pacheco Law," which governs privatization of state services.
House leaders also opted against including an amendment filed by Rep. Jay Barrows, a Mansfield Republican, that would have increased from 20 percent to 25 percent the amount all state employees insured through the Group Insurance Commission must pay toward their health care premiums.
Gov. Charlie Baker first proposed the higher premium contribution in his budget proposal, but House Ways and Means Chairman Brian Dempsey said House Democratic leaders rejected that idea because state employees were already being asked to pay more for health insurance through higher co-pays and deductibles imposed by the GIC.
The bulk amendment dealing with transportation, state administration and constitutional officers was the first of many bundles expected to be debate this week in the House chamber relating to the $38 billion House Ways and Means budget.
The initial bundle dispensed with 84 individual amendments, and added just over $3 million to the budget's bottom line. Among the programs receiving increased funding was the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which would see its budgets climb by $2 million to $12 million from the original Ways and Means proposal.
Rep. Cory Atkins, a Concord Democrat, said the increased appropriation was "generous" given the spending restraint House leaders are attempting to showcase with its budget recommendations.
"While the Mass. Cultural Council doesn't necessarily deal with education it is in every one of our schools," Atkins said, pointing to both field trips and after-school programs run in many urban areas that she said "keep kids off the streets and really developing their talents."
House lawmakers also voted to add $700,000 to the budget for a reserve fund that would be set up for the Massachusetts Port Authority to encourage travel and tourism from Israel, the Middle East and Asia using direct flights to Logan International Airport.
The Senate plans to debate its fiscal 2016 budget bill in May.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments