On November 19, the Legislature voted to enact the FY25 closeout supplemental budget (the “supp”) and send it to Governor Maura Healey for her consideration and signature.
Like other closeout supp budgets, this spending bill closed the books on the prior fiscal year. But this is not an ordinary time and this was no ordinary closeout supp.
I was able to include a bill I filed in the closeout supp: S.1045, An Act Protecting Personal Security, so that bill has now been signed into law. This bill was a priority for constituents, LGBTQ+ advocates, and the Senate’s Steering and Policy Committee (which is tasked with the Senate’s Response 2025 initiative). It protects the privacy and safety of residents who are changing their legal name.
You can read more about this policy here in a great article about the bill on GBH and from a press release from GLAD Law here.
It’s hard to believe, but even passing this discrete, modest-in-size bill took dozens of hours of work, including extensive meetings with the Trial Court, District Attorneys, Registers of Probate, advocates, and colleagues. I am grateful to all of these individuals, to my partners in the House Representatives Jack Lewis and Lindsay Sabadosa, and to my Legislative Director Rachel Klein who worked hard and with surgical precision to shepherd this bill from concept to completion.
Read my testimony on this legislation here.
