Middleboro Review 2: Why a Democratic supermajority won’t pass Democratic bills

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Why a Democratic supermajority won’t pass Democratic bills

Why a Democratic supermajority won’t pass Democratic bills

October 12, 2025

By Aaron Singer

Five and a half hours into a tedious rules debate at the Massachusetts State House in January 2019, acting Speaker Tom Petrolati ordered a roll call vote on a noncontroversial amendment, and voted no. Within seconds, red lights, representing “no” votes, lit up the electronic vote-tally board in the House chamber as dozens of rank-and-file members followed his lead.

Then, realizing he had made a mistake (but not realizing his mic was still on), Petrolati stammered: “It’s a yes?... Switch ’em. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes!”

After his vote on the large display board flipped to green for “yes,” so, too, did the votes of at least 63 Democratic representatives. (The video of this moment remains on the Legislature’s website, beginning at 5:35:49.)

Beacon Hill Roll Call reporter Bob Katzen’s write-up of the all-too-common event didn’t mince words: “Did these 63 even know what they were voting on? Did they care? What would cause them to switch their votes other than they decided to follow the ‘suggestion’ of the speaker?”

In a separate interview, Rep. Russell Holmes, one of the few at that time to openly criticize the system, offered a blunt assessment: “The entire legislative establishment is a scam. [The Speaker] is like a shepherd leading the sheep. Most reps vote the way he tells them to vote.”

Having grown up in deep-blue Massachusetts, I viewed politics through a national lens. Beyond knowing my rep’s names, I never thought much about what goes on under the Golden Dome on the corner of Boston Common.

Like many, I assumed that Massachusetts was liberal, and therefore, so was our State House. If a progressive policy was doable, the same electorate that chose Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey would have chosen a Legislature excited to make it happen.

That assumption crumbled when I started working on a documentary about why daylight saving time (DST) reform won’t pass the Legislature, despite broad public support.

What began as an attempt to use the Legislature’s clunky website to trace the path of a DST bill quickly turned into a ten-month (and counting) investigation. Interviews with lawmakers, activists, and reporters all confirmed the same truth of how laws actually pass in Massachusetts: Just a few members of leadership decide which bills live or die. Debate is staged, and the real lawmaking happens behind closed doors.

About the Author

Aaron Singer is a Walpole-based filmmaker and activist. He’s crowdfunding “Shadows on the Hill,” a documentary that investigates how widely supported bills stall in the Massachusetts State House—and the broader lessons for Democrats’ ability to deliver at the federal level.