The Massachusetts Legislature is considering two primary pieces of Legislation that relate to the compensation of Bar Advocates, House 1 and HR 4321. Bristol County Board members have constructed a comparison of the two bills.

A Hearing on H4321 was held before the Judiciary committee on February 3, 2004. The committee reported the bill "out of committee" favorably at the conclusion of the hearings. Several hundred bar advocates attended the hearings, traveling from all corners of the state. The committee permitted additional sponsors to sign on, and 67 legislators now co-sponsor H4321.

Were you one of the 300+ Bar Advocates who attended the February 3, 2004 H4321 Legislative Hearings in Boston?? Or the June 14, 2005 judiciary Hearings?? To see who attended from your city or town, select a hearing date, fill in your hometown, and click on the button "Show me!".

A web based legislative tracking system has been designed and installed on the website. The system permits individuals with special passwords to maintain the database, and everyone to view the results.

When you have displayed a table of legislative data, you can click on one of the links that is visible as an underlined count of representatives or senators. This will allow you to view the specific legislators for that county, along with their vote, their membership, or their support of the displayed legislation. The list will also display the cities that are within the legislative district for each legislator. The individual who last updated the field for the specific legislator, along with the date and time changed, are also displayed. Currently, Tom Workman, Deb Sirotkin-Butler and Anthony Benedetti are authorized to edit the data.

The initial supporters for H4321 were loaded with the legislators who either co-sponsored the Bill or who spoke in favor of the bill at the legislative hearings. As bar advocates learn of the support of their legislators, the database can be updated by one of these three individuals, and the table of support will be instantly updated and available to all on this webpage. These legislators amount to 63 of 160 reps (over 39%), and 9 of 39 Senators (23%). Legislation involving expenditures traditionally begin in the House, thus the early support is likely to be srongest there.

The task at hand is to marshal support in the Ways and Means Committees. Bar Advoates are encouraged to access the list of legislators who serve on this committee, using the access provided above on this web page