In January, S.1389, An Act Modernizing the 6 Fundamental Rights, moved forward from the Senate Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery Committee to Senate Ways and Means. We are excited to report that the House bill by the same name (H.2211) was also moved forward this week which means both bills now sit with Ways and Means. Although not a guarantee, Ways and Means is usually the last stop before a bill is presented to the Governor to be passed into law.
There were some edits to H.2211 before it was moved forward and so it was given a new bill number: H.5229. You can look at the differences between H.2211 and H.5229 by clicking here.
Meanwhile, the next steps for this bill are somewhat complicated by the differences in how the House and Senate bills are currently written. This will need to be reconciled into one final version before it could be moved forward again.
The 6 Fundamental Rights bill is based on an effort inspired by Liz Mombourquette at Wildflower Alliance who raised flags about how outdated the current 6 Fundamental Rights law is in many ways and was originally drafted by Roots Up Co-founder, Sera Davidow, when she was also at Wildflower Alliance. It has since been supported by a statewide coalition made up of people from Roots Up, Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, Wildflower Alliance and other members of the community.
The original law was passed in 1998 as the 5 Fundamental Rights and included rights for people in facilities facilitated, contracted or licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. It addresses the right to receive and send mail, receive and make phone calls, receive visitors (including attorneys and providers of various kinds) and the right to a human environment. The 6th Fundamental Right – the right to access fresh air – was passed in 2015.
You can view the current law as it is written here, as well as a summary from the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee here.
The current bill seeks to update terms including access to e-mail, culturally relevant products and accessibility measures for BIPOC, trans and disabled people and more. It also seeks to create an accountability structure for when the law is violated, which happens very frequently across the Commonwealth without much recourse at this point.
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