JULY 27, 2020 — Three senators who helped craft their branch’s policing bill will join the Judiciary Committee’s House chair, the head of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus and a former state trooper on a conference committee that will try to reach a House-Senate compromise on police reform.
Each branch named its negotiators on Monday. On the Senate side, it’s Democrats Sen. William Brownsberger of Belmont and Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz of Jamaica Plain, and Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester Republican.
The House appointed Rep. Claire Cronin, an Easton Democrat who as co-chair of the Judiciary Committee led the House’s effort to compile a police reform bill; Springfield Democrat Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, who chairs the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, and Rep. Timothy Whelan, a Brewster Republican who voted against the bill.
Chang-Diaz, the sole member of the Black and Latino Caucus in the Senate, and Brownsberger chaired the working group that developed the Senate’s bill. Tarr was the only Republican on that panel.
