The Massachusetts General Court, formally the General Court of Massachusetts, is the bicameral state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts located in the state capital of Boston. The name "General Court" is a holdover from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when the colonial assembly, in addition to making laws, sat also as a judicial court of appeals. Before the adoption of the state constitution in 1780, it was called the Great and General Court, but the official title was shortened in the drafting of the state constitution by John Adams. It is a general legislature with plenary power to make law in and for Massachusetts. It is a bicameral parliament derived in some respects from the Westminster model. The upper house is the Massachusetts Senate, comprising 40 members. The lower house, the Massachusetts House of Representatives, has 160 members (until 1978, it had 240 members). It meets in the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill in Boston.
Since 1959, Democrats have controlled both houses of the Massachusetts General Court, often by large majorities. The Democrats enjoyed veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers for part of the 1990s (i.e., enough votes to override vetoes by a governor) and also currently hold supermajorities in both chambers.
State senators and representatives both serve two-year terms. There are no term limits; a term limit was enacted by initiative in Massachusetts in 1994 but in 1997 was struck down by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled that it was an unconstitutional attempt to provide additional qualifications for office by statute, rather than constitutional amendment.
The legislature is a full-time legislature, although not to the extent of neighboring New York or some other states.
The earliest history of the General Court is in the original charter of 1629. Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original Thirteen Colonies, was a royally chartered joint stock company founded in 1628 in London. Much like other joint-stock companies of the time the first General Court was a meeting of shareholders, known as freemen. The "Great and General Court" was to meet in London and elect its officers and members in the same manner as other colonial charted companies of the time, such as the Virginia Company and the East India Company. The freemen would meet annually to elect representatives in the form of a Royal Governor, a Deputy Governor, and a Council made up of the directors of the company. These officials were to have royally assented governmental powers in and over the colony, and were tasked with the management and defense of the colonial plantation. The first Court assembled would be made up of such members, who could evaluate the situation of the colony, discuss its needs, and thus, with local knowledge and derivative (royally sourced) rulemaking power, manage it.
The first meeting of the original General Court took place in London in 1629. The General Court selected John Endicott as its representative to the colony. Soon after, Governor John Winthrop and the Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley broke with protocol when they themselves traveled to New England and moved the government to Massachusetts Bay. Along with them came the stock holders of the company and the Council of Assistants.
Once in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the new government reorganized itself out of convenience. Instead of attempting to assemble all stockholders to the meeting of the General Court the government decided on having each town elect two representatives to send in their stead. The General Court became a de facto bicameral legislature by virtue of the distinction between delegates elected by towns and the Council of Assistants. The assistants acted as magistrates and counselors of jurisprudence, however when in session they served as a sort of upper house. Their assent and approval was needed in order for any decision from the house of delegates to be passed. The new legislature was elected annually.
Suffrage was allowed only for men who were Puritan church members and freemen. This General Court removed any feudal restraints on the population and codified a Bill of Rights and powers of a judiciary. The General Court also enshrined the Laws of Moses as legal code under the discretion of local magistrates creating a theocratic quasi-democratic state.
By votes of the General Court in the 1630s, the system of government changed to have an elected governor and to restrict the list of "freemen" to those affiliated with certain Puritan churches. In 1634, after complaint the charter was not being followed, a compromise resulted in recomposition of the General Court as two deputies elected by freemen in each town. Problems with a judicial case resulted in another reform in 1638, where the Council of Assistants became an upper house that sat separately, with consent of both houses required to pass legislation.
In October 1650 the General Court took exception to the book The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption by William Pynchon. They regarded it as containing many errors and heresies and thus destroyed it at Boston Common.
Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England
There was disruption when London created a viceroyalty for a group of colonies including Massachusetts in 1686, the Dominion of New England. With the collapse of the Dominion at the time of the Glorious Revolution in 1689, The Assistants convened an assembly of delegates from each town to reform the General Court.
With the Massachusetts Charter in 1691 the Province of Massachusetts Bay absorbed the colony of Plymouth. The Plymouth Colony, along with the District of Maine and the islands off Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket were to be an extension of Massachusetts and thus under the authority of the General Court.
Under this new system the religious qualification, that suffrage be for only Puritan men, was changed to a qualification of property ownership. The Assistants were also officially changed to a Governor's Council to be selected by the governor to act as an upper house as well as a council for advice and consent. All laws passed by the General Court were to be approved by Royal Governor of the province. The powers of the monarch to be expanded in this new system as well. The King had full control of maritime affairs and acted as an executive, through the Royal Governor, to enforce commercial law.
This separation of powers led to some friction with the Royal Governor and the General Court. The General Court retained power over spending and budget and while the Royal Officers, in the form of the Governor, the Governor's Council, etc. had more executive authority the Court could cause political stalemate if its demands were not met. Even the Governor's reserve power to dissolve the General Court was ineffective because a new assembly had to be elected the following year.
With the passage of the Intolerable Acts by the Parliament of Great Britain there was political turmoil in the province. With political disorder Thomas Gage, then the Royal Governor, cancelled the new elections for the General Court and in 1774 the assembly was essentially dissolved. This allowed the governor to rule by decree and appoint town governments.
In defiance of both Crown law and Gage, members of the General Court formed the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and seized control of the colony except for Boston, where British troops maintained control until when they evacuated the city on March 17, 1776. The Governor's Council acted as the executive in the absence of the governor and lieutenant governor, administering the rebel forces of the colony during the early years of the American Revolutionary War, which began in Massachusetts at the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The General Assembly declared Massachusetts independent from Britain on May 1, 1776. With the war still ongoing, demands for government reform resulted in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1778, but the text proposed by the legislature failed in a statewide voter referendum. The Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779–1780 was held by a specially-elected body, and the resulting text, after amendment and ratification, became the current state constitution.