Rausch, Tarsky Sworn in for New Term

January 6, 2025
• State Sen. Becca Rausch and Rep. Josh Tarsky, D-Needham, officially started their new terms in a ceremony on New Year’s Day.

Convened in their respective chambers, 200 Massachusetts lawmakers last Wednesday raised their right hands and vowed to perform their elected duties and “bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Two of those legislators will represent Needham over the next two years.

Returning state Sen. Becca Rausch began her fourth term in office, while state Rep. Josh Tarsky will spend the next few weeks drafting his first bills as a freshman lawmaker. Tarsky, representing the 13th Norfolk District, is one of 19 new members in the House this term. Both Democrats also reside in Needham.

This swearing-in ceremony differed considerably from Rausch’s second in 2021, when the pandemic prevented her and other leaders from gathering together inside the State House. That ceremony also took place just hours before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

A new legislative session is “always a really exciting time,” Rausch said. Lawmakers have until Jan. 17 to file legislation, and Rausch is working on “top-priority bills” that address areas that she feels could be threatened by the incoming Trump administration. Those areas include reproductive health, education, civil rights, elections and democracy, climate and, notably, human health.

“RFK Jr. is about to become either the secretary of [the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services] or somewhere in a position of leadership in public health,” Rausch said. “What exactly are we waiting for in terms of passing meaningful infectious disease prevention legislation in Massachusetts when a raging, self-serving, anti-vaxxer is about to be the head or near the head of one of the biggest and most influential health entities in the world?”

Rausch plans to refile the Abortion Access Act, as well as the Community Immunity Act, a bill that aims to increase vaccine education and access. Her Plastics Reduction Act will also come back to the table, after it passed in the Senate last term, and she is working to file an elections upgrades and modernization bill.

All told, Rausch hopes to file 50-60 bills, she said.

For Tarsky, the first days of his term will be spent in the State House basement — dubbed the bullpen — where he and the 18 other new representatives will work over the next several months. There, Tarsky is quickly becoming acquainted with freshman legislators, including Newton Reps. Amy Sangiolo and Greg Schwartz.

The experience is one Tarsky hopes will “allow us all to learn collaboratively.”

“My fellow elected members all have unique and compelling stories that brought them to public service,” Tarsky wrote in an email. “By exchanging our stories and forging trust, we’ll be able to do right by our constituents and the Commonwealth. It’s a privilege for that to be part of my job.”

In the coming months, Tarsky — a former school principal — plans to prioritize legislation in a number of areas.

“We’re hoping to focus on climate, housing, and transportation, with a special emphasis of course on education,” Tarsky wrote. “We’re working now to see which precise legislation we’ll be putting forth, though.”

Tarsky and Rausch campaigned alongside one another, and both indicated an intention to continue their partnership in the legislature.

The pair took a selfie at the inauguration for the Governor’s Council last Thursday, marking a moment Rausch hopes is the start of a productive term for both of them.

“I think he’s going to be a wonderful addition to the House,” Rausch said of Tarsky, “and I think he’s already had a tour, so I think he’s off to a good start.”

Tarsky’s wife and two daughters joined him on the House floor during his swearing-in ceremony. Tarsky described the experience as “surreal” and “humbling.”

“We all left with a sense of disbelief that this beautiful building with so much history would be where I’d be working from,” he wrote.

Entering her seventh year at the State House, Rausch was reminded of the length of her tenure by her children.

“When I first started, they were so little that the two of them could sit comfortably with extra space next to each other in my chair in the circle of the Senate,” Rausch said, “so we tried to recreate that photo yesterday and they don’t really fit anymore… It is a real marker of time.”