Massachusetts Judiciary Panel Hears Eight Late-Filed Bills Spanning Antitrust to Immigration

BOSTON — April 7, 2026 — Massachusetts Judiciary Committee hears eight late-filed bills on antitrust, ICE courthouse arrests, survivor rights, and a courthouse renaming. House Co-Chair Michael S. Day and Senate Co-Chair Lydia Edwards presided over roughly 40 testifiers at the April 7 hearing, with a June 6, 2026 deadline for the committee to report all House bills. Anthony Mariano, Chief of the Antitrust Division for Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell's office, urged passage of H-5111, which would extend the antitrust statute of limitations from four to five years and expand the AG's enforcement reach against multi-state schemes affecting Massachusetts. On S-2975, Murat Erkan of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers testified that courthouse ICE arrests rose 8,000 percent between 2021 and 2025, and Kelly Turley of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless cited a post-Grants Pass surge in municipal encampment bans as grounds for H-4783. The longest testimony block concerned H-5116, which would rename the Dorchester Division of the Boston Municipal Court the Judge Leslie E. Harris Courthouse, with supporters including District Attorney Kevin Hayden, who told the committee Harris was the judge before whom he appeared more than any other in his career.