Blasting lawmakers for once again spiking Gov. Charlie Baker’s proposal to give police new tools to detect drugged drivers, a Baker spokesperson on Tuesday said the decision “will only put more lives at risk.”
Baker’s office and the widow of a State Police trooper killed after being struck by an impaired driver took aim at the Judiciary Committee, which sent Baker’s legislation (H 4255) to a study that effectively dooms its chances of passage this year.
“The Administration cannot understand why the Committee failed to act on the Trooper Clardy bill, given that the bill is the product of a legislative study and subsequent legislative report,” Baker spokesperson Sarah Finlaw said in a statement. “A family lost a father and the driver responsible for the crash that took his life was found not guilty of the most serious charges, including operating under the influence, because the laws meant to protect Massachusetts from drivers too stoned to drive are outdated, and the Administration believes that the Committee’s actions will only put more lives at risk.”
The bill would allow police to use field sobriety tests and other methods to crack down on driving under the influence of marijuana.
It also sought to implement recommendations of a special commission to suspend the license of someone suspected of driving while high if they refuse to take a chemical test.
Leaders of the Judiciary Committee, which is co-chaired by Rep. Michael Day of Stoneham and Sen. Jamie Eldridge of Acton, said they could not get over concerns about the reliability of testing drivers for drug impairment.
Day called the science “far from settled at this point,” while Eldridge said the detection methodology laid out in Baker’s bill is “deeply flawed.”
After the Judiciary Committee spiked an earlier version of Baker’s bill with a study order in the 2019-2020 lawmaking session, the governor refiled it and renamed it for Thomas Clardy, a State Police trooper who died in 2016.
Clardy was struck and killed by an impaired driver during a traffic stop, and although a blood test revealed the presence of THC in the driver, he was never convicted of driving under the influence of an impairing substance.
“Our family has been profoundly impacted by the tragic loss of my loving husband,” said Reisa Clardy, the trooper’s widow, in a statement provided by Baker’s office. “Our children lost their hero, a man who had love for his family and an unquenchable love for life. It has been almost six years since the incident that took his life, and it is long past time to enact these commonsense reforms that are the product of thoughtful evaluation. We urge action on this bill, in the hope of sparing other families from our sorrow and preventing the heartbreak caused by a driver’s decision to get behind the wheel when under the influence of drugs.”
(Copyright (c) 2026 State House News Service.