BOSTON — Progressive activists are growing impatient with what they view as a slow start on Beacon Hill, while the top House Democrat said lawmakers are “shooting in the dark” as they grapple with uncertainty from the federal government.

Nearly three months after the House and Senate kicked off the 2025-2026 term, more than a dozen groups wrote to legislative leaders urging them to get a joint rules agreement out of the way, then dive in immediately on legislation responding to the Trump administration’s spending cuts and immigration actions.

Authors warned of “an onslaught of current and anticipated cuts to federal funding” and described fears immigrant communities feel amid “indiscriminate federal immigration raids.” The Legislature, they said, could allay some concerns by enacting new state laws with “better protections for immigrant families, incarcerated individuals, and other vulnerable groups that have been targeted by the Trump administration.”

Scotia Hille, who leads the Act on Mass group that signed onto the letter, said she wants lawmakers to act quickly on legislation limiting local police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and banning the sale of personal cellphone location data.

“It’s astounding to me that we’re three months into the legislative session and we’re not hearing anything about non-budgetary bills. We’re seeing a complete lack of a sense of urgency that I know is shared by myself and pretty much every other Mass. resident I know,” Hille said. “The Democratic leaders in our state have a responsibility to both protect our residents and serve as a bit of an alternative when it comes to policy compared to what we’re seeing coming out of the federal level.”

Legislative leaders have not signaled any plans to bring forward the so-called Safe Communities Act (S 1681 / H 2580), which also has the support of immigrant rights advocates, nor any limits on the use of cellphone location data.

It’s also not clear if there’s enough support in both branches to approved the bills Hille mentioned.

Last summer, the House unanimously approved legislation prohibiting cellphone carriers, data providers and other companies from collecting or selling location information involving reproductive and gender-identity care, but Senate Democrats never brought the bill forward for a vote.

The Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity plans a hearing next week on bills including updated versions of the location shield measure (H 86, S 197), which could be an indication that legislative leaders are eyeing it for early action.

Lawmakers started the current two-year term on Jan. 1. The Legislature enacted a law providing new funding and policy changes for the overburdened emergency shelter system, but otherwise has yet to take any significant action in the opening stretch.

Budget-writers are partway through a series of hearings about Gov. Maura Healey’s fiscal 2026 spending plan, and other subject-matter committees this week held their first hearings.

While legislative negotiators continue to work on a joint rules package, progressive activists argued that other committees “await clear instructions on Rules changes before taking up the work of lawmaking.”

“A major takeaway from last year’s election is that elected officials are seen by many as distant and unresponsive to the needs of working-class voters. Constituents are looking for leadership in light of a perceived unwillingness among elected officials to fight the billionaire takeover of the federal government or to take concrete action to defend social policies,” progressive groups wrote in their letter. “With this in mind, further delays to begin the lawmaking process in Massachusetts are unwise.”

Signatories on the letter include progressive watchdog Act on Mass, Homes for All Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Sierra Club, the Mass. Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, and Progressive Massachusetts.

House Speaker Ron Mariano on Wednesday said lawmakers are “looking at a couple of things” they could do in response to Trump, but he did not provide specifics.

Policymakers are struggling, Mariano said, because they “don’t know what’s real” under Trump.

“He makes a pronouncement one day, and then, by five o’clock, he’s moved on and changed it,” Mariano told reporters after speaking at a MassBio conference. “The whole tariff thing — who can keep track? I don’t know if we have tariffs now or if we don’t have tariffs.”

The Quincy Democrat said Trump’s nascent second term feels different than his first because of “the expanse of what he’s got his hands on.”

“In the first term, he was very measured and very small. This — every day it’s something different. One day he’s fighting with air traffic controllers, the next day he’s fighting with hospitals on [National Institutes of Health] funding, the next day he’s talking about cutting out the Department of Ed,” Mariano said. “We don’t know where it’s all going to land, and until it lands, we can’t make a budget. We’re just sort of shooting in the dark.”

“It’s frustrating as hell,” he added.

In response to the letter from progressive groups, a spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka said, “The Senate President has been clear that the actions of the Trump Administration and Elon Musk are reckless and are endangering our residents.”