Happy Earth Day! Here’s How to Take Action Today and Beyond

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day serves as a reminder of the fragility and interconnectedness of our planet and how much more we need to do to protect our common home.

A few years ago, Massachusetts set a commitment to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. For us to meet that goal (or a more ambitious one), then we need bold and comprehensive action on climate from our state legislature. 

That means putting a pause on new gas infrastructure so that we aren’t building new pipelines and compressor stations that create a lock-in effect for fossil fuels and divert time, attention, and resources away from a plan for a just transition.

And that means reforming our energy siting process to expedite the siting of renewable energy and to ensure that we are centering equity and not reproducing historic environmental justices.

Can you write to your state legislators today about the importance of taking action on climate this session?

House FY 2025 Budget Action Alert

Last year, Massachusetts passed critical legislation to guarantee free communication in prisons and jails, the most comprehensive such legislation passed in the country so far. With No Cost Calls in effect, the number of calls made from MA’s prisons rose by more than 60% in January relative to just a few months prior, and the number of electronic messages sent nearly tripled, meaning that people who are incarcerated are better able to stay connected with their loved ones back home.

But the larger work of keeping families connected is not done. We need to make sure that there is robust reporting to ensure full and effective implementation by the Department of Correction and county jails, and we need to build on the win of No Cost Calls by improving access to in-person visitation as well.

Please contact your state representative by next Tuesday (4/23) to urge them to co-sponsor the following amendments to the FY 2025 budget:

  • #975 and #986, amendments to No Cost Calls (These amendments make technical fixes and improvements to reporting requirements with the aim of maximizing effective implementation of free communication in prison and jail)
  • #1263, “Strengthening Community Connections”  (This amendment mirrors legislation to improve access to in-person visits)

Email your state rep

Other amendments worth highlighting for your state rep:

#788, “Lift Kids out of Deep Poverty” (This amendment would provide 10% grant increases for very low-income families with children, elders, and people with disabilities.)

#1479, “Access to Counsel” (This amendment would clarify that the Access to Counsel pilot would be statewide, that it would be for full legal representation, and that the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, the fiscal administrator, would in consultation with an advisory committee, determine how to implement the program)

788, “Lift Kids out of Deep Poverty” (This amendment would provide 10% grant increases for very low-income families with children, elders, and people with disabilities.)

1479, “Access to Counsel” (This amendment would clarify that the Access to Counsel pilot would be statewide, that it would be for full legal representation, and that the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, the fiscal administrator, would in consultation with an advisory committee, determine how to implement the program)

PM in the News: “What was the point of Massachusetts’ new tax break for renters?”

Nik DeCosta-Klipa, “What was the point of Massachusetts’ new tax break for renters?,” WBUR, April 17, 2024.

“Nobody is going to complain about getting $50 back, but it doesn’t mean very much,” Jonathan Cohn, the policy director for the left-leaning group Progressive Massachusetts (and a renter himself), told WBUR. “Given that many people’s rents will go up by more than $50 each year, that’s not even combating one-twelfth of an annual rent increase for people.”

…

Cohn credits the Healey administration for pursuing other, more “meaningful” measures to address the housing crisis in the multi-billion-dollar bond bill, which is primarily aimed at funding and encouraging more affordable housing. (Whether — or how much of — the bill passes before the end of the legislative session this summer remains to be seen.) Healey’s administration has also moved to aggressively enforce the state’s MBTA Communities Act, which requires cities and towns near the T to zone for additional multi-family housing.

Just over 100 Days into 2024: What Beacon Hill Has Accomplished

Now that we’re in mid-April, we’re just over 100 days into 2024 and just over 100 days until July 31, i.e., the last day of the formal period of the legislative session.

So what’s happened in 2024 so far?

74 bills have been signed into law in 2024:

  • 44 are about just 1 town.
  • 17 are about just 1 city.
  • 12 are about just 1 person

That totals 73 out of the 74 being about 1 town, 1 city, or 1 person. (Some are about 1 person in 1 city or 1 person in 1 town, or 1 person in 1 county, of course.)

And that 1 bill left over? Perhaps something promising?

It’s about 2 towns.

We have a lot of work to do.

Green affordable housing

Marianne Rutter, “Letter: Mass. Can Do More to Lower Housing Costs,” Newburyport Daily News, April 12, 2024.

To the Editor:

It should come as no surprise to my fellow readers that Massachusetts has a housing crisis. To rent the average 2-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts requires an income equal to $41.64 per hour, more than twice the minimum wage.  Do the math yourself:  Coming up with monthly rent is a near impossibility in a two-earner household working $15/hour minimum-wage jobs, even if both wage-earners are holding down two jobs.

Home ownership has become increasingly out of reach, as the state’s median home price has passed $600,000.   In parts of our northeastern corner of the Commonwealth, the average home price today is 25% higher than that.

The Legislature needs to take action before the crisis gets worse. 

Governor Healey (who, let’s remember, hails from our part of the state), has shown leadership in responding to this crisis by introducing the Affordable Homes Act, which combines funding authorizations for various housing programs with important new policy measures for affordable housing.  One of the most exciting proposals is the real estate transfer fee local option. 

This would enable cities and towns to levy a small fee on large real estate transactions in order to create a dedicated revenue stream for affordable housing production and preservation. Cities and towns across the state have already expressed a desire to do so, and the state should let them and ensure that the local option is flexible enough for cities and towns across the state to benefit.

I am grateful that the housing crisis will be at the center of the Legislature’s attention this year.  I’m urging Senator Barry Finegold and Representatives Dawne Shand, Adrianne Ramos and Kristin Kassner to advocate actively for the strongest legislation possible. Massachusetts must be a place where people can afford to live at any stage of life, and the only way to make or keep that a reality is through good policy.

Marianne Rutter

Amesbury

Letter: Transfer fee could boost affordable housing

Green affordable housing

Rachel Roth, “Letter: Transfer fee could boost affordable housing,” Your Arlington, April 4, 2024.

I am stunned by how much the cost of housing in Arlington has increased since my family moved here about 20 years ago. Renovated upstairs units in two-family condos routinely list for $1 million, and to rent the average two-bedroom apartment, someone must earn $41.64 per hour, more than twice the minimum wage – and that’s for the entire state, not just high-cost areas like greater Boston.1

We are fortunate to have Reps. Dave Rogers and Michael Day fighting for housing security, such as the right to have an attorney when facing eviction, yet there is so much more to do, including in the governor’s housing bill, unveiled last October.

The bill would be improved by adding options for cities and towns to raise money with local real estate transfer fees or implement rent control. According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, with a robust real estate transfer fee, Arlington could raise almost $8 million each year for affordable housing, and Winchester could raise over $9 million.2

I ask our reps to keep pushing for strong housing laws with both statewide commitments to adequate and affordable housing production and allowances for some locally tailored options as well.

Testimony: Why the Wait on Taking Action against Misclassification?

uber Lyft

Testimony submitted from Progressive Needham member Bill Okerman on March 23, 2024

Dear Members of the Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions:

I write to you regarding the initiative petitions that were the subject of your hearing on March 19. I have for quite some time been closely following, and to a certain extent involved in (for example, I served as an advisor to a group of drivers called the Boston Independent Drivers Guild for a couple of years beginning in early 2020), this multifaceted controversy involving the legal rights and responsibilities of these so-called “app-based” tech companies operating here in the Commonwealth. 

The March 19 hearing covered a lot of ground, but with the various possibilities for “resolving” this situation looming, there are still a number of important but unanswered questions that really need to be answered to understand how we got to this point here in Massachusetts and to determine what should be done to address it.

For example:

1. Why did the Legislature enact legislation in 2016 to regulate Uber and Lyft, https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2016/Chapter187, despite having been informed by the then-Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development that these companies were misclassifying their drivers as “independent contractors” in clear violation of the Commonwealth’s “independent contractor law,” General Laws Chapter 149, Section 148B, https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXI/Chapter149/Section148B?

See the remarks of Senator Dan Wolf at https://malegislature.gov/Events/Sessions/Detail/2453/Video1 [beginning at 1:38:30 and ending at 1:42:52].

2. Why, despite a clear statutory mandate, not to mention Senator Wolf’s very public 2016 plea, did it take so long for the attorney general to take action against Uber and Lyft for misclassifying their drivers as “independent contractors”?

Uber began operating in Massachusetts in 2011 and Lyft in 2013. Section 148B was initially enacted in 1990 and last amended in 2004, long before these companies began operating here (or anywhere). And yet the AG did not file her lawsuit against Uber and Lyft until July 14, 2020.

3. Why does the AG’s lawsuit against Uber and Lyft merely seek a “declaratory judgment” when there is nothing in the relevant statutory language that requires the AG to obtain a declaratory judgment to enforce the Commonwealth’s wage and hour laws, including Section 148B?

General Laws Chapter 149, Section 27C, https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXI/Chapter149/Section27C, clearly mandates that the AG either (a) initiate a criminal proceeding, or (b) issue a written warning or a civil citation. There is no mention in Section 27C, or anywhere else in the General Laws, of the need for the AG to obtain a declaratory judgment. In March of 2023, the AG fined a “gig economy” company named GoPuff $6.2 million for misclassifying their drivers, https://www.mass.gov/news/ags-office-issues-62-million-in-citations-against-national-delivery-service-company-over-employee-misclassification-violations. Why did the AG decide to issue civil citations against GoPuff but did not do so against Uber and Lyft? And why has the AG never taken any action against companies like DoorDash, Grubhub, and Instacart for misclassifying their delivery workers? All of these companies are doing pretty much the same thing regarding the misclassification of their drivers/delivery workers.

4. Why is the AG’s lawsuit against Uber and Lyft taking so long?

When California’s AB5, which uses the same so-called “ABC test” as Section 148B, went into effect on January 1, 2020, California immediately sued Uber and Lyft for being in violation. On August 10, 2020, a California trial court ordered Uber and Lyft to reclassify their workers from independent contractors to employees. That order was affirmed by the California Court of Appeal on October 22, 2020, see, e.g., https://www.terplaw.com/blog/court-of-appeal-affirms-order-requiring-uber-to-treat-its-california-drivers-as-employees. Proposition 22 was enacted in the November election. The Massachusetts AG’s lawsuit was filed on July 14, 2020, and it is now scheduled to go to trial in May, nearly four years later! In the meantime, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Instacart have continued to violate Massachusetts employment law with impunity.

These are just a handful of the questions that need to be asked and answered here. There are many more, which I would be happy to discuss with the committee.

I don’t envy you your task in dealing with this regrettable state of affairs, but the bottom line here is that the challenge that the Legislature is now confronted with is ultimately a problem of its own making, due to its long-running failure to ensure the effective enforcement of laws that the Legislature has enacted over the last 150 years to protect workers in the Commonwealth.

Letter: More Housing Helps Older Residents to Downsize

Jason Brown, “Letter: More Housing Helps Older Residents to Downsize,” West Roxbury / Roslindale Bulletin, April 4, 2024.

My older family members have lived here in Boston for a majority of their lives. As they grow older, their options to age-in-place or downsize are quite small: either stay in a too-big house (with too many stairs), or face a limited and expensive housing supply in Boston and across the Commonwealth.

Massachusetts faces an affordable housing crisis, and I’m hopeful of the proposals in Governor Healey’s Affordable Homes Act, which combines funding authorizations for various housing programs with important new policy measures for affordable housing.

For example, the Bill would permit Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) of <900 SF to be built by-right in single-family zoning districts in all communities and prohibit the parking mandates and owner-occupancy requirements used to make ADUs harder to build. This kind of thinking could open up new space for older residents to downsize without leaving the area.

In addition, communities across Massachusetts have shown interest in passing real estate transfer fees to raise much-needed additional funding for affordable housing, and the state should let them take action.

I am grateful that housing will be at the center of the Legislature’s attention this year, and I hope that our West Roxbury elected representatives will advocate for the strongest legislation possible. Massachusetts must be a place where people can afford to live at any stage of life, and the only way to make that a reality is through good policy.

PM in the News: On Healey’s Hiring Freeze

Colin A. Young, Michael P. Norton, and Chris Lisinski. “Healey Plans To Reduce Gov’t Hiring, Critics Say It’s Coming Too Late.” State House News Service. April 3, 2024.

Blowback came from the left, too. Progressive Massachusetts Policy Director Jonathan Cohn castigated Healey and the Legislature for having approved a series of targeted tax cuts last year after voters in 2022 “made clear that they support higher taxes on the rich and greater investment in our commonwealth.” He said the governor’s January budget cuts and her hiring restrictions “are the result of such decisions.”

“The Legislature should not operate from a standpoint of scarcity. Whether that means putting a pause on the regressive tax cuts from last year’s bill or finding new ways to raise money (e.g., by closing corporate loopholes or ending misguided corporate tax incentives), the Governor and Legislature can’t pretend there isn’t money available,” Cohn said. “Even more, the rainy day fund remains flush, and adding more money to it each year is not a badge of honor if it can never be used.”

He added, “When voters gave Massachusetts a Democratic trifecta, it was not out of a desire for tax cuts for the rich and hiring freezes; it was to make the Commonwealth better for all.”

Lisa Kashinsky, Kelly Garrity, and Mia McCarthy. “The fallout from Healey’s ‘hiring controls’.” Politico. April 4, 2024.

“If the governor believes that the commonwealth is facing an economic downturn that would necessitate such a freeze, she should communicate to the public what she believes is the cause of the revenue shortfall and outline how the commonwealth will protect critical investments,” Progressive Massachusetts’ Jonathan Cohn told Playbook.

Tell the Public Safety Committee: Families Belong Together

We know that policies that tear apart families — whether through deportation or through incarceration — are bad for communities.

Even though the impacts of deportation have fallen out of the news cycle in the past few years, the work of disentangling state and local law enforcement remains no less important, and given the routine demonization of immigrant communities by too many politicians, we must continue to assert, in words and in policies, that all are welcome here.

But deportation isn’t the only driver of family separations. Our carceral system also does that, and restrictive rules around visitation exacerbate the indignities and inequities of the system.

Fortunately, there are proposed bills to address both of these issues. They both face a deadline of next Monday, April 8, and you still have time to act.

Send an email to the Public Safety Committee about the Safe Communities Act
Send an email to the Public Safety Committee about the Prison Visitation bill

Support the Safe Communities Act

Longstanding state and local involvement in deportations discourages immigrants from seeking police and court protection from domestic violence, endemic wage theft, and unsafe working conditions. Many immigrants—and their children—fear that seeking help from local authorities will result in deportation and family separation.

It has become increasingly clear that the ability of the federal government to protect our rights is limited, and we don’t know what the future will bring. The Massachusetts Safe Communities Act (S.1510 and H.2288) would end voluntary police and court involvement in deportations, and ensure that in Massachusetts, everyone can seek help, protection and medical care without fear of deportation.

The Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security has until April 8th to take action on the bill this session. Use our form to quickly send an email to committee members. They need to hear from you!

Email the Committee

Support the Visitation Bill

In December, the Keeping Families Connected coalition celebrated the historic No Cost Calls bill that eliminates the cost of phone calls for people who are incarcerated. This has already had a huge positive impact on individuals and families across the state. Let’s keep up the momentum to Keep Families Connected through supporting in-person visits. The Prison Visitation bill would lift many restrictions on visiting loved ones who are incarcerated, and make staying connected through in-person visits more accessible. You can learn more about the Visitation bill here.

The Public Safety Committee extended the deadline until April 8 to report this bill favorably out of committee. You can help by calling or emailing the members of the committee to tell them you support improved access to visits and want them to give the bills a favorable report.

Email the Committee