“DC Attacks, MA Fights Back: The White House vs. Housing for All” Links & Follow-ups

Thank you so much for joining this evening for our forum “DC Attacks, MA Fights Back: The White House vs. Housing for All”! And thank you again to our amazing speakers! 

If you missed it or wanted to rewatch any of it, the video is available here: https://youtu.be/zGz5C9IUUyY.

Our speakers referenced a few bills at the MA State House: 

Real Estate Transfer Fee (H.3056 / S.1937): An Act granting a local option for a real estate transfer fee to fund affordable housing
Rent Stabilization (H.2328 / S.1447): An Act enabling cities and towns to stabilize rents and protect tenants 
Tenant Opportunity to Purchase (H.1544 / S.998):  An Act to guarantee a tenant’s first right of refusal

Find out if your legislators are already co-sponsoring these bills by looking at our Scorecard website. If they already are, thank them, and if not, urge them to do so. You can find sample email text (as well as more info) for each bill in the links above. 

We also spoke about housing issues in the FY 2026 budget being negotiated right now. Write to your state legislators in support of key budget priorities here.

PM in the News: “These Mass. congressmen signed a resolution thanking ICE for ‘protecting the homeland.’ Here’s why.”

Ross Cristantiello, “These Mass. congressmen signed a resolution thanking ICE for ‘protecting the homeland.’ Here’s why.,” Boston.com, June 11, 2025.

Cohn told Boston.com that ICE is “terrorizing” communities across Massachusetts and “acting in service of a hateful vision from Donald Trump and his desire for a more repressive, more divided country.”

He characterized the vote on this resolution as a “dishonest trap” set by congressional Republicans and another example of them wanting to “weaponize” concerns about antisemitism. He pointed to another resolution that condemned the Boulder attack without any language referencing ICE. It was overwhelmingly passed 7 minutes later, Cohn said.

“You do not need to praise ICE in order to condemn the recent attack and tragedy in Boulder,” he said. “The Democrats who voted with Republicans on HRES488 should start actually listening to their constituents about what safety means and focus on fighting the cruelty, chaos, corruption, and constitutional crisis of the Trump administration, not whitewashing what ICE is doing.”