MA Needs Strong Protections against Facial Surveillance

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Chair Edwards, Chair Day, and Members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary:

I am submitting testimony today on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts. We are a statewide, member-based grassroots advocacy group fighting for a Massachusetts that is more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic.

We are appreciative of the work that the Legislature did back in 2020 in passing police accountability legislation. But there is more work to be done, including stronger regulations around the use of facial recognition technology. In that light, we urge you to give a favorable report to H.1946 and S.1053: An Act to implement the recommendations of the special commission on facial recognition technology.

After passing limited regulations for facial recognition technology in 2020 (due to opposition to stronger regulations from Governor Baker), the Legislature created a special commission to study and recommend a regulatory framework. That commission, made up of diverse stakeholders, met, held hearings, and researched and discussed the issue. And that commission—including the AGO, the State Police, the NAACP, the ACLU, and CPCS (among others)—agreed on a set of recommendations, reflected in this bill.

From past debates, I expect that you are familiar with the myriad problems posed by facial surveillance, with regard to both use (e.g., its track record of inaccuracy, especially in distinguishing between Black and Brown individuals—and the dangers that poses) and its susceptibility to abuse (e.g., the ease with which officers could take advantage of data for personal reasons having no relation to public safety). 

The provision of this bill help to address those problems by doing the following:

  • Requiring a warrant in order for police to conduct a facial recognition search—a necessary guardrail to protect privacy rights
  • Centralizing the use of facial recognition at the State Police in order to curb the potential for misuse, abuse, and wrongful arrests
  • Ensuring due process protections around the use of facial recognition technology in court cases
  • Prohibiting mass surveillance and emotion analysis in order to forestall the dystopian futures already happening in places like Russia and China

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.1946 and S.1053. When the Legislature creates a commission to do the hard work of studying an issue, and that commission puts forth reasoned recommendations, it should be incumbent upon the Legislature to advance them.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Letter: “We need to see decarceration, not incarceration”

Norma Wassel, “We need to see decarceration, not incarceration,” Boston Globe, July 10, 2025.

Your July 7 editorial supporting a new women’s prison in Massachusetts lacks important information showing that there is no justification for spending $360 million renovating MCI-Framingham, on top of the annual cost of more than $235,000 per woman (“MCI-Framingham women’s prison needs a modern building”).

The editorial failed to mention that according to the Department of Correction’s own data, the large majority of women there meet DOC criteria for minimum security or prerelease status. Nor did it point out that nearly a quarter of the women incarcerated are awaiting trial or serving short sentences from Middlesex County, which does not have a county jail for women.

While citing a 2022 state-commissioned Ripples Group report, the editorial did not mention that it recommended community residential programs for the majority of women, who present no risk to public safety. No state law requires a prison building, especially for an aging population with complex health needs, and with correctional practices that are often contradictory to treatment.

Even a 2021 Boston Globe editorial stated in its headline, “Elderly prisoners pose little risk, so why won’t the state let some of them free?” It argued for reforms to parole law and a wider use of clemency, but there has been little progress in these areas.

In planning for “an expensive rebuild” of MCI-Framingham, Governor Maura Healey is emulating our current president. The plan needs to be for decarceration, not incarceration.

Norma Wassel

Cambridge

The writer, a licensed independent clinical social worker, works with the Women and Incarceration Project, Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, at Suffolk University.

Transparency Advocates Call out Legislature’s Violation of Its New Rules 

Last month, the Massachusetts House and Senate finally agreed to a package of reforms in the Joint Rules, with measures to improve access to information and create a more efficient legislative process. But according to transparency advocates, the legislature is not obeying its own rules. 

Ironically, the Legislature’s tenuous relationship to rule-following was on display the day they passed these new transparency reforms: on June 26, 2025, the House voted to suspend the rules in order to vote later that day. 

Did Members Read the Budget? The new rules stipulate that conference reports must be available for 24 hours before a vote, and that they cannot be voted on the next calendar day if posted after 8 pm. However, according to the bill page for the conference report (H.4240), the conference report for the FY 2026 budget was released on June 30 and voted on later that day. 

What Happened to 10 Days Notice for Hearings? The new Joint Rules require that committees give 10 days notice before scheduling a hearing. This reform responds to years of calls from advocates to give members of the public and rank-and-file lawmakers more time to plan and prepare for public hearings. 

However, since Joint Rules were passed just two weeks ago, a hearing of the Joint Committee on Public Service was recently scheduled for July 16th with 9 days notice. More recently, a hearing of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development scheduled for July 15th with only 6 days notice. 

“Seeing the legislature finalize rules reforms for the first time in 6 years was an exciting moment for our state democracy,” said Act on Mass executive director Scotia Hille. “With the ink barely dried, to see them flouting those rules just days later is a really disappointing bait-and-switch. These lapses undermine the intent of the reforms, leaving the public and rank-and-file lawmakers still scrambling to attend hearings and read legislation. They also exacerbate confusion about procedure. Why write down rules if you’re not going to follow them?” 

Is the House Following Its Rolling Deadlines? The House, earlier this year, adopted a new set of rolling deadlines. According to the House’s own rules, reinforced in the Joint Rules’s recognition of these deadlines from House sides of joint committees, committees will report out bills within 60 days of a hearing. After that hearing, the chair may ask for a 30-day extension. 

As of today, ten hearings occurred more than 90 days ago, and additional 18 occurred more than 60 days ago. 

According to an analysis of these hearings, of the ten hearings that occurred more than 90 days ago, only three committees (Public Health, Cannabis Policy, and Elections) have taken action on the bills in their purview, with the House Elections Committee rejecting a proposed constitutional amendment without a recorded vote. 

The House Public Health Committee and the House Cannabis Policy Committee, to their credit, both provide recorded votes, but with inconsistent formats. The House Public Health Committee lists recorded votes as PDFs under an inconspicuous “Documents” tab on the hearing page, whereas the House Cannabis Policy Committee includes a recorded vote on the page of the redrafted bill itself, a more accessible placement. 

No bill page has an indication of an extension, leaving a large number of bills in a state of limbo.

“The House promised greater transparency with its new rules, but by leaving so many bills in limbo, everyday people are left with less information about the status of bills than they did before,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Massachusetts. 

Will Committees Make Testimony Available to the Public? The rules give discretion to chairs to set policies and procedures around making testimony available to the public. As of now, only two committees — Aging and Independence and Municipalities and Regional Governments — are defaulting to making all testimony available, publishing it on the hearing page. Both deserve credit for setting a model that other committees should follow. 

Contact: 

Jonathan Cohn, jonathan@progressivemass.comScotia Hille, scotia@actonmass.org

Testimony in Support of Road to Opportunity Act

July 8, 2025

Chair Crighton, Chair Arciero, and Honorable Members of the Joint Committee on Transportation:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group with chapters across the state committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.3662 and S.2368, An Act to increase opportunity by ending debt-based driving restrictions, also referred to as the Road to Opportunity Act. This bill would end debt-based driving restrictions that irrationally punish people who can’t pay outstanding fines and fees.

Being poor in the United States is expensive, and debt-based driving restrictions are but one of many examples. When someone’s license is suspended because they are unable to afford to pay off their fines and fees, they are placed in an impossible situation. If they stop driving, they might lose access to job opportunities that they need to pay the fine. If they continue driving, then they risk further punishment. Driving on a suspended license is a misdemeanor in Massachusetts; it can result in a jail sentence or immigration consequences, an extended period of license suspension, and even more fines. A second offense carries a mandatory minimum jail sentence of 60 days’ incarceration. On top of all of this is the lasting harm done by having a criminal record, which can become a roadblock to housing and job opportunities for years to come.

The status quo exacerbates racial inequalities. Because communities of color are over-policed and disproportionately targeted for enforcement of minor infractions and crimes, research shows that they also disproportionately experience debt-based license suspensions.

Not being able to pay a fine does not make someone a reckless driver. The bill leaves in place license suspensions for unsafe driving, where a public safety interest exists. But no one is made safer by criminalizing poverty.

License suspensions for unpaid debts do not work as a pressure tactic and don’t succeed at bringing in revenue, and it’s no surprise why: if someone doesn’t have to pay the money for the fine, increased punishments won’t make that money magically appear. The only thing that such punishment manifests is more harm and lost opportunity.

Over half of states across the country—red, blue, and purple—have passed legislation to eliminate or significantly curb debt-based license suspensions. We urge you to add Massachusetts to this growing list of states by voting H.3662 and S.2368 out of committee favorably and supporting its prompt passage.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

MA Passed a Budget on Time. What’s in It?

Let’s start out with the ugly, and then the good and the bad.

The UGLY: Yesterday, the US Senate passed a horror show of a budget to take away health care access and food assistance in order to fund tax cuts for the mega-rich and large corporations, and to create a police state in the US by increasing ICE’s budget several times over. If passed, it will be a disaster for the country and for Massachusetts. If you have friends in other states who have Republican Senators or Representatives, ask them to make a phone call in opposition to the Big Ugly Bill.

THE GOOD: On Monday, the Massachusetts State House did something it hasn’t done since 2016: it passed a budget before the end of the fiscal year.

There are some major victories in this budget to celebrate:

  • Banning tenant-paid broker’s fees
  • $2.5 million in continued funding for an access to counsel program, which provides legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction
  • $5 million for an immigrant legal defense fund
  • Permanently fare-free regional transit authorities
  • Increased funding for our public schools

THE BAD: But there were also disappointments in the budget:

  • Only $1 million in dedicated funding for No Cost Calls implementation
  • Less funding for local aid
  • Insufficient funding for housing safety net programs
  • Insufficient funds for SNAP case workers

Read more about the state budget here, here, and here.

Write to your legislator to express your support for the budget wins and your disappointment with what was left out.

Email Your Legislators

Healey Wants to Spend $360 Million on a New Prison. Tell Her No Way.

For years, our friends at Families for Justice as Healing have been organizing against a proposed $50 million new women’s prison to replace MCI-Framingham.

How has Governor Maura Healey responded? By proposing a $360 million new women’s prison.

Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and girls have been clear: what we need is not a new prison, but greater programming for those currently incarcerated, better reentry programs for people when they return to community, and greater community investments in housing, health care, education, and economic security and opportunity.

Think of how much that $360 million could do if it went instead to keeping communities safe and ending cycles of incarceration and harm.

Join FJaH in telling Governor Healey to stop the $360 million new women’s prison with the action toolkit at bit.ly/FreeHerMA.

Call daily between 9am and 5pm only – (617) 725-4005

Email any time using this form: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/email-the-governors-office Sample Email/Script:

“Hello, my name is _________________ and I am your constituent. I oppose your plan to build a $360 million women’s prison. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on prison construction is not investing in people’s wellbeing and will not make our communities safer. Our communities need this money for housing, healing, healthcare, treatment and more. We could actually make Massachusetts a model for the rest of the country by releasing many more women and implementing alternatives to incarceration rather than building yet another prison.”

Another Budget Takeaway: Fair Share Delivers

One major budget takeaway: The Fair Share Amendment has been delivering even more than expected, and it has proven essential. The Fair Share Amendment has been producing even more revenue than projected, and it has made possible critical new investments in education and transportation. Learn more about its $6 billion in positive impact so far at https://www.fairsharema.com/.

MA Senate Passes Shield Law 37-3

Yesterday, the MA Senate voted 37 to 3 to strengthen the state’s shield law that protects the right to abortion care and gender-affirming care.

This bill would expand the state’s telehealth shield law by prohibiting all state actors from cooperating with any out-of-state hostile litigation, establishing state-level EMTALA protections for emergency abortion care, allowing providers critical anonymity by using their practice name on prescription labels for reproductive and gender-affirming health care medicines, and ensuring all clinicians and lawyers are protected from professional discipline related to hostile litigation, and more.

The 3 NO votes were from Republicans Kelly Dooner (R-Taunton), Peter Durant (R-Durant), and Ryan Fattman (R-Sutton).

Press Release on Joint Rules Agreement

Earlier this year, both Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka promised reforms to make a more transparent, efficient, and accountable legislative process. We are delighted that, for the first time in six years, the House and Senate have agreed to Joint Rules, and that these new rules contain concrete, pro-democracy improvements. 

We have been clear for years that better process helps produce better policy, and that the top-down, closed-door way that Beacon Hill operates disempowers the public (at the expense of monied interests) and makes it harder for rank-and-file legislators to do their job. 

These new rules will make it easier for everyday people to engage in the legislative process by increasing the notice for hearings to ten days, providing bill summaries, and establishing hearing schedules earlier in the session. These new rules will provide greater accountability by making committee votes public and by making testimony publicly available. They will empower rank-and-file legislators to engage more in the policymaking process by making their votes more meaningful and their attendance at hearings more expected. They will push against the bottlenecks that occur late in the session by pushing up reporting deadlines. 

We look forward to holding Beacon Hill accountable to their new rules. Rules only improve the process if they are, in fact, followed. 

These new rules should be the beginning, not the end, of democratic reforms. That we have them at all is a credit to years of advocacy and popular education, the landslide win of Question 1 on the ballot last year, and the willingness of candidates to make Beacon Hill’s inertia and lack of transparency a key issue. There is more to do, such as structural reforms like fixing a stipend system that centralizes power or the deeper work of changing the culture of Beacon Hill in a way that encourages legislators to be more willing to speak out, stand out, and not settle for inertia and small wins. But today, we celebrate. 

New Tools in the Toolbox Required for the Housing Crisis

Wednesday, June 24, 2025

Chair Cyr, Chair Haggerty, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group with chapters across the state committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to S.971: An Act reforming the housing development incentive program and H.1478: An Act advancing the Massachusetts social housing program. Both of these bills would help spur the development of the mixed-income housing that our Commonwealth desperately needs.

Last session, your chambers voted to increase funding for the Housing Development Incentive Program (HDIP), which provides subsidies for new development in gateway cities. Although our gateway cities can benefit from housing production, this program too often ends ups subsidizing units with shockingly high rents in hot markets in little need of the “carrot” of tax incentives.

Zoning reforms are necessary to encourage transit-oriented development in all communities and to encourage the construction of more multifamily housing and fewer McMansion single-family homes. However, housing advocates are routinely told that there is not enough money for subsidies for low-income housing, affordable housing, and public housing while the state provides greater subsidies to high-end units.

This weekend, the Boston Globe reported on the freeze on housing vouchers in the Commonwealth due to increasing rents and funding uncertainties. Why are subsidies for high-end housing flowing when vouchers are being frozen?

The HDIP program would benefit from reforms to ensure that it does produce affordable units. S.971 would do just that, turning HDIP into a program to support mixed-income development and recognizing that we need more housing at all income levels.

Social housing has been a proven model for building mixed-income housing, combining the benefits of traditional public housing with the cash flow of market-rate development. This recognizes the public interest in building housing for a wide range of incomes, and buildings can often be designed to be 1/3 low-income, 1/3 middle-income, and 1/3 higher-income.

When thinking of the type of housing H.1478 would create, I think of my neighbors in Tent City, a mixed-income building in the South End that was the result of years of activism by Mel King and housing justice activists. It remains a thriving community, and our Commonwealth would benefit from more like it.

Dedicated funding for social housing would help our Commonwealth reach our overall housing production goals as well meet the increase in affordable housing needed to meet demand. The issue has been gaining momentum in recent years, and your chambers included some money for a pilot program in the Affordable Homes Act. But we must do more. Our housing crisis demands an “every tool in the toolbox” approach, and this is an essential tool.

We also urge you to reject legislation that would weaken new tools embraced by the Commonwealth. To give one example, the Accessory Dwelling Unit language in the Affordable Homes Act was an important win, and S.1002 (An Act relative to accessory dwelling units on smaller lots) would undermine that. We urge you to give it an adverse report.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Let Beacon Hill Know: MA Doesn’t Need New Prisons

Although the Legislative session here in Massachusetts has been off to a slow start, I was delighted that one of the earliest hearings was for the Prison Moratorium bill.

This bill would put a five-year pause on new prison and jail construction, a recognition that we should be investing in jobs and education and not in incarceration.

The first step is getting the bill out of committee, and the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight needs to hear from people like your state senator and your state representative. The House is operating on a 60-day timeline for reporting bills out of committee, and that deadline is fast approaching.

Can you write to your state legislators in support of passing the Prison Moratorium?

The Legislature voted for the Prison Moratorium back in 2022, but Republican Governor Charlie Baker vetoed it. It advanced out of committee last session but never made it to the floor for a vote. Let’s get this unfinished business done early.

Testimony on Expanding the Public Records Law

Wednesday, June 24, 2025

Chair Collins, Chair Cabral, and Members of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group with chapters across the state committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to S.2210: An Act extending the public records law to the Governor and the Legislature (Sen. Rausch).

In the 2016 public record reform law, the Legislature created a commission to explore

whether to expand the public records law to the Legislature and the Governor’s office, but that commission ended up yielding no formal report. Massachusetts remains the only state in the US where both the executive and legislative branch of state government claim full exemption from public records law. The same governing bodies that require cities and towns to adhere to strict Open Meeting Law rules exempt themselves from even a basic level of transparency.

As other state governments understand, making executive records like calendars, emails and texts, visitor logs, and call logs accessible is key to accountability: when such documents are fully kept secret, the public is left in the dark about whom the Governor is meeting and why, and what they are prioritizing.

The difficulty in obtaining information from the Massachusetts Legislature not only makes our state an outlier but also stifles the democratic process. The most moneyed interests are those who benefit from closed, hierarchical systems because they will always be able to work their way behind closed doors—whereas the public and researchers are rarely so lucky.

Openness helps foster social trust: open government should be viewed as part and parcel of the work of civics education that your chambers have championed.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts