PM in the News: “Mass. Democratic Committees urge party to oppose Trump’s agenda in open letter”

Liam Dunne, “Mass. Democratic Committees urge party to oppose Trump’s agenda in open letter,” Daily Free Press, April 17, 2025.

Progressive Massachusetts Policy Director Jonathan Cohn said he wanted to see more action and commitment from Democratic leaders.

“We need people to … commit to organizing their cause,” said Cohn, who also serves as secretary for the Ward 4 Democrats. “Especially for those who are in the Senate, where there are more tools available for them … to kind of delay things they should be taking full advantage of them,”…

Cohn said the party must commit to core values as it pushes back against the Republican agenda.

“The future pathway does not lie in scapegoating communities but in standing strongly in favor of values and protecting the interest of working families, whatever they look like and wherever they came from,” Cohn said.

Testimony: Our Higher Ed Faculty and Staff Deserve to Be Compensated Well for the Essential Work They Do

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Chair Oliveira, Chair McMurtry, and Members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.2185 and S.1365: An Act to provide fair wages to employees of public institutions of higher education.

We commend the recent work from the MA Legislature to strengthen our Commonwealth’s commitment to public higher education, such as making community college free and expanding aid and scholarship programs for students attending our four-year public colleges and universities.

As we work to ensure more students are able to benefit from high-quality public higher education, we must also work to ensure that quality, and that means properly compensating faculty and staff.

Faculty and staff at MA’s public colleges and universities are paid less than their peers in private colleges and universities and in colleges and universities in nearby states. When we compensate faculty less, then we make our public colleges and universities less attractive to the best teachers and researchers when they are weighing various opportunities. We increase the burnout of those that we are able to attract, and we create a scenario where faculty and staff may have to take on side jobs to make ends meet. They lose out, and our students lose out too.

Not being competitive in compensation is especially concerning given that MA stands out in our high cost of living. We have among the most expensive housing, health care, and child care. Our state has much to offer, but so often that is only if you can afford it.

These bills would ensure that future wages of public higher education employees are at or above the national average when adjusted for cost of living and require the Commonwealth to pay for the full cost of fringe benefits and collective bargaining agreements. They help us to continue to deliver on the promise of public higher education and its role as a creator of opportunity, a bastion of critical thinking, and an engine of our state’s economy.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Happy Tax Day! Time for Large Corporations to Pay Their Fair Share

Last week, Republicans in the US House voted to advance a budget outline that entails steep cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and other essential programs in order to fund tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations.

Their priorities are clear. And so should ours in Massachusetts.

The federal budget fight isn’t over. But MA needs to ensure that, regardless of what Congressional Republicans do and regardless of Elon Musk’s illegal federal funding freezes, we are not cutting essential services. We need to do more to meet the needs of all, not less.

And we know how to raise such funds. It’s not by giving tax cuts to rich people and large corporations as our Legislature did two years ago. It’s by ensuring that large corporations are paying their fair share.

That’s why we’re supporting Raise Up Mass’s Corporate Fair Share campaign to ensure that billionaire global corporations like Apple, Google, and Walmart pay their fair share and can’t get away with tax-dodging antics.

Can you email your legislator in support of this important legislation?

Did you know that Massachusetts taxes a smaller share of offshored corporate income than New Hampshire? An Act Combating Offshore Tax Avoidance (H.3110 / S.2033) would fix that, bringing us in line with the federal government and other states and raising hundreds of millions of dollars in new annual revenues.

Email, Call, and then Show Up

Want to make sure that your legislators hear that message loud and clear?
Join us next month — on Wednesday, May 28, at 10 am at the State House — for our annual lobby day.

RSVP HERE

“The purchase and sale of cell phone location data empowers bad actors.”

Wednesday, April 8, 2025 

Chair Moore, Chair Farley-Bouvier, and Members of the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to S.197: An Act to protect safety and privacy by stopping the sale of location data and H.86: An Act to protect location privacy, known collectively as the Location Shield Act. 

This Saturday, tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents rallied to protest the chaos, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration. 

If you attended a rally, you know when you arrived and when you left, and where you went next. Your friends and family might know that too, at least part. 

But do you know who doesn’t need to know that? Bad actors like Elon Musk. 

Right now, there is no law that prevents anyone with a credit card from purchasing cell phone location data. 

The purchase and sale of cell phone location data empowers bad actors: right-wing extremists seeking to target individuals seeking abortion care or gender-affirming care, domestic abusers seeking to track their victims, predatory bosses seeking to spy on their employees, the list goes on. And by attacking privacy rights, it also weakens the basic rights of free expression and dissent in a democracy. 

We have already seen the Trump administration detain and threaten to deport students merely for the act of attending protests, and they are not subtle about their desire to ramp up targeting and to target citizens as well. We should not be giving them any more tools to do so. 

As your chamber deliberates on our Commonwealth’s response to the disasters in DC, we urge you to make this bill a part of it. 250 years ago this month, Massachusetts was the site of taking a stand against the abuses of civil liberties by a monarchical government, and that is a legacy that we should continue. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

FY 2026 Budget Testimony: Protect Our Essential Services & Invest in Our Future

April 8, 2025 

Chair Michlewitz, Chair Rodrigues, and Members of the Joint Committee on Ways & Means: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth.

As we contemplate the daunting, anxiety-inducing, catastrophic possibility of steep cuts to the federal budget as Republicans in DC attempt to take an axe to health care, education, infrastructure, and so much more, we need to be prepared in MA to protect our essential services. We need to continue to do what we are doing—and we also need to be doing more. 

To make that possible, I urge you to embrace progressive sources of revenue as well as tap into the rainy day fund as needed. 

First on the rainy day fund. Like many of us, I have had the experience of holding an umbrella while walking in the rain. The rain gets heavier and heavier, but I think, “Oh, it’s not that bad yet” while getting fully soaked. Let’s not be that. When it starts pouring, don’t be afraid to take out an umbrella. 

But beyond that, I want to urge that “the money isn’t there” is a difficult argument to stomach in a state as affluent as Massachusetts. Indeed, our state’s GDP is higher than countries like Sweden or Belgium despite our smaller population. We have great wealth in this state, and that great wealth is why the Fair Share Amendment has been able to deliver so much. 

You have many tools at your disposal to raise necessary funds, such as but not limited to ensuring that billionaire global mega-corporations like Amazon and Apple are paying their fair share and are not able to dodge taxes by offshoring their profits in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. 

Similarly, as you are going to seek every opportunity to trim our investments, I would urge you to first do the same to the state’s tax corporate tax breaks to evaluate whether or not they deliver upon any goal at all. The sales tax exemption for private jets is but one of many examples. 

It shows a lack of regard for the most vulnerable populations to countenance cuts to mental health case workers and cuts to assistance to needy families, but not countenance cuts to the tax giveaways to large estates and day traders passed two years ago. 

We  know who has the money: the rich and large corporations. What matters is the political will to raise the funds. 

In the FY 2026 budget, we urge you to focus on increasing critical investments that underlie the quality of life in the Commonwealth and make this high quality of life accessible to all: 

  • Delivering on Our Promises to Our K-12 Students: The Student Opportunity Act from 2019 was a major win for students across the Commonwealth. However, the combination of high rates of inflation in FY23 and FY24 and a tight inflation cap under the SOA has led to a $465 million gap in district budgets.  As a result, districts across the state are being forced to cut their budgets, lay off educators and staff, and cancel long-needed investments. We must keep our promises to students.

We further urge you to fix charter school tuition reimbursements so that our public schools are not losing critical funding. Tuition dollars follow students, but if a class size falls from 25 to 23, a school cannot hire 23/25 of a teacher. So many of the costs of education are fixed costs, and siphoning off resources harms the 90% of students who attend local district public schools. 

Our students deserve not only well-funded schools, but also green and healthy schools that focus on the whole student. We urge you to increase funding for capital improvements for school buildings so that students can have the safe and healthy environment conducive to learning, and to provide funding for community schools so that districts can embrace this proven model that empowers students, parents, and educators to collaborate and provide vital wraparound services. 

  • Building on Recent Child Care & Early Ed Investments: Last session, you made historic investments in early education and child care, moving us closer toward a vision of quality and stability for providers, good pay for educators, and affordability and access for families. We join the Common Start Coalition in calling for continued investments:
    • $200 million to increase access to child care financial assistance (line item 3000-4060 in the FY25 budget): A $100 million increase over FY25 is needed just to maintain existing caseloads, and an additional $100 million would be enough to provide financial assistance vouchers to 6,000 additional children who are currently on the waitlist for CCFA.
    • $45 million to increase operational grants to child care providers to a total of $520 million (line item 3000-1045 in the FY25 budget): An increase in total funding to $520 million is needed to keep up with increased utilization of the C3 program by providers. Increased funding for the C3 program is essential to support the growing number of providers who accept families using child care vouchers.
    • $45 million to raise early education and care financial assistance reimbursement rates (line items 3000-1041 & 3000-1042 in the FY25 budget): This will improve access to child care financial assistance by increasing the number of programs that are willing and able to accept vouchers, allow programs to invest in quality, and raise workforce salaries for subsidized child care providers.
    • $20 million for the Head Start Supplemental Grant (line item 3000-5000 in the FY25 budget): Funding needed to increase salaries in Head Start classrooms and help programs that provide high-quality care to some of the state’s lowest-income, highest-need children, especially in anticipation of potential federal cuts.
  • Investing in the Opportunity Engine of Public Higher Ed: Last year, you made community college free, a transformative step that has benefited many residents already. We need to build on that commitment to opportunity by making our four-year public institutions debt-free for all students as well and ensuring that our colleges and universities have the resources needed to give a high-quality education and experience to every student. 

That means ensuring better pay and benefits for adjunct faculty, who often have to juggle high course loads for low pay. That means ensuring that our public higher education employees are paid at or above the national average, especially given the high cost of living in MA.  And that means ensuring that our public colleges and universities have green and healthy buildings and having the Commonwealth assume the capital debt of public higher education institutions and cover the costs of such upgrades. 

  • Increasing Funding for Access to Counsel: We join fellow organizations in the Right to Counsel Coalition in urging for an increase to the Access to Counsel pilot (Line Item 0321-1800) from $2.5 million to $5 million and making the program permanent. While upwards of 90% of landlords are represented, recent Trial Court data shows that over the past two years only 4% of tenants had legal representation. We can change this, prevent homelessness, and stabilize peoples’ housing by incrementally building a strong statewide Access to Counsel program.
  • Protecting Our Right to Shelter by Investing in Emergency Assistance: We believe in listening to the experts connected to communities on the ground about how best to solve the problems facing the Commonwealth. The Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless are the experts on how to best manage the emergency shelter system in Massachusetts and assume that all families have access to safe housing. We urge you to support their requests, which include:
    • Undoing harmful restrictions to emergency shelter: Removing the length of stay limits, which force families out of shelter before they can access safe housing; eliminating the “dual track” system, which kicks some families out of rapid track shelters in as little as 30 business days; removing the cap on the number of families in EA shelter, currently set at 5,800 families; restoring presumptive eligibility, which gives families temporary access to shelter while they gather documents to prove ongoing eligibility; and strengthening support for families leaving shelter, including by improving housing search, providing ongoing wraparound support, and increasing HomeBASE rehousing resources
    • Increasing funding for RAFT (Line Item 7004-9316): Increase funding for Rental Assistance for Families in Transition RAFT) to $300 million, up from the current FY25 funding level of $204.7 million ($197.4 million in General Appropriations Act funding and $7.3 million in supplemental funding)
    • Increasing HomeBASE (Line Item 7004-1008) Increasing the maximum benefit levels to $50,000 over the first 24 months of the program and up to $25,000 in subsequent years for families needing additional time

Moreover, we urge you to reject harmful proposed cuts in Governor Healey’s budget. 

  • Please reject Governor Healey’s proposed elimination of the 10% increase to cash assistance grants that recently took effect. This assistance is for our families with highest need, and it is unconscionable to think that that is where we would be making cuts in the budget. 
  • Please reject Governor Healey’s proposed cuts to mental health care and the corresponding layoffs of Department of Mental Health case workers. This is critical care, and it is about people’s lives. 

Thank you for your work on the budget and on this marathon of a hearing. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts 

Hands Off Our Data: Contact Your State Legislators about the Location Shield Act

This Saturday, thousands of us rallied on the Boston Common and around the state (and the country) to protest the chaos, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration — with a message of “Hands Off.”

If you went to a rally this weekend, you know what time you arrived, when you left, and where you went next. Your friends and family might know that too.

But do you know who doesn’t need to know that? Bad actors like Elon Musk.

Right now, there is no law that prevents anyone with a credit card from purchasing cell phone location data.

The purchase and sale of cell phone location data empowers bad actors: right-wing extremists seeking to target individuals seeking abortion care or gender-affirming care, domestic abusers seeking to track their victims, predatory bosses seeking to spy on their employees. The list goes on.

Fortunately, the solution is clear: our Legislature can pass the Location Shield Act (H.86 / S.197), which would ban the purchase and sale of cell phone location data.

The bill has had overwhelming support in the Legislature this session, and it will be having a hearing this Wednesday.

Here’s what you can do:

Recording + Links (Follow-up to “DC Attacks, MA Fights Back: Defending Science and Our Health”)

Thank you so much for joining us on Wednesday for our forum “DC Attacks, MA Fights Back: Defending Science and Our Health”!

And thank you again to our speakers!

  • Dr. Nancy Krieger, Professor of Social Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • Dr. Gordon Schiff, Quality and Safety Director, Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care
  • Dr. Sarah Neville, Postdoctoral Researcher, Brown University School of Public Health, and Chelsea School Committee Member
  • Melissa Varga, Science Network Senior Manager, Union of Concerned Scientists
  • Katie Blair, Executive Director, Massachusetts Families for Vaccines

Recording

You can find the video here: https://youtu.be/3W9Hurh6XkM. 

Slide Decks Shared

What You Can Do

Other Resources

This is a running list of HHS offices eliminated entirely or reduced to the point of non-functionality. https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1_HNSEowQOkojkTM5MjXdNdXzNjPK79Q4BXO8VU83A0w/mobilebasic?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&pli=1&urp=gmail_link

Upcoming Forums

Join us again on May 7: https://actionnetwork.org/events/dc-attacks-ma-fights-back-protecting-masshealth.

In the Press: MA Senate’s “Response 2025” Doesn’t Meet the Moment

Kelly Garrity, “A Call and a Delayed Response,” Politico, April 2, 2025.

“The big announcement fell flat among progressives, who have been urging the Legislature to quickly pass a joint rules package and turn their attention toward the deluge of actions out of D.C. In a letter sent last week, more than a dozen activist groups urged lawmakers quickly “respond to the extraordinary moment we are facing.”

“Why is it only now that Senate Democrats feel the need to announce that they are thinking about how to respond to the disasters in Washington?,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Massachusetts. “Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee. They held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing.”

The anticlimactic reveal shined a spotlight on the Legislature’s typically sluggish start to the session. Lawmakers did approve changes to the state’s emergency shelter system earlier this year and recently passed a bill extending a pandemic-era remote meeting provision. But little major legislation has made it across the finish line.

“Until a few days ago, when the Legislature temporarily extended hybrid meeting access for public meetings again, the only bill that the Legislature had passed this session was to kick unhoused families out of shelter,” Cohn said.”

Chris Lisinski, Ella Adams, and Eric Convey, “Frustrated at incremental movement, progressives want leaders to legislate action against Trump policies,” MASSter List, April 2, 2025.

“The lack of concrete details prompted Jonathan Cohn, policy director of the Progressive Massachusetts group that signed onto last week’s letter, to ask: what took so long?

“We are now at the start of the fourth month of the year and are 10 weeks into Trump’s second administration. Why is it only now that Senate Democrats feel the need to announce that they are thinking about how to respond to the disasters in Washington?” Cohn said. “Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing.””

Chris Lisinski, “Progressives in Massachusetts demand legislative response to Trump,” State House News Service, April 1, 2025.

“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.”

Anjali Hunynh, “‘We can’t sit idly by’: Mass. Senate tasks committee with deciding how to respond to Trump 2.0,” Boston Globe, April 1, 2025.

“Some advocates, however, remained unsatisfied by the Senate’s new approach. Jonathan Cohn, policy director of left-leaning advocacy group Progressive Massachusetts, criticized lawmakers for how long it took to coordinate any response to Trump.

“Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing,” Cohn said in a statement.

“Let’s just hope that their announced intention to take threats seriously is not another April fool’s joke,” he added.”

Chris Van Buskirk, “Trump cuts $106M in COVID-era grant funding for Massachusetts as Senate taps pol to lead Democratic response,” Boston Herald, April 1, 2025.

“Progressive advocates in Massachusetts have been hounding legislators to do something about the Trump administration’s decisions to slash federal funding for a variety of sectors in the state.

Progressive Massachusetts Policy Director Jonathan Cohn said Massachusetts voters have for months wanted to see their elected officials “be bolder and more proactive in protecting” the state against Trump’s “chaos, cruelty, and corruption.”

Cohn said voters want to hear “real answers from Beacon Hill: how we will protect our essential services amidst looming budget cuts, how we will protect marginalized communities, how we will protect civil liberties and our democracy, how we will show a real governing alternative.”

“Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing,” Cohn said in a statement.”

Sam Drysdale, “Mass. senators begin fashioning response to Trump, face complaints of slow start,” State House News Service, April 2, 2025.

Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, questioned the point of the press conference.

“We are now at the start of the fourth month of the year and are 10 weeks into Trump’s second administration,” Cohn said. “Why is it only now that Senate Democrats feel the need to announce that they are thinking about how to respond to the disasters in Washington? Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing.”

Mike Deehan, “Mass. Democrats’ Tea Party moment that wasn’t,” Axios Boston, April 2, 2025.

What they’re saying: “Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing,” Progressive Massachusetts policy director Jonathan Cohn said after Spilka’s announcement.

Chris Lisinski, “Beacon Hill still figuring out how to fight back while bracing for the worst,” MASSter List, April 5, 2025.

Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, questioned why it took Senate Democrats until 10 weeks into Trump’s term to announce they would consider unspecified action at an unspecified later date.

“Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing,” he said.

John Micek, “In Mass., nationwide, the meter is running for the resistance. What’s next?,” MassLive, April 4, 2025.

The Senate’s “announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing,” Jonathan Cohn, of Progressive Massachusetts, said in a statement to MASSterList.

“We are now at the start of the fourth month of the year and are 10 weeks into Trump’s second administration. Why is it only now that Senate Democrats feel the need to announce that they are thinking about how to respond to the disasters in Washington?” Cohn said.

“Our commonwealth did something rare in recent history: it took away the right to vote from a category of people who were formerly enfranchised. “

April 1, 2025

Chair Keenan, Chair Hunt, and Members of the Joint Committee on Election Laws: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth. 

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.63 and S.7: Proposal for a legislative amendment to the Constitution relative to voting rights.

I would like to begin with a bit of history. Felony disenfranchisement in Massachusetts is a recent phenomenon. Indeed, although we often think of the history of voting rights in the US as one of ever-forward motion, Massachusetts stands as an outlier. In the late 1990s, after incarcerated individuals in MCI-Norfolk started organizing for better conditions, Republican Governor Bill Cellucci and the MA Legislature responded with retaliation: a multi-step process of disenfranchisement. In 2000, Massachusetts voters approved a constitutional amendment to prohibit people incarcerated for felonies in state prison from voting in state elections; the subsequent year, Cellucci signed a law to extend this prohibition to federal and municipal elections. Our commonwealth did something rare in recent history: it took away the right to vote from a category of people who were formerly enfranchised. 

In 2022, the Massachusetts Legislature took an important step forward when passing the VOTES Act by including language creating protections for jail-based voting for those who still maintain the right to vote, but we must build on that momentum by ending remaining disenfranchisement, as these bills would. 

Felony disenfranchisement compounds the systemic racism of the criminal legal system. Approximately 8,000 residents of the Commonwealth are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, more than 50% of them are Black or Latinx. 

Felony disenfranchisement laws disenfranchise more voters than those directly affected. Whenever someone loses the right to vote even temporarily, they are likely to mistakenly think that they have lost it permanently. We must eliminate archaic laws that create voter suppression and voter confusion. 

Felony disenfranchisement exacerbates the humanitarian crisis in our prisons and jails. The Department of Justice, even under Trump’s first administration, pointed out that Massachusetts correctional facilities are engaging in torture, and a lack of political voice puts individuals at risk for abuse. 

Moreover, studies have often shown that fostering ties to the outside world is central to reducing recidivism. Civic engagement provides just that, and we should welcome it. 

If Massachusetts were to pass these amendments, we would be in good company. Maine, Vermont, Puerto Rico, and DC already ensure that all citizens of voting age are able to participate in elections, regardless of incarceration status. That is also true of a number of European countries, such as Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland. Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

At a time when democracy is under attack, let’s take this opportunity to strengthen and expand it.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Our Response to “Response 2025”

Our statement on the MA State Senate’s “Response 2025”:

For months, Massachusetts voters have wanted to see our elected officials to be bolder and more proactive in protecting our Commonwealth from the chaos, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration. Back in December, we joined dozens of organizations in calling on the Legislature to start this work early. We are now at the start of the fourth month of the year and are 10 weeks into Trump’s second administration. Why is it only now that Senate Democrats feel the need to announce that they are thinking about how to respond to the disasters in Washington?

Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing.

Until a few days ago, when the Legislature temporarily extended hybrid meeting access for public meetings again, the only bill that the Legislature had passed this session was to kick unhoused families out of shelter. Let’s just hope that their announced intention to take threats seriously is not another April fool’s joke.

Massachusetts voters want to hear real answers from Beacon Hill: how we will protect our essential services amidst looming budget cuts, how we will protect marginalized communities, how we will protect civil liberties and our democracy, how we will show a real governing alternative.”