MA Senate FY 2026 Budget: What Votes Occurred on Record?

On Thursday, the MA Senate wrapped up debate on its FY 2026 budget proposal. You can read an overview of the investments in the budget here.

1,058 amendments were filed to the initial Ways & Means proposal. Of those, 493 were adopted, 371 were rejected, and 194 were withdrawn without discussion or debate.

Only 21 of the 1,058 amendments received a roll call (recorded yes/no) vote. Two-thirds (14 of the 21) were unanimous, offering no accountability but just an easy press release for a lead sponsor.

Several of the amendments were rejected on a 34-5 party line vote:

  • 34-5 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to worsen our housing crisis by making it easier for cities and towns to evade MBTA Communities Act compliance (Amendment #13, Roll Call #43)
  • 34-5 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to create a commission stacked with anti-tax and business groups to study unemployment insurance cost increases attributable to the disallowed use of federal COVID-19 relief funds for unemployment claims, and the resulting settlement agreement between the commonwealth and the federal government (Amendment #96, Roll Call #44)
  • 34-5 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tar (R-Gloucester) to redirect excess capital gains tax revenue to the rainy day fund away from the state’s pension liability fund (Amendment #263, Roll Call #45)
  • 34-5 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to raise the estate tax threshold to $3 million and drain vital revenue from the Commonwealth to redistribute wealth upwards (Amendment #756, Roll Call #47)

The Senate also voted 30 to 9 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to block the transition to zero-emissions vehicles and scapegoat climate and energy efficiency regulations for higher energy prices (Amendment #373, Roll Call #46). Joining the 5 Republicans were Senators Mike Brady (D-Brockton), Nick Collins (D-South Boston), Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford), and Michael Moore (D-Auburn).

The Senate voted 34 to 5 in support of an amendment from Sen. Cindy Friedman (D-Arlington) to enable the Health Policy Commission to cap certain prescription drug prices. (Amendment #541, Roll Call #33). It was party line except for Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy) voting no and Sen. Patrick O’Connor (D-Weymouth) voting yes.

MA Needs to Stand Up for Immigrant Communities

Over the past couple weeks, we have seen increased ICE presence in Massachusetts. ICE has been kidnapping people off the streets, harassing bystanders, and terrorizing communities.

The LUCE hotline has been doing amazing work to keep people alert and to document what’s happening. Bookmark https://www.lucemass.org/if you haven’t already.

Although we can’t stop everything ICE is doing in Massachusetts, we should not be making their work easier. We need our state elected leaders to pass legislation to limit the scope of ICE in Massachusetts and to better support our immigrant communities.

Here are four actions you can take:

Thank you for all you do, and hope to see you on the 28th!

In solidarity, Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts

FOUR STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TODAY

(1) Email Your State Legislators about Immigrants’ Rights Bills

We’re proud to be supporting the following bills:

  • Safe Communities Act (H.2580 / S.1681), which would end the voluntary involvement of our public safety officials in civil immigration matters
  • Dignity Not Deportations Act (H.1588 / S.1122), which would prohibit sheriffs from voluntarily renting beds to ICE and ban agreements to deputize state and local law enforcement to ICE
  • Immigrant Legal Defense Act (H.1954 / S.1127), which would ensure that immigrants navigating our complex immigration courts have legal representation

We need our state legislators to be co-sponsoring these bills and building support with their colleagues to bring them to the floor.

EMAIL YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS

(2) Email Your State Senator about the FY 2026 Budget

The Senate released its draft budget proposal last week, and senators will vote on amendments next week. Unfortunately, the Massachusetts State Senate did not include funding for the Immigrant Legal Defense fund. State Senator Adam Gomez filed Amendment #847 to the budget to provide $10 million in funding for public and private-funded programs to provide no-cost immigration legal defense to immigrants in Massachusetts who are at imminent risk of deportation, especially those held in federal immigration detention.

RAPID RESPONSE: Join MIRA on Thursday, May 15th at 10AM at the 4th Floor Cafe in the Massachusetts State House for a lit drop in support of Amendment #847, the Immigrant Legal Defense Amendment. Please email organizing@miracoalition.org to confirm your attendance.

Can’t go? Email your state senator in support of the amendment.

EMAIL YOUR STATE SENATOR

(3) Email Governor Healey to Demand Action

Join the Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts in calling on Governor Healeyto

  • Support state legislation, to terminate every state contract funneling money and resources into the deportation machine, and ban new contracts (including the Dignity Not Deportations Bill – H.1588 & S.1122). This includes terminating the existing 287g contracts with the Department of Corrections, and doing everything in your power to end the Intergovernmental Service Agreement with Plymouth County Correctional Facility
  • Restore COVID-19 era remote participation in our courthouses
  • Create a reparations fund for families and communities shattered by these kidnappings, detentions, and deportations

EMAIL GOV. HEALEY

(4) RSVP for Our Lobby Day

We’ll be holding our annual lobby day on Wednesday, May 28. We’ll be lobbying forkey bills in our legislative agenda, especially bills to raise revenue and to protect our immigrant communities.

Showing up is essential to build the momentum and sense of urgency that propel bills forward into laws.

Progressive Mass 2025 Lobby Day

Wednesday, May 28
10:00 am, Massachusetts State House (Room 428)

RSVP TODAY

Progressive Groups Call Out Beacon Hill Inaction in Trump’s First 100 Days

The Honorable Speaker Ron Mariano

24 Beacon St.

Room 356

Boston, MA, 02133

The HonorableSenate President Karen Spilka

24 Beacon St.

Room 332

Boston, MA, 02133

Wednesday, May 14, 2025 

Hon. Speaker Ron Mariano and Hon. President Karen Spilka,

Two weeks ago marked the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second presidential term. These hundred days have been marked by an incessant barrage of chaos, cruelty, and corruption. We have seen consistent threats to Massachusetts—to essential social programs; to efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; to our ability to keep our residents safe; to our efforts to tackle the climate crisis; to the scientific research that powers our regional economy; to people’s constitutional rights of free speech, including abductions of MA residents. We have seen an undermining of the basic rule of law that has pushed us into a constitutional crisis as well as a global trade war that will cause economic harm to our Commonwealth. We have seen the exacerbation of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism–the list goes on–in rhetoric and policy. We need not recount every such harmful action taken and its impact on Massachusetts because you know them too well. 

But what is less known is how you will choose to respond. Indeed, 100 days into Trump’s presidency and 17 weeks into the 194th session of the General Court, only two bills had been signed into law: (1) a supplemental budget that included harmful restrictions on the access to emergency shelter for families with children and (2) another temporary extension of the ability of state and local bodies to hold hybrid and virtual meetings. That has not grown in the subsequent weeks. 

Although grappling with the full scale of present and future crisis from the federal administration is daunting, it is incumbent upon you to respond and to meet the moment as best you can. 

While you focus on planning for what’s to come, there are steps that we can take now, steps that have already been vetted in hearings in past legislative sessions:  

  • Guarantee that Massachusetts resources are used for state priorities, not federal immigration enforcement, by ending the state Department of Corrections’ 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), banning future 287(g) agreements, and ending intergovernmental service agreements
  • Protect access to courts by prohibiting police and court officials from initiating contact with ICE about a person’s pending release from police or court custody
  • Embrace the best practices already in place in cities and towns by ensuring that state and local police will not inquire about immigration status will not inquire about immigration status or engage in civil immigration enforcement related activities
  • Ensure the safety and well-being of the residents of the Commonwealth and those traveling from other states for reproductive care by shoring up privacy rights and banning the purchase and sale of personal cell phone location data
  • Strengthen our state’s shield law for reproductive and gender–affirming care

All of these are bills you can, and must, pass now. We must be proactive in our policymaking, not wait until the crisis reaches its apex before responding. 

Moreover, as we have already faced lost federal funding and face even more later this year, with expected harm to our public schools, our health care, our safety net programs, our infrastructure, and so much more, we urge you to present a plan for the public for how you will protect our essential services. Now is not the time for cuts. We can and must raise revenue to fund our needs, and there are many such options available, most notably by closing tax loopholes that allow billionaire global corporations to dodge taxes by hiding their profits in tax havens abroad. We must also not be afraid to tap into the state’s rainy day fund when the torrential downpour comes. 

To ensure the efficient and responsive legislative process that this work requires, we urge you to prioritize coming to an agreement on the Joint Rules for the legislative session. Both chambers proposed valuable reforms to make the legislature more open, accountable, and timely. Clarity on rules is essential for the work ahead: inertia thrives under uncertainty. 

We appreciate the words you have spoken in the past months to criticize the harm being done by the federal administration. What the Commonwealth needs now is your actions. 

Sincerely, 

350 Mass 

Act on Mass 

Asian American Resource Workshop 

Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network – Massachusetts

Chinese Progressive Association 

Clean Water Action 

Community Action Agency of Somerville, Inc.

Families for Justice as Healing  

Homes for All Massachusetts 

Indivisible Mass Coalition 

Lynn United for Change 

Massachusetts Peace Action 

New England Community Project

Our Revolution Massachusetts 

Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts

Progressive Massachusetts

Springfield No One Leaves 

Unitarian Universalist Mass Action

“There’s No Such Thing as a Humane Prison”

Tuesday, May 13, 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 committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to An Act Establishing a Jail and Prison Construction Moratorium (H.3422 / S.2114).

Let me be clear: there is no such thing as a humane prison. As a famous adage goes, every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does. Our prison system is not designed for rehabilitation, and it is not designed for justice. It is designed for dehumanization and punishment, and no amount of branding or around-the-edges reforms can change that fact. Our prisons and jails are good at creating cycles of trauma; they are not good at creating public safety or community well-being and stability.

With this in mind, we find it deeply misguided that Massachusetts is considering spending $50 million on a new women’s prison. As of January 1, 2024, the population in MCI-Framingham stood at 213. In part as a result of sentencing reforms, Massachusetts’s incarceration rate has been falling, which raises the question: Why expand a system that costs more than $200,000 per person and only causes further harm? 

Studies have repeatedly shown that society cannot incarcerate its way to safety, and the family separation of incarceration and the well-documented inhumane conditions in Massachusetts’s prisons and jails fuel the community instability that is detrimental to public safety. Instead, investments in housing, health care, economic opportunity, and other social supports have been shown to be the true foundation of public safety for all. Think of how much $200,000 per person can do in creating opportunity and building up communities.

The five-year moratorium in this bill recognizes that such alternative visions of public safety exist on the ground, and they merit investment and experimentation and scaling. It provides time for the Commonwealth to do the work of listening to the most impacted communities and to center, rather than sideline, their voices in policymaking.

We were very grateful last year when this committee and this Legislature passed the Prison Moratorium 2022. Unfortunately, due to former Governor Charlie Baker’s veto, it did not become law. We are also appreciative that you advanced the bill out of committee last session. It is just as urgent to finish the job this session, and we urge you to advance these bills as swiftly as possible.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Let’s Stop Short-Changing Our Public Schools

May 12, 2025

Chair Lewis, Chair Gordon, and Members of the Joint Committee on Education: 

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.678/S.388: An Act to fix the Chapter 70 inflation adjustment and S.345: An Act eliminating education funding inflation gap.

Back in 2019, your chambers took the necessary step of updating our state’s funding formula for aid to public school districts with the passage of the Student Opportunity Act. It was an important and overdue victory.

However, our public schools are losing out on the full benefits of the increased funding promised due to a glitch in how the Chapter 70 formula treats inflation.

The funding formula caps inflation in calculating year-to-year funding increases at 4.5%. However, we have seen several years of high inflation. The costs for our schools are rising, but the state’s support is not keeping pace. Indeed, the gap in funding schools faced in FY 2025 was $465 million. Cuts mean fewer teachers, fewer counselors, and fewer classroom resources, and they mean lost opportunities for our students to learn and grow.

This growing gap is occurring at a time when our public schools are already under attack from the Trump administration, and because of outdated policies like Proposition 2 1/2 , our cities and towns face severe, state-imposed roadblocks in filling the gaps themselves.

Moreover, this wasn’t how the formula was originally designed. When it was first passed in the early 1990s, the state would catch up with funding in low-inflation years to account for this discrepancy in high-inflation years. Our cities and towns could plan better, and our students could get what they need. But a technical change made a decade later eliminated that common-sense arrangement.

H.678 and S.388 would undo that misguided technical change that is costing our public schools resources and our students the present and future they deserve. S.345 would eliminate the arbitrary 4.5% inflation cap and calculate inflation by comparing it to the same period two years prior.

Massachusetts prides ourselves in our commitment to public education, and we must recommit to that with real resources. Our commonwealth has a higher GDP than Sweden: the resources are there; we just need the commitment.

In the budget hearing earlier this spring, students came to testify to talk about the impact of cuts on their schools, highlighting what that meant for them in terms of lost supports and lost opportunities. These students were praised and cheered by legislators. We ask that you accompany that praise with listening and action.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Video Recording & Follow-up Links: “DC Attacks, MA Fights Back: Protecting Health Care from the Broligarchy”

Hi everyone,

Thank you for joining us on Wednesday for the forum “DC Attacks, MA Fights Back: Protecting Health Care from the Broligarchy“! You can watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/s4HjwdaktFI. Thank you again to our amazing speakers!

Slide Decks

Jamie Willmuth’s Slide Deck on the Impact of Medicaid Cuts on Providers and the Workforce

Alex Sheff’s Slide Deck on the Impact of Medicaid Cuts on Health Care Access

Crisayda Belén’s Slide Deck on Corporate Fair Share

Actions You Can Take

Become a Phonebanking Volunteer to Protect Medicaid

Contact Your State Legislators in support of Corporate Fair Share

Join the Mass-Care 30th anniversary conference next month.

Join Progressive Mass’s State House Lobby Day on 5/28.

Thanks!

Jonathan

Just Say NO to Attacks on Trans Youth

May 6, 2025

Chair Gordon, Chair Lewis, and Members of the Joint Committee on Education:

As a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth, Progressive Massachusetts urges you to give an adverse report to H.584, S.350, and H.737.

These bills would restrict the participation of trans student athletes in school sports, undermining their rights, safety, and dignity.

We at Progressive Mass are proud of MA’s civil rights protections for the trans community, which were overwhelmingly upheld on the ballot in 2018. MA voters were and are clear: we believe that our trans friends and neighbors deserve to be treated with basic dignity and respect.

The trans community has been under attack by the hateful administration in DC, and a swift rejection of these bills is an important way to show that we stand by trans youth and against bullying.

If the state legislators supporting these three bills feel the need to obsess over the genitalia of teenagers, then we kindly recommend that they seek help and leave that obsession out of the Massachusetts State House.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Send Two Emails to Support Students

The Joint Committee on Education has two upcoming hearings where your voice matters.

TODAY, they are holding a hearing on a wide array of bills, including a trio of hateful bills to discriminate against trans kids in high school sports.

NEXT MONDAY, they will be holding a hearing on bills related to school funding, including one of our priority bills, which would ensure that schools are able to benefit from the full promised funding from the recent update to the state’s education funding formula and don’t lose out because of high inflation.

We’ve created easy tools you can use to submit testimony to these hearings:

SUBMIT TESTIMONY

SUBMIT TESTIMONY

House Rightly Rejects Harmful Republican Budget Amendments, Has Little Other Debate

Yesterday, the MA House voted to pass its FY 2026 budget proposal 151 to 6, with the only dissent from the most conservative Republicans.

In the preceding debate, state representatives filed 1,650 amendments to the budget. However, few of them received meaningful discussion or debate, let alone adoption.

The House uses a process known as “consolidation,” by which amendments in a subject area are gathered together, tossed aside, and replaced with a series of earmarks or other preferred text from Leadership. Only rarely are any of such amendments actually included in that package. 1,572 amendments were consolidated into a set of seven such amendments.

Of the remaining amendments, 54 amendments were withdrawn, 22 were rejected, and 2 were laid aside on a point of order.

Republicans demanded several recorded votes, and their harmful amendments were defeated in mostly party line votes. Of note among the recorded votes:

❌VOTED DOWN: 128 to 26 against a Republican effort to defund and undermine No Cost Calls (Roll Call 34, Amdt 616). Rep. Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) joined Republicans in voting for it.

❌ VOTED DOWN: 129 to 26 against a Republican amendment to seek a ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court on the constitutionality of 40B (Roll Call 35, Amdt 1643). Rep. Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) joined Republicans in voting for it.

❌ VOTED DOWN: 130 to 25 against a Republican effort to undermine public safety by enabling state and local law enforcement to conduct ICE detainers (Roll Call 36, Amdt 554).

❌ VOTED DOWN: 129 to 27 against a Republican effort to impose xenophobic restrictions on emergency shelter access (Roll Call 37, Amdt 417). Rep. Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) and Rep. Dave Robertson (D-Tewksbury) joined Republicans.

❌ VOTED DOWN: 128 to 27 against a Republican effort to undermine enforcement of the MBTA Communities Act (Roll Call 38, Amdt 606). Rep. Jenny Armini (D-Marblehead), Rep. Colleen Garry (D-Dracut), and Rep. Dave Robertson (D-Tewksbury) joined Republicans.

❌ VOTED DOWN: 126 to 30 against a Republican effort to delay the implementation of the MBTA Communities Act (Roll Call 39, Amdt 411). Rep. Colleen Garry (D-Dracut), Rep. Dennis Gallagher (D-Bridgewater), Rep. Steve Ouellette (D-Westport), Rep. Dave Robertson (D-Tewksbury), and Rep. Richard Wells (D-Milton) joined Republicans.

❌ VOTED DOWN: 136 to 21 against a Republican amendment to make the state’s greenhouse gas emissions targets non-binding (Roll Call 45, Amdt 404). Rep. Kim Ferguson (R-Holden), Rep. Brad Jones (R-North Reading), Rep. Hannah Kane (R-Shrewsbury), and Rep. Donald Wong (R-Saugus) joined Democrats.

PM in the News: “Still split over joint committee rules”

Kelly Garrity, “Still Split Over Joint Committee Rules,” Politico, April 30, 2025.

“It’s kind of embarrassing that we’re hitting the marker of Trump’s first 100 days and they still haven’t even passed joint rules,” said Jonathan Cohn, the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts.

….

In other words: “It’s a bad sign when their attempt to reform the legislative process to be more efficient and to avoid bottlenecks gets bottlenecked,” Cohn said.