PM in the News: “With Ballot Question 1, A Test of Trust in the Massachusetts State Legislature”

Jack Trapanick, “With Ballot Question 1, A Test of Trust in the Massachusetts State Legislature,” Harvard Crimson, October 22, 2024.

Jonathan Cohn, policy director at Progressive Mass, pointed out that it was difficult to get any internal information about the legislature’s workings. Neither its committee votes nor hearing testimony are available to the public.

“We hold the status of being the only state where the governor’s office, the legislature, and the judiciary, all claim full exemption from the public records law,” he said.

The legislature, Cohn added, “doesn’t view information, in general, as the public good” — though he conceded that the measure was likely to face a lawsuit if it passes.

Protecting MA from Trump 2.0 Can’t Wait Until Next Year

Quick Ask: Email your state legislators and tell them to come back in person to protect MA from the coming Trump Administration.

The end of the current legislative session is less than four weeks away: 11:59 pm on New Year’s Eve.

Unlike in most years, when most legislative business finishes in July, the House and Senate have continued negotiations around various bills (see here and here) well into the summer and the fall (some are still ongoing).

With the upcoming threat of the second Trump presidency, Beacon Hill shouldn’t come back into session only to finish old business. They need to be proactive about protecting the Commonwealth from the next four years.

We know that the Trump administration, already filled with Project 2025 architects, is planning an all-out assault on immigrants, reproductive rights, the LGBTQ community, workers’ rights, the environment, and so much more. There’s no question about that.

But there is a question about what your state legislators will do. Will they insist on waiting months into next year to take necessary action? Or will they be proactive?

Write to your state legislators to tell them there’s no excuse for waiting.

When the new session starts, they will fall back into old habits of not passing meaningful legislation until the very end. We can’t wait until July of 2026 to take action.

While You’re At It…Email Gov. Healey Too

Governors in other blue states have already been talking about the steps that they plan to take to to protect their populations and their progress from the new administration. We need our governor to lead as well.

Write to Gov. Healey to urge her to be proactive about protecting MA from the Trump administration.

Op-Ed: A right turn for Democrats is a wrong turn

Jonathan Cohn ad Henry Wrotis, “A right turn for Democrats is a wrong turn,” CommonWealth Beacon, December 1, 2024.

IT’S THAT TIME of year again. And, no, Mariah Carey, we don’t mean Christmas; we mean the annual tradition of conservative- and centrist-leaning Democratic operatives blaming the left for any of the party’s losses. 

The title of Liam Kerr’s recent article, “The politics of subtraction,” is ironic given that his whole premise is that the Democratic Party should subtract from its agenda and abandon constituencies. It is a misdiagnosis that the party would be wise to reject. 

Kerr blames Vice President Kamala Harris’s unfortunate election loss on the progressive positions she took on questionnaires five years ago. Reading his article, one might be surprised to learn that a majority of Americans oppose the expansion of fracking and a majority of Americans support Medicare for All. Progressive policy positions are not something to hide from. Indeed, the progressive policies put forth by the Harris campaign this year were overwhelmingly popular, but many voters didn’t know she was supporting them. 

So what lessons should we learn from the election? Although the full picture will only become clear after the voter file analyses and autopsy reports are completed, we shouldn’t wait to draw some critical lessons. 

This election saw voters abandon the Democratic Party either to former president Donald Trump or simply to the couch. Indeed, in cities like Boston, the decline in Democratic presidential votes far exceeded any increase in votes received by Trump. This speaks to a dissatisfaction, disappointment, and disillusionment that the party must address. 

Although, by various metrics, the economy under Biden has been strong, voters don’t experience the economy through national macroeconomic statistics, but through everyday transactions. Given that grocery prices have gone up significantly over the past few years due to pandemic-related inflation and corporate greed, housing costs continue to grow, and inflation-adjusted wages have not fully recovered from the pandemic, many people feel that they are no better off than they were four years ago (and a societal commitment to forgetting the nightmare of the 2020 pandemic certainly doesn’t help).

Voter dissatisfaction with higher prices has led to the ousting of incumbents across the globe, and the Democratic Party lacked a deep enough well of trust or good will with the electorate to buck that trend. 

As progressive stalwarts like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have emphasized, that lack of trust or goodwill stems from the party’s history of not delivering on its promises to working people. Democrats were able to accomplish a lot given their narrow congressional majorities in 2021 and 2022. The irony is that it was the opposition from the type of conservative or centrist Democrat that Liam Kerr is promoting that caused the party to narrow its agenda.

Democrats failed to muster sufficient votes to raise the federal minimum wage (which has been flat since 2009), to make an expanded child tax credit permanent, to create a public health insurance option, to lower the eligibility age for Medicare, to enact a national paid leave program, or invest in a universal child care system, even though progressive electeds and advocates fought hard to preserve these aspects of Biden’s 2020 platform. 

As pollsters like Anat Shenker-Osorio have pointed out, many swing voters simply don’t believe Democrats will fight for the things they say they support (so often the case here in Massachusetts), and even worse, they don’t take the Republican Party seriously about what it supports (a well-documented—see here and here—and stress-inducing reality).

When cynicism prevails, Republicans benefit. That, as well as the persistence of prejudices in this country that Republicans can stoke to their advantage, can explain why progressive ballot initiatives can routinely win despite voters electing Republicans. 

Here is what we believe Democrats should take away from 2024: 

Name Whom You’re Fighting Against, Not Just What You’re Fighting For: The Democratic Party too often adopts a villainless politics that presents solutions for problems that it will not diagnose. For voters to trust that you will fight for them, they need to know who you are fighting against. Trump is always clear about whom he is fighting, although this always involves perniciously displacing blame from his corporate backers onto the immigrant community. But Democrats need to be clear as well.

If prescription drug prices are too high, name the drug companies that are profiting from those high prices. If grocery prices are too high, name the companies who are gouging consumers. If wages are too low, name who is keeping them too low. If workers are facing layoffs—we’re looking at you GM—name the incredible profits that corporations are making. The Democratic Party’s desire to raise money from the very industries that it promises to rein in creates a contradiction that will always result in muddled or muted messaging. 

Don’t Cede Anti-Systemic Critique to the Right: In contrast to Kerr’s idea that Democrats lost by too closely embracing the left, Harris frequently highlighted her endorsement from prominent Republicans, touting endorsements from various high-ranking members of past Republican administrations and most notably doing campaign events with former congresswoman Liz Cheney (including one at the birthplace of the Republican Party in Wisconsin).

According to exit polls, such steps failed to secure significant crossover votes, but what they did succeed at is reinforcing Trump’s faux populist persona. Counterposing Trump against the Republican Party helps bolster his attempts to paint himself as against the “elite” or the “establishment.”

The problem with Donald Trump has never been that he is not like other Republicans but that he is just like them, supportive of the same unpopular agenda of tax cuts for the rich, including rollbacks of protections for workers and the environment, and cuts to vital services on which people depend. 

Deliver — and Make Sure to Tout Your Wins Loudly and Clearly: In his piece, Kerr also highlights that Democrats in deep blue states like Massachusetts need to better model good governance. On that point, we would agree, although we find it unclear why he implies that progressives, who by no means control the Massachusetts State House, shoulder the blame. 

Kerr offers little in the way of solutions, but we are happy to do so. If Democrats want to regain the trust of voters they lost and strengthen the loyalty of their base, then they must show how the government can and will work to improve their everyday lives. 

Massachusetts can do that by raising the minimum wage to be a living wage so that no one has to work two jobs to make ends meet; by ensuring that everyone has access to high-quality, free public education from pre-K to college; by investing in our public transportation system so that it is the world-class system we deserve; by investing in innovative approaches to our housing crisis like social housing and allowing communities to stabilize rents; by finally passing Medicare for all (which has been languishing in the Legislature for decades despite repeated majority support in local ballot questions); and by accelerating our transition from fossil fuels toward a green energy economy.

And to show what true, progressive blue-state governance looks like, our Legislature can do all this in a way that is transparent and accountable to the public, as opposed to the closed-door, top-down model of policymaking that so often dominates on Beacon Hill. 

PM in the News: “Federal funds go to migrant support in Boston shelters”

Sarah Betancourt, “Federal funds go to migrant support in Boston shelters,” WGBH, November 25, 2024.

I do think that having that money come in now is especially important because supportive money on that front might not be there once the Republicans in D.C. get their hands on the budget,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director for Progressive Massachusetts.

Boston also has the Trust Act, an ordinance that prohibits police from asking people about their immigration status, sharing information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, making arrests as a result of ICE warrants, and transferring people to immigration custody.

“We shouldn’t put ourselves in a situation where we don’t have funding because the federal government says ‘We’ll only give you this funding if you repeal this Trust Act,”’ said Cohn. He recommends the city do everything it can to boost resources before January.

“So we continue to be a welcoming space to refugees coming here and can give them a place to stay while they eventually can get a work permit or can get safe housing elsewhere,” he said.

Cohn also said that while other cities and towns have similar language to the Trust Act, this could be an opportunity for the state to pass something that is a “statewide provision,” that standardizes rules around cooperating with immigration enforcement across communities.

PM in the News: “Playing the Trump Card on Shelter Limits”

Kelly Garrity, “Playing the Trump Card on Shelter Limits,” Politico, November 25, 2024.

“Next year, as Trump is president, some of the imagery around the state kicking out families — that happening under a Trump presidency will definitely increase a certain emotional reaction,” Jonathan Cohn, the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts, told Playbook.

In an interview on MSNBC shortly after the election, Healey said that Massachusetts State Police would “absolutely not” assist if asked by Trump’s administration to help execute mass deportations. That, Cohn said, is “a clear disconnect” from the message her office is sending at home.

Follow-up from “What’s Next?” Zoom

Happy Monday!

Thank you for joining us last Wednesday for our “What’s Next?” event! And if you weren’t able to make it, you were missed! One of our opening questions was “What gives you hope?” And for us, that answer is engaged activists like you. 

Missed the meeting? You can watch it here. 

Chapters 

We at Progressive Mass believe that activists on the ground know best how to organize their communities, but they do it best when connecting with people in communities across the state. If you were involved in a campaign (whether issue advocacy, a campaign, a ballot question) this year, a chapter can be a great way to hold your team together for the work ahead and continue the work of organizing and community-building. 

Thank you again to Krista Magnuson from JP Progressives, Marissa Dupont from Soliday Lowell, Rachel Poliner from Progressive West Roxbury/Roslindale, and Lisa Baci from Indivisible LAB from talking about the great work our chapters do. 

Legislative Advocacy 

We are currently in active discussions with our coalition partners about our legislative priorities for the next legislative session starting in January. Stay tuned.

But you don’t need to wait until January to start contacting your legislators. Email them today about why they need to come back into session to address the threat of the second Trump administration. 

Follow-ups from Our Speakers 

We want to thank our amazing speakers from Wednesday: 

  • Kate Glynn from Reproductive Equity Now 
  • Tanya Neslusan from MassEquality 
  • Jessica Tang from AFT Massachusetts. 
  • Jess Nahigian from the Massachusetts Sierra Club 
  • Kade Crockfod from ACLU Massachusetts 
  • Amy Grunder form the MIRA Coalition 

Find helpful links below: 

Reproductive Equity Now: https://reproequitynow.org/

MassEquality: https://massequality.org/

Massachusetts Sierra Club: https://www.sierraclub.org/massachusetts

ACLU Massachusetts: https://www.aclum.org/

AFT Massachusetts: https://ma.aft.org/ 

MIRA Coalition: https://www.miracoalition.org/

Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions or ideas!

House, Senate Pass Consensus Economic Development Bill

Yesterday, the House and Senate passed their conferenced versions of the economic development bill, which had been stalled in negotiations since July. The bill passed easily, 39 to 1 in the Senate and 137 to 8 in the House — the only opposition coming from the most conservative of Republicans.

The economic development bill contains a number of policy measures, such as the following ones that we or our allies supported:

Educator diversity. It allows the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to develop an alternative certification process for teachers who may face challenges passing the educator certification exam but can otherwise demonstrate their competence as teachers. MTA, AFT Mass, and BTU had been advocating for this.

Strengthening local and regional public health systems. It overhauls the state’s fragmented public health system to ensure strong public health protections for all residents regardless of race, income, or zip code. The Mass Public Health Association had been advocating for this.

Pathway for foreign-trained physicians. It creates a pathway in Massachusetts for physicians previously authorized to practice medicine outside the United States to practice in an underserved region of the Commonwealth. The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) had been advocating for this.

Childcare as campaign expense. It removes current limitations on political candidates using campaign funds for childcare services that occur because of campaign activities. The Mass Women’s Political Caucus had been advocating for this.

FAFSA. The bill requires each school district to notify students prior to graduating from high school of the availability of FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and to provide students with information on financial aid options. uAspire, a fellow member of the Higher Ed for All coalition, had been advocating for this.

Project labor agreements. It authorizes public agencies and municipalities to enter into project labor agreements for public works contracts when such an agreement is in the best interest of the public agency or municipality. The Mass AFL-CIO had been advocating for this.

Senate, House Pass Consensus Climate Legislation

Thanks to the pressure of activists throughout the summer and fall, the House and Senate came to an agreement recently about climate legislation. Although the formal period of the legislative session ended on July 31, both chambers have now returned into session to vote on the bill.

The House voted yesterday 128 to 17 in support of the bill. All 17 NO votes came from the Republican caucus.

The Senate had taken action earlier, voting on October 24 with a similarly large margin of 28 to 2. The 2 NO votes were Republicans Peter Durant (R-Spencer) and Ryan Fattman (R-Sutton).

The bill, although its main focus was siting and permitting reform, covers a number of areas (h/t Jess Nahigian from the Sierra Club whose excellent summary was a foundation for the below):

Siting & Permitting Reform

  • Consolidation of local, state, and federal permits to streamline the permitting process
  • Fixed timelines for the Energy Facilities Siting Board to make decisions
  • Earlier community engagement in the siting and permitting process so that it is not treated like an afterthought
  • Incorporation of a robust cumulative impact analysis to ensure that siting decisions take into account the historic burden of pollution faced by communities

Gas Transition

Although the bill did not go far as the Senate bill in accelerating the transition away from gas, it takes a number of important steps:

  • Authorizes the sale and transmission of utility-scale geothermal
  • Requires the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) to consider the public interest in reducing GHG emissions and the availability of non-gas alternatives when assessing a petition to order a company to supply gas service
  • Directs the DPU to consider climate goals, ratepayer risk, and alternatives when evaluating expansions into new territory
  • Repeals the requirement that the DPU authorize gas companies to design programs to increase the availability of natural gas service for new customers
  • Changes the mandate of the state’s gas leak repair program to be about remediation rather than replacement and adds language about factoring in emissions goals and the cost of stranded assets

Labor

  • Requires applicants for state clean energy funding and energy storage procurement to submit records about their labor practices (including participation in apprenticeship programs) and factors these into the approval process
  • Encourages the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to promote apprenticeship programs
  • Creates a commission to study the impacts of the energy transition on the fossil fuel workforce

Renewables

  • Extends the feasible duration for offshore wind contracts and energy storage project procurements from 20 years to 30 years
  • Requires heavier weight of climate mandates in decisions by historic districts about approval of solar
  • Creates a commission to study increasing solar canopies

Transportation

  • Adds the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and the commissioner of Divisions and Standards to the Electric Vehicle Coordinating Council and directs the Council to lead the deployment of EV charging infrastructure, and to study charging needs for the next decade
  • Eliminates the barriers to EV charging infrastructure from condo associations, historic district commissions, and conservation districts
  • Requires signage on highways and streets adjacent to charging locations with information helping drivers to locate them
  • Requires the creation of additional regulations to facilitate EV infrastructure (and address environmental impacts of EV chargers) and provides additional funding to encourage EV adoption
  • Allows government bodies to purchase electric school buses and charging infrastructure

Buildings

  • Requires the administration to evaluate the potential of increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in each building owned or leased by the Commonwealth and to include such metrics in regular evaluations
  • Expands the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center research purview to include embodied carbon and creates an embodied carbon intergovernmental coordination council
  • Adds energy efficiency, GHG emissions reduction, and reductions in embodied carbon to the Board of Building Regulations’s mandate
  • Adds low and moderate-income interests and the Mass Clean Energy Center to the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council, removes manufacturing industry interests, and requires the labor seat to go to the MA AFL-CIO president

Environmental Justice

  • Codifies an office of Environmental Justice and Equity within the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
  • Requires the Department of Public Utilities to establish discounted rates for moderate-income consumers with distribution companies

Rolling Up Our Sleeves

Tuesday was a difficult day. So many of us put countless hours into organizing for a brighter future, only to face bleak national election results. If you have spent the past few days with sadness, disappointment, anxiety, anger, or grief, we’re there with and for you.

But it also underscored our resolve about why the work we do at Progressive Massachusetts is so important.

When Donald Trump and his right-wing allies in Congress try to enact an agenda of hate and greed, we need to be ready to fight back, and we need our elected officials in Massachusetts to be willing to do so as well.

But the next few years are not just about blocking a harmful federal agenda. They are about advancing a progressive agenda here. We need to model what a successful alternative looks like: a government committed to reducing inequality, empowering workers, protecting the rights of all, fostering inclusion, tackling the climate crisis, investing in our schools and infrastructure, tackling the high cost of living, and so much more.

When we build an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable commonwealth, we not only improve the quality of life here at home but also set the bar for other states and the country as a whole. We show that progressive policies exist and that they work.

Building local communities of activists and holding our elected officials accountable year-round is critical to that work. We hope you’ll join us—or continue on with us—in the fight. Stay tuned in the coming days regarding some critical next steps.

Onwards,

The Progressive Mass Team

Celebrating Our Victories

If we’re going to build that brighter future, we need to be willing to celebrate our wins, and on Tuesday, we had some here in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts voted 72% to 28% for Question 1, sending a clear message to the Legislature that we expect more transparency and accountability.

Massachusetts voted 59% to 41% for Question 2, sending a clear message that voters trust our educators and recognize the harms of high-stakes testing and the need for all students to get a well-rounded education.

Massachusetts voted 56% to 44% for Question 3, empowering Uber and Lyft drivers by giving them the option to organize to form a union.

Our endorsed candidates in contested races all won their elections on Tuesday. Congrats to Tamisha Civil, Leigh Davis, and Tara Hong!

You Did This!

We are proud of the work we did on Question 2 in particular this fall.

We organized more than 120 volunteers to talk to voters.

We knocked on over 14,600 doors.

We attempted to reach more than 25,000 voters through canvassing, phone banking, text-banking, and relational organizing.

We spoke with more than 3,400 voters directly — not to mention all of the conversations from chapters tabling at farmers markets and community events.

These one-on-one conversations helped power the victory on Tuesday, and we know that they will be powering the victories ahead.