2020 MA Senate

MA Senate

Hampden

About the District: Chicopee (ward 2, precincts A and B, ward 3, precincts A and B, ward 4, precincts A and B), Springfield (ward 1, ward 2 precincts A to F, inclusive, and H, ward 3, ward 4, precincts A to E, inclusive, G and H, ward 5, precincts A to C, inclusive, and E, ward 6, precincts A and C, and E to G, inclusive, ward 8, precincts B to H, inclusive), West Springfield

*No questionnaire was received from incumbent State Sen. Jim Welch.

Read the questionnaires:

Adam Gomez

Norfolk, Bristol & Plymouth

About the District: Avon, Braintree, precincts 1, 1A, 2 and 2A, Canton, Milton, Randolph, Sharon, precincts 2 and 3, and Stoughton, all in the county of Norfolk; the town of Easton, precincts 3 to 6, inclusive, in the county of Bristol; and the towns of East Bridgewater, precinct 4, and West Bridgewater in the county of Plymouth

*No questionnaire was received from incumbent State Sen. Walter Timilty.

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Jarred Rose

Second Plymouth & Bristol

About the District: Brockton and the towns of East Bridgewater, precincts 1 to 3, inclusive, Halifax, Hanover, Hanson, Plympton and Whitman, all in the county of Plymouth; and the town of Easton, precincts 1 and 2, in the county of Bristol

*No questionnaire was received from incumbent State Sen. Mike Brady.

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Moises Rodrigues

First Suffolk

About the District: Boston, ward 1, precinct 15, ward 6, ward 7, ward 13, precincts 3, and 5 to 10, inclusive, ward 14, precincts 2, 4, 5 and 12 to 14, inclusive, ward 15, ward 16, ward 17, ward 18, precincts 1 to 6, inclusive, 13, 15 and 21 (mostly South Boston and Dorchester, with parts of Mattapan and Roslindale)

*No questionnaire was received from incumbent State Sen. Nick Collins.

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Samuel Pierce

Plymouth & Norfolk

About the District: Duxbury, Hingham, Hull, Marshfield, Norwell and Scituate in the county of Plymouth; and the towns of Cohasset and Weymouth in the county of Norfolk

*No questionnaire was received from incumbent State Sen. Patrick O’Connor.

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Meg Wheeler

Norfolk, Bristol & Middlesex

About the District: Towns of Franklin, precincts 1 to 4, inclusive, and precinct 7, Millis, Needham, precincts A to C, inclusive, I and J, Norfolk, Plainville, Wellesley, precincts B, F, and G and Wrentham, in the county of Norfolk; the city of Attleboro, ward 1, ward 2 and ward 3, precinct A, and the town of North Attleborough in the county of Bristol; and the towns of Natick, precincts 6, 7, 9 and 10, Sherborn and Wayland in the county of Middlesex

 

Read the questionnaires:

Becca Rausch
Return to Elections & Endorsements >>

Want to see more questionnaires?

No Worker Should Have to Choose Between Their Job and Their Health

Wednesday, May 26, 2020

Chairwoman Jehlen, Chairman Hay, and Members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the chair of the Issues Committee of Progressive Massachusetts. Our organization and our 16 chapters around the state advocate for shared prosperity, racial and social justice, robust democracy, and environmental sustainability. 

We are writing today to urge you to give a favorable report to SD.2918/HD.5039: An Act relative to emergency paid sick time. 

Our top priority over the past two months has been to ensure that the Commonwealth’s response to COVID-19 is equitable and leaves no one behind. A guiding principle of an equitable response is that no worker should be forced to choose between their health and their livelihood. 

There are clear income and class divides in who has access to robust benefits at work and who has the ability to work from home. Healthcare and long-term care workers, janitorial workers, food service workers, child care workers, and many gig workers do not have the luxury to work from home as many in the finance, tech, and media sectors (among other industries) do. And they are also the essential workers that have kept society running over the past few months and have always done so. By having to show up in work in person, they have had to put themselves at risk, or face the risk of greater economic insecurity — an untenable dilemma. 

As our state embarks on a premature, phased-in “reopening,” it is important that we have in place the health and safety measures to prevent a second surge. That requires filling the gaps in paid sick leave legislation so that no worker who is sick (or has a sick loved one) feels compelled to go into work in order to make ends meet. 

Massachusetts’s landmark 2014 earned sick time law does not provide enough hours to meet the scale of the crisis, and the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) has big coverage gaps that leave millions of front-line workers without paid sick time.

Emergency paid sick time legislation would provide ten additional work-days (80 hours) of job-protected paid sick time for immediate use during the COVID-19 outbreak for all workers not covered by recently passed federal legislation. It would be available, with no waiting period, for a worker to care for themselves or a family member, domestic partner, or household member if they or said love one is diagnosed with COVID-19, experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and awaiting a diagnosis, quarantined or self-quarantined, or reasonably believes their health is at risk.

This crisis has shown clearly that the health of each one of us is connected (the mantra of public health professionals for decades). And to have a sound public health response, we need people to stay home if they are sick — and to be able to afford to do so. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn

Chair, Issues Committee

Progressive Massachusetts

🗳️ENDORSEMENT ALERT🗳️: Alex Morse for CD-01, Robbie Goldstein for CD-08

The pandemic has revealed time and time again the systemic inequalities across Massachusetts (and the country) as well as the need for elected officials who are willing to be bold, progressive leaders and not wait for others to take action.

We need elected officials who will fight for Medicare for All because, as this pandemic shows, our health is connected, and no one should have to go broke to access the care that they need.

We need elected officials who will fight for the rights of immigrants and all marginalized communities.

We need elected officials who understand that the 2020s will be the decade in which we decide whether or not we can have a livable planet — and that we need a response to climate change that meets that urgency.

And we need elected officials who are willing to think creatively and to help chart what a progressive vision looks like for the country (and how we get out of the mess of the past four years).

Our members voted and overwhelmingly said that Alex Morse and Robbie Goldstein are the type of elected official we need, with each securing more than 95% of the vote.

(Stay tuned for more Congressional and down-ballot legislative endorsements in weeks to come.)

Alex Morse for CD-01

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At age 21, Alex Morse became the youngest and first openly gay mayor of Holyoke. In his role as mayor, he has helped make Holyoke a more just and prosperous city. He closed the state’s last coal power plant and replaced it with the state’s largest solar field, doubled the school system’s graduation rate, and implemented a needle exchange program to fight the opioid epidemic. Under Alex’s leadership, Holyoke became one of the first sanctuary cities in the country in 2014, and welcomed hundreds of Puerto Rican families displaced by Hurricane Maria in 2018.

Alex has the experience and vision to continue this fight in Congress on issues such as universal health care, reforming our broken immigrant and criminal justice systems, and greening our infrastructure. Learn more at www.alexmorseforcongress.com/.

Robbie Goldstein for CD-08

Robbie Goldstein

Dr. Robbie Goldstein is a physician and graduate of Tufts University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, MD, and a PhD in cancer genetics. After he completed his PhD, he joined Massachusetts General Hospital for medical training and eventually joined the faculty. He now works as a primary care doctor and an infectious disease specialist, and created the hospital’s first Transgender Health Program. Robbie has spent his career in medicine focused on caring for those left out of the system.

He seeks to address our nation’s public health issues by enacting healthcare for all, substance use support services, common-sense gun violence prevention measures, and a Green New Deal. Learn more at www.robbieforchange.com.

While We’re Talking about Elections

The Legislature needs to take action to make sure that we can have high-participation elections in September and November while protecting public health. Email your state legislators today if you haven’t already (and even if you have).

Send People Checks. Make It Simple. Do It Now.

Dear Chairman Hinds, Chairman Cusack, and Members of the Joint Committee on Revenue:

Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide, grassroots advocacy group with 16 chapters across the state committed to working toward the goals of equity, justice, democracy, and sustainability.

We are writing today to urge you to give a favorable report to the following bills:

  • 4634 (Miranda): An Act providing emergency access to equity and justice for all in response to COVID-19
  • 4726 (Barber / Farley-Bouvier) / S.2659 (Eldridge): An Act to provide equal stimulus checks to immigrant taxpayers
  • 4727 (Gouveia): An Act providing for emergency cash assistance in response to COVID-19

It has been more than two months since Governor Baker issued a state of emergency due to the outbreak of COVID-19, and in the ensuing time, we have seen record levels of unemployment in Massachusetts. Such statistics, moreover, understate the economic insecurity that exists, as they ignore those who have been out of the workforce for too long, those whose unemployment claims have not yet been processed, those who have had difficulty navigating an overburdened system, and those who are underemployed. The essential workers who remain employed are forced to pay extra money for public health precautions and have to constantly debate the tradeoffs between their economic security and their health.

People are having difficulty paying rents and bills, and although the recently passed eviction and foreclosure moratorium is a much-needed stopgap, it foretells the wave of housing insecurity to come after the moratorium is lifted.

Beyond all this is the question of economic recovery. If people have accumulated debts that they cannot pay, they will be unable to spend money on needed goods and services, which will lead to a prolonged recession and sluggish recovery.

There is no silver bullet to any of these problems, and the Legislature needs to be taking far bolder and more comprehensive action. However, there is a simple step that the Legislature could take that would go far: direct cash assistance.

The federal CARES Act provided critical support in the form of a $1,2000 rebate to many taxpayers. However, this one-time rebate will not be enough to stem the wave of economic insecurity, and the CARES Act also had major omissions. In particular, the cash assistance it contained only applied to individuals with Social Security Numbers, thus excluding families in which any family member lacks a Social Security Number. This exclusion harms mixed-status families, including families with U.S. citizen children, many of whom have filed tax returns using an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) rather than a Social Security Number, as well as families composed of two ITIN filers. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center has estimated that there are approximately 57,000 persons in ITIN taxpayer households in Massachusetts.

Many of these excluded families are also ineligible for Unemployment Insurance even though they have paid into the UI system, having filed tax returns using an ITIN and paid the same share of income taxes as those with Social Security Numbers. These families, many of whom contain members who are essential workers on the front lines, deserve the same assistance as other taxpayers.

These bills would address both of these problems. H.4634 and H.4727 would provide additional rounds of economic assistance, and H.4726 and S.2659 would authorize the Commonwealth to provide an equivalent rebate to that found in the CARES Act to those who had been excluded. 

We ask you to please act swiftly to give a favorable report to H.4634, H.726, H.727, and S.2659 to guarantee economic security in a time of unprecedented instability.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Chair, Issues Committee

Progressive Massachusetts

CommonWealth: A New Rules Fight

CommonWealth’s Shira Schoenberg wrote about Speaker Robert DeLeo’s short-lived effort to take advantage of the pandemic to make a more top-down House:

Several progressive activists also voiced their concerns about the proposal, even as they generally praised the decision to move to remote voting. Jonathan Cohn, issues chair of Progressive Massachusetts, a group that frequently calls for more transparency at the State House, said requiring the approval of 16 members for a roll call vote is already a higher threshold than what most other states require. “Raising it to 40 is just a way of saying we don’t want these to happen, period,” Cohn said.

Boston Globe: A Legislature as Slow as Ever

The Boston Globe‘s Matt Stout and Victoria McGrane wrote about the glacial pace of lawmaking in Beacon Hill during the pandemic:

That glacial law-making pace has long defined Beacon Hill, said Jonathan Cohn of the group Progressive Massachusetts. “But it’s especially striking when you have a moment of crisis that requires bold action . . . and it’s just slow moving.”

CommonWealth: “Beware of Rodrigues’s ‘boring middle’”

PM Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn penned an editorial in CommonWealth about the new Senate Ways & Means chair:

OVER THE PAST few legislative sessions, progressives have looked to the Massachusetts Senate as a beacon of progressive policymaking. Across a range of issues, the Senate has been willing to pass bold and expansive bills that end up watered down—or dead on arrival—in the more conservative, top-down House.

However, Senate President Karen Spilka’s choice of Sen. Michael Rodrigues to chair the powerful Senate Ways & Means Committee should give progressives everywhere pause. Although the Westport Democrat describes himself as part of the “boring middle,” much of Rodrigues’s record locates him squarely on the right.