If a platform is adopted and no legislators are there to enact, it, did it make a sound? Yesterday, the Massachusetts Democratic Party adopted a new platform. Back in March and April, Progressive Mass worked with Our Revolution Massachusetts and the Progressive Democrats of America – MA on a list of recommendations to make the platform more progressive.
The good news is that a number of them got in.
Here’s a run-down of new platform additions that were called for in the joint document:
Education
Free education is a human right, and therefore public education from high-quality universal preschool and full-day kindergarten through higher education and vocational training should be free to all residents
Fixing the public education funding formula to fully fund high-quality public education for all students
Ending the state’s punitive use of high-stakes testing
Immigration
Becoming a sanctuary state, where all immigrants and refugees feel welcome and safe in all communities of the Commonwealth
Eliminating policies that make local and state officials responsible for the enforcement of national immigration laws
Labor and Workforce
A decent living wage for all workers and a $15 minimum wage that is increased and indexed to inflation
Strong laws to combat wage theft and misclassification of workers
Paid family and medical leave insurance that allows all employees to take job-protected paid leave to recover from a serious illness or injury, to care for a seriously ill or injured family member, or to care for a new child, and prohibits employer retaliation against workers who take time off under these conditions
Fighting for anti-discrimination laws to make sure that employers don’t take advantage of workers, employees receive fair compensation for their hard work, corporations obey the law, and employees are able to be their most productive in a safe work environment free from harassment.
Public Safety and Crime Prevention
Comprehensive criminal justice reform that includes the removal of mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent crimes, giving the judge discretion with the sentencing in these cases
Ending the militarization of police
Voting and Democracy
Offering automatic voter registration
Ensuring early voting in all elections
And yesterday, two additional recommend planks got in as part of one of ORMA’s floor amendments: mandatory de-escalation training for police an end to for-profit prisons.
It’s a testament to the hard work and commitment of activists who showed up at platform hearings, submitted testimony online, and went to the convention that these got in. Give yourself a pat on the back!
But the important part comes next: holding elected officials accountable to the stated ideals of the party.
Democrats hold ~80% of the seats in both houses. However, as I wrote recently for CommonWealth, this hasn’t always translated into progressive policymaking.
To my opening question, the answer depends on the activists (ALL OF US), who need to make sure that Beacon Hill hears loud and clear that the time is now (indeed, yesterday) to put such professed values and ideals into concrete policy.
Last week, we recommended 13 budget amendments for the Senate debate. What happened to them?
The Good
To start off with the good news, five of them were adopted. The Senate budget now includes greater funding for the Community Preservation Act–and thus more money for affordable housing and green and open space (Amendment 286), the Department of Environmental Protection (Amendment 790), workforce training to help those involved with the criminal justice system (Amendment 883), and the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, which helps provide access to justice for more low-income residents (Amendment 896).
And in a unanimous vote of 38-0, the Senate passed Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz’s amendment (Amendment 75) to put the Foundation Budget Review Commission’s recommendations into statute, which puts the House of Representatives on notice of its support for the identical bill S.223, which is part of our 2017-2018 Legislative Agenda. The formula the state uses to provide local aid to schools relies on outdated assumptions from 1993, resulting in chronic underfunding. The music on the radio isn’t the same as it was in 1993; our assumptions about the cost of education shouldn’t be the same either.
The Bad
But some of the results were less inspiring. The Senate rejected–without recorded votes– amendments to expand the earned income tax credit (Amendment 16), to increase funding for family planning services (Amendment 507), to increase funding for affordable housing programs for those with disabilities (Amendment 641), and to increase funding for partnerships between universities and prisons that contribute vital reentry services (Amendment 906).
And then four amendments were withdrawn: Sen. Jamie Eldridge’s amendment (Amendment 23) to repeal a tax cut for the mutual fund industry (which could have brought in $143 million per year in additional revenue), Sen. Joan Lovely’s amendment (Amendment 389) to repeal the outdated, punitive law that prevents parents from receiving welfare assistance for children born after that parent started receiving assistance from the state, Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry’s amendment (Amendment 645) to increase assistance for individuals experiencing homelessness, and Sen. Eric Lesser’s amendment (Amendment 1025) to allow municipalities to put questions on the ballot to raise additional revenue for regional transportation projects.
The budget ultimately passed unanimously, as is both common and reflective of a lack of ambition, and will now go to conference.
The Ugly
Although we are grateful to see some of these targeted funding increases get into the budget, the pattern of chronic underinvestment we highlighted last week remains a problem. If we want our Commonwealth to work for all residents, then we need to grapple with the revenue shortfalls faced year after year and end the hold of conservative anti-tax dogma.
IN THE YEAR FOLLOWING a presidential election, the Massachusetts Democratic Party updates its platform. A party platform can stand as a defiant statement of goals and ideals, and a roadmap for a legislative agenda and priorities. In today’s national political climate, such aspirational declarations are especially important as they offer voters something to fight for and something to vote for.
The platform released just last week contains new planks on paid family and medical leave, a $15 minimum wage, automatic voter registration, and the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences, bolstering what was already, by and large, a progressive document.
On Saturday, June 3, delegates from across the state will convene in Worcester to approve the platform, perhaps with a few amendments to make it stronger.
On Monday, June 5, if the past is any guide, our overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature will proceed to completely ignore it.
TESTIMONY OF PROGRESSIVE MASSACHUSETTS IN SUPPORT OF S.499/H. 536
An Act Relative to Advancing Contraception Coverage and Economic Security in our State
May 19, 2017
Chairman Eldridge, Chairman Michlewitz, and members of the Joint Committee on Financial Services, I, Jonathan Cohn, co-chair of the Progressive Massachusetts Issues Committee, am pleased to offer this testimony on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts. Progressive Massachusetts is committed to an agenda of shared prosperity and social justice that makes sure that our Commonwealth works for all residents.
Progressive Massachusetts would like to go on the record IN SUPPORT of S. 499/H. 536, An Act Relative to Advancing Contraception Coverage and Economic Security in our State, or ACCESS.
Massachusetts has been a leader in health care reform, passing the legislation that would later become the foundation for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The ACA went beyond Massachusetts’s 2006 bill and brought about some of the greatest advances in health care access for women in a generation by eliminating co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses for basic preventive care, including contraception. The ACA guaranteed that women, regardless of their economic status, can afford birth control and can choose the birth control method that works best for them. 1.4 million women in Massachusetts now have access to preventive services like birth control with zero cost-sharing because of the ACA. However, the ACA and women’s health care in particular are under attack at the federal level. ACCESS is a vital piece of legislation to safeguard Massachusetts women from such attacks and to keep Massachusetts on the vanguard of health care reform.
Progressive Massachusetts is committed to making Massachusetts a leader in protecting working families and expanding the middle class, while reducing poverty and inequality. And we cannot have economic justice without reproductive justice. Contraception enables women to decide if and when they want to start a family, time births, have healthier pregnancies, and achieve their desired family size. With contraception, women are better able to plan their educational, financial, and professional futures, ultimately improving their lives, the stability of their families, and the well-being of children.
With the ACCESS bill, Massachusetts has an opportunity to build on the progress of the ACA. By establishing no-copay coverage for over-the-counter contraceptives, this bill will eliminate unnecessary financial barriers that undermine the accessibility of emergency contraception. The bill limits the ability of insurers to impose restrictions and delays in coverage and ensures medical decisions made by a woman and her doctor are respected. Moreover, by requiring coverage for a single dispensing of birth control intended to last for 12 months, this essential piece of legislation will decrease the likelihood of inconsistent use, and therefore unintended pregnancies, especially for those with limited access to transportation or pharmacies.
Massachusetts led the nation in health care reform, but the work is not done. It is time to be on the forefront again by proactively protecting and expanding access to basic, preventive health care.
Please Give a Favorable Report to An Act Relative to Advancing Contraception Coverage and Economic Security in our State (S. 499/H. 536).
Last Tuesday, after only two days of debate, the House approved its budget for FY 2018 on a nearly unanimous vote of House 159-1. Republican Jim Lyons of Andover was the sole dissenting vote.
If some of the House’s most conservative Republicans are willing to vote for a budget, you know it’s not particularly ambitious. State House News Service described it as “the latest in a string of austerity budgets,” and they were right. Even though an additional $77 million was added during the amendment process (bringing the budget to $40.8 billion), the budget still entrenches a pattern of underinvestment in public transit, public education, and the vital social services that are the foundation of a thriving and equitable economy.
Budget season in the House tends to follow a particular script. Amendments from progressive representatives proposing new revenue or creative new ideas will be withdrawn, often without floor debate. Amendments from Republicans will be debated on the floor and then “sent to further study,” i.e., tabled indefinitely. And the leadership will decide behind closed doors which line item increases will get into the final budget, bundling them into large, omnibus amendments. Votes, including that on the final budget, will mostly be either party-line or (nearly) unanimous (with occasional splits in the Republican caucus or defections from the likes of Colleen Garry of Dracut or James Dwyer of Weymouth on the Democratic side).
This dynamic was largely on display last week.
Unfortunately, the two revenue amendments from Rep. Denise Provost (D-Somerville) we had supported were withdrawn–although we commend Rep. Provost along with Reps. Ruth Balser (D-Newton), Tricia Farley-Bouvier (D-Pittsfield), Cory Atkins (D-Concord), and Mike Connolly (D-Cambridge)for speaking on behalf of the income tax freeze amendment on the floor. It is rare to see progressive amendments actually see floor debate.
What happened to the others? On housing, Rep. Paul Donato (D-Medford)’s amendment to increase Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP) by $20 million did not make it into the budget. Part of of Rep. Mike Connolly (D-Cambridge)’s MRVP amendment made it into the final budget (allowing the use of MRVP funds for a voucher management program), but the more important parts of the amendment (requiring the agency to issue new vouchers sooner in the fiscal year and increasing voucher rent caps to current fair market rent standards) were not.
Rep. Alice Peisch (D-Wellesley)’s amendment to increase the funding for the Early Rate Reserve to $20 million from $15 million made it into the final budget. Rep. Paul Brodeur (D-Melrose) had sought to bring the funding for YouthWorks to $13.5 million; it ended up at $10.75 million instead, counting earmarks.
Rep. Ruth Balser (D-Newton) had advocated for increasing the funding for the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, which ensures that low-income residents of Massachusetts have access to legal information, advice, and representation, to $21 million from $19.5 million. The final House budget included $20 million–better but not good enough. Rep. Mary Keefe (D-Worcester)’s amendment to increase funding for crucial programs to combat recidivism and create opportunities from $250,000 to $2 million did not make it into the final budget at all.
Rep. David Rogers (D-Cambridge)’s amendment had sought to increase the operations budget for DEP from $24.4 million to $30 million. Just $500,000 extra made it into the final budget, hardly sufficient.
Rep. Carole Fiola (D-Fiola)’s amendment had sought to increase the family planning services line item to $5.8 million. It ended up at $5,678,797.
TL;DR: Start thinking about what you want in a progressive governor, and start questioning and pressuring candidates and prospective candidates before committing.
One year from now, Democrats across the state will have elected delegates to go to the state party convention where gubernatorial candidates will vie with each other for the party’s endorsement.
The primary field is not settled yet—there’s some time to go, and candidates may yet emerge.
But, already, candidates and prospective candidates have begun listening tours–speaking at local caucuses, at house parties, at activist events.
When the field is settled, Progressive Massachusetts will invite all candidates to fill out our detailed candidate questionnaire, as we did in 2014.
We will ask tough questions about where they stand on the key elements of our Progressive Platform–shared prosperity, racial and social justice, open government and strong democracy, and sustainable infrastructure and environmental protection–and the Legislative Agenda that seeks to translate principles into policy.
And once they fill out those questionnaires, YOU–our grassroots members–will get to vet them and get to decide whom we endorse.
No smoke-filled rooms, just grassroots democracy.
But, the member endorsement is still a way off.
In the interim — what can you do to strengthen the field and ensure the boldest progressive platform is being talked about at every coffee, every house party?
SOME IDEAS —
We want them to understand that a progressive message is the winning one.
So get the candidates (and prospective candidates) on record about the issues that matter.
Ask them tough questions, don’t accept evasions, and see if those answers hold when they go before different crowds.
Charlie Baker has managed to coast with high approval ratings because the Legislature tries to minimize conflict, avoiding taking votes on anything he might veto and showering him with praise for small-bore accomplishments. But if we are to have a chance of defeating Baker next year, then we need to be drawing a clear contrast with an inspiring and affirmative progressive policy agenda. Not being Charlie, not being a Republican simply isn’t enough.
So what should you be asking declared and prospective candidates if you encounter them on a listening tour. Here are some ideas:
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to make the minimum wage a living wage of $15 an hour. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to guarantee paid family and medical leave. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to guarantee health care as a right through a Medicare for All system. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to invest in our public schools to give all students the best opportunities we can. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to make public higher education tuition-free. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting comprehensive changes to our criminal justice system to end mass incarceration and inhumane practices like solitary confinement. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to protect our immigrant family, friends, and neighbors by preventing the use of state resources for a mass deportation regime. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to expand voting rights through things like automatic voter registration and Election Day registration. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to aggressively shift away from a fossil fuel-based economy to one powered by renewables like solar and wind. Do you?
Charlie Baker doesn’t stand with us in wanting to raise the revenue needed to upgrade and expand our public transit system. Do you?
A contested primary can give YOU, the voter, leverage–but only if you use it. No candidate is owed your vote. Public servants work for you, and anyone running for such an office should have to work for your vote.
And when all Democratic candidates are arguing about who’s the bolder progressive, and not who’s friendlier to some supposed centrist ideal, that’s when we will have a policy debate worth having.
If you’re like us, your inbox has been swamped over the past few months with rallies and action alerts about how to fight the reactionary Trump-McConnell-Ryan agenda coming out of Washington.
Massachusetts is in position to be a leader in the resistance against Trump’s agenda–and a beacon of progressive policy for the rest of the country.
Although our Republican governor, Charlie Baker, is not going to stand up to Trump as much as he should, Attorney General Maura Healey has been at the forefront of fighting for civil rights and environmental protection, among other issues, in the Age of Trump.
And Massachusetts has the third largest Democratic supermajorities in the country, with 34 out of 40 senators and 126 out of 160 representatives. In theory, then, whether or not Baker is willing to fight Trump, the Legislature has the votes to do so.
But…
The Legislature, as our scorecards (and brand new scorecard page) show, routinely fails to live up to the ideal of what one might hope for from a Legislature this overwhelmingly blue.
Trump has created a sense of urgency among progressive voters. But, based on statements on policy and priorities, we have yet to see that same urgency from the State House.
A Beacon Hill Committee to Focus on Trump
In late March, Speaker Bob DeLeo appointed nine House Democrats to a working group to guide responses to “unprecedented actions” of the Trump administration.
The group consists of House Majority Leader Ron Mariano (D-Quincy); Speaker Pro Tem Patricia Haddad (D-Somerset); Assistant Majority Leader Byron Rushing (D-South End); House Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets Chair Antonio Cabral (D-New Bedford); House Steering, Policy and Scheduling Chair James Murphy (D-Weymouth); Public Health Chair Kate Hogan (D-Stow); Health Care Financing Chair Jeffrey Sanchez (D-Jamaica Plain); Rules vice chair Marjorie Decker (D-Cambridge), and Export Development vice chair James Arciero (D-Westford).
The working group is tasked with coming up with legislative solutions that are both “necessary and feasible.” The devil, of course, will be in the details….
…whose definitions of “necessary” and “feasible”?
…Will this group aggressively push a progressive agenda, or will they settle for the lethargic status quo?
We plan to follow the working group to the best of our abilities as it moves forward. But what do we know so far?
According to State House News Service, the group will focus on “economic stability, health care, higher education, and the state’s most vulnerable residents.”
Strong, progressive policies on all of these issues have been proposed this session. (We center our Legislative Agenda on many of them!)
Where do the working group members stand on them?
Economic Stability:
Trump, along with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, wants to make an economy that works just for the top 1%. How do we promote shared prosperity by contrast? We could do so by passing a $15 minimum wage and paid family and medical leave, for starters.
Four out of the nine–Cabral, Decker, Hogan, and Rushing–have co-sponsored the Fight for $15 bill. Six–Cabral, Decker, Haddad, Hogan, Murphy, Rushing–have signed on to paid family and medical leave.
Health Care:
Trump wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, denying health care to millions. The task facing progressives is to improve and expand upon the Affordable Care Act with a single payer/Medicare for All system that truly enshrines health care as a human right.
So far, only two out of the nine–Decker and Rushing–have signed on to such legislation.
Trump and the Republican Congress also have their sights set on taking away women’s rights over their own bodies. Congress has already passed legislation enabling states to defund Planned Parenthood. Progressives shouldn’t stand for that. One of the members of the working group, Rep. Haddad, is a leader sponsor of the ACCESS bill, which would require insurance carriers to provide all contraceptive methods without a copay. Decker, Hogan, Rushing, and Sanchez have joined her in support of this bill.
Higher Education:
Massachusetts has been under-investing in higher education for years, leading to higher tuition costs and spiraling student debt. Trump could make matters worse by reducing funding for higher education institutions and federal student aid, as well as by encouraging the expansion of predatory for-profit institutions.
Only one of the nine–Rep. Decker–has come out in support of making public colleges and universities tuition-free for Massachusetts residents. Rep. Arciero joins her in a strong, but less ambitious, goal of debt-free higher education.
Protecting the State’s Most Vulnerable:
Massachusetts has the opportunity to stand up to the federal deportation machine by passing the Safe Communities Act, which would prohibit the use of state resources for deportation raids and limit local and state police collaboration with federal immigration agents. The TRUST Act, its predecessor, stalled in committee year after year. But the necessity of the bill grows stronger each day.
Four out of the nine working group members are supporters of the Safe Communities Act–Cabral, Decker, Rushing, and Sanchez.
We can look back to last session for insights into the working group. Four out of the nine members of the committee matched the Speaker vote-by-vote on our scorecard of the last session (Arciero, Cabral, Haddad, Hogan). Two of them were more conservative than the Speaker (Mariano, Murphy), and three were more progressive (Decker, Rushing, Sanchez).
The House doesn’t take many roll call votes, but some can be illustrative. Last July, for example, the House voted to make state-issued IDs compliant with the federal REAL ID law per request of Governor Baker (H.4488). Real ID’s strict documentation requirements make getting a state-issued ID more difficult for the young, the elderly, trans individuals, people of color, the poor, and many legal immigrants. H.4488 also forestalled efforts to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, something which–unlike REAL ID–would increase public safety.
Decker, Rushing, and Sanchez sided with Massachusetts’s vulnerable populations. The other six sided with the Governor.
Massachusetts Democrats often talk a good game about opposing Trump.
But will they put their priorities and votes where their mouths are this session?
Last week, Massachusetts had the honor of placing #1 in the U.S. News & World Report state rankings. The 50-state analysis included more than 60 metrics, and on many of them, Massachusetts shines. We ranked #1 in education, #2 in health care, and #5 in economy. When it comes to education, Massachusetts is the birthplace of US public schools, and when it comes to health care, our 2006 health care reform law created a model for the nation.
But don’t crack open the champagne yet. Although, overall, we outperformed other states, Massachusetts fared abysmally on a number of key metrics.
Although Massachusetts had some of the highest test scores in the country, inequality remains a defining feature of our public school system. We ranked #31 on education equality by race. Quality Counts, which conducts an annual ranking of states on education, found a similar dynamic. Massachusetts ranked #1, but consistently fell near the bottom on any metrics focused on equity. We have great schools, but not everyone gets to go to them.
When our students graduate and go to college, they face high tuition (#41) and are saddled with debt for years after (#39). And the inequality in education is reflected in the resulting inequality in the economy: Massachusetts had one of the highest racial gaps in income (#40) and one of the highest Gini indexes (#45), a measure of the gap between the richest and poorest in the state.
And you can only take advantage of what Massachusetts has to offer if you can afford to live here, which isn’t easy. We were #45 in cost of living and #44 in housing affordability. Expensive housing prices force people to live further from work, leading to long commutes (#47), made worse by low-quality roads (#47).
Inequality and poverty breed crime, a dynamic exacerbated by an overreliance on outdated “tough-on-crime” policies. Massachusetts has some of the country’s most overcrowded prisons (#46) and biggest racial gaps in juvenile incarceration (#46).
So, clearly, something’s the matter with Massachusetts. What can we do about it?
Our 2017-2018 legislative agenda offers some vital steps forward.
Policies like a $15 minimum wage (S.1004/HD.2719) can help reduce inequality. Modernizing the Foundation Budget (S.223) will foster greater equity in education spending. Zoning reform and increased housing production (S.81) can reduce the cost of living in Massachusetts. Making public higher education tuition-free (H.633) or debt-free (S.681) will alleviate the debt burden faced by students at Massachusetts’s many great colleges and universities and make higher education more accessible. The Fair Share amendment, by imposing a progressive income tax and earmarking new revenue for education and infrastructure, can reduce inequality, improve education equity, and make for easier commutes.
Comprehensive sentencing reform that reinvests savings in job training and education (S.791/HD.2714)—or even just eliminating mandatory minimums for non-violent drug crimes (S.819/H.741)—will help reduce prison overpopulation and combat the multi-faceted injustices of the criminal justice system. And eliminating and reducing the fees involved in the criminal justice system (S.777/HD.2929) will make sure that we aren’t incarcerating people for the simple crime of being poor.
That’s a lot of work for the next two years. But if we are the #1 state, we should certainly be able to handle it.
District: Consisting of the city of Attleboro, ward 3, precinct B, ward 4, precincts A and B, ward 5, precincts A and B, ward 6, precincts A and B, and the towns of Mansfield, Norton, Rehoboth and Seekonk in the county of Bristol; and the towns of Foxborough, Medfield, Sharon, precincts 1, 4 and 5, and Walpole in the county of Norfolk.
