Happy National Library Week! Let’s Rein in Book Bans.

Happy National Library Week!

The theme for this year’s National Library Week is “Find Your Joy,” a recognition of the value of libraries in helping individuals of all ages explore, imagine, learn, relax, and so much more. Libraries make learning fun.

But libraries have been under attack, with a rise of book ban efforts attacking schools and libraries across the country and here in Massachusetts. Book bans are attacks on free speech in general, and attacks more specifically on the identities, histories, or topics represented in targeted books, materials, and media. Many attempts have targeted books and media dealing with LGBTQ characters and themes, race, equity, social justice, and the US’s complicated history.

Many book bans have targeted librarians themselves—limiting their ability to choose books and media, and even proposing punishments. Some book ban attempts challenge classroom book collections, limiting teachers’ abilities to meet their students’ needs.

Last November, the MA Senate passed legislation to rein in politically motivated book bans. We need the MA House to do so too.

Can you write to your state rep today about the need to pass legislation to do so?

Follow-up Links to Spring Forward: What Beacon Hill Can Do on Energy Affordability webinar

Thank you to everyone who joined last night’s webinar! And if you weren’t able to join, you were missed!

Here is the video:

Vick shared two action alerts and one upcoming event:  

Follow-up links & actions to Webinar “Spring Forward: Privacy and Power: Protecting Our Digital Rights and Democracy”

Thank you so much for joining our webinar on Wednesday “Spring Forward: Privacy and Power: Protecting Our Digital Rights and Democracy”! And thank you to our great speaker, Kade Crockford from the ACLU of Massachusetts. 

You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/wHi4nsmLjjc.

https://youtu.be/wHi4nsmLjjc

And here are the follow-up links from Kade: 

  1. ACLU presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1G9hEyXj0-3IMz16f9ctnPXQaiP7NO_bZ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108538486946816465140&rtpof=true&sd=true
  2. ACLU resources on privacy: https://www.aclum.org/campaigns-initiatives/data-privacy-now/
    1. Includes talking points
    2. Action: https://mobilize.aclum.org/a/pass-enforceable-data-privacy-legislation
  3. ACLU resources on facial recognition: https://www.aclum.org/campaigns-initiatives/press-pause-face-surveillance/
  4. ACLU blog on license plate readers in MA: https://data.aclum.org/2025/10/07/flock-gives-law-enforcement-all-over-the-country-access-to-your-location/
    1. Local level action: https://mobilize.aclum.org/a/email-your-municipal-leaders-flock

Hope to see you at an upcoming event!

Take Action: Investing in People, Not Incarceration

Friday was the first day of spring, and the new season is always a perfect time to think about second chances and new life. As winter passes, we get more light, we get more greenery, we see more flowers.

It’s a time to think about how our systems can be designed to encourage second chances and new life instead of cycles of violence and harm.

Prisoners’ Legal Services, Families for Justice as Healing, the Keeping Families Connected Coalition, Jane Doe, Inc., Medical Justice Alliance-MA Chapter, Progressive Massachusetts, and Citizens for Juvenile Justice recently teamed up to write a letter to the Senate and House Committees on Ways and Means, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate President urging them to prioritize a package of six critical bills this session. Over 100 organizations have signed on in support and now we need the help of individuals to ask their legislators to make this a priority.  

This platform includes:

  • An Act relative to elder and medical parole (H.2693)
  • An Act to build restorative family and community connection (H.2591)
  • An Act relative to human rights and improved outcomes for incarcerated people (H.2608)
  • An act relative to justice for survivors (S.1256)
  • An act establishing a jail and prison moratorium (H.3422, S.2944)
  • An Act to Promote Public Safety and Better Outcomes for Youths (S.1061)

These six critical legal system reform bills have advanced to the committee on Ways and Means and are well positioned to be acted upon by the legislature this session. Each of these bills represents an opportunity to reduce incarceration, redirect spending to where it is most needed, and improve conditions for particularly vulnerable carceral populations, specifically young people, families, survivors of abuse and sexual violence, and elders. More details on the bills are in the letter.  

Please contact your legislators with a copy of the letter via email, phone, or the form below and ask them to express their support to the Committee on Ways and Means as well as House or Senate leadership.  

Email Your Legislators

“How MA Can Opt Out of Trump’s Corporate Tax Cuts” Follow-up Links

Thank you so much for joining for last night’s webinar “How MA Can Opt Out of Trump’s Corporate Tax Cuts”! 

You can find Phineas Baxandall’s slides from his excellent presentation here. 

A Few Other Links: 

Unfortunately, although I thought I had clicked record, I had missed the final step in getting it to start. My apologies. A decoupling of action and intention, if you will. But I’m glad we have the slides to share. 

This Wednesday: How MA Can Opt Out of Trump’s Corporate Tax Cuts

Budget season is coming up soon in the Massachusetts Legislature, and if legislators don’t act quickly, damaging cuts could be on the table.

Tax policy can get wonky fast, so let me give you the gist of it. When the federal government changes the tax code with new deductions and exemptions, Massachusetts incorporates those into our tax code. In last summer’s Big Ugly Bill, Trump and Congressional Republicans created a whole list of new, costly, regressive giveaways to the richest corporations. That means that unless Beacon Hill acts, those giveaways get added to MA’s tax code too.

That would mean a loss of almost half a billion dollars in the coming budget, with cuts to essential services on which we all depend. States across the country are already saying NO and opting out, protecting essential revenue, and Massachusetts needs to join them.

Join us on Wednesday for our next Spring Forward webinar where we will hear from Phineas Baxandall of MassBudget about what’s at stake and what you can do.

Spring Forward: How MA Can Opt Out of Trump’s Corporate Tax Cuts

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

7 pm, Zoom, RSVP here

Can’t make it? You can still email your state rep and state senator about taking action.

Take Action: Your Data Should Be Nobody’s Business

Your precise location data – showing which doctor’s office you visited last month, which NO KINGS rallies you’ve attended, and when and where you drop your kids off every day – is currently for sale on the open market. The shadowy collection and processing of your data by Big Tech and data brokers consistently exposes your private life to bad actors, including Trump’s ICE — just one of many buyers of our precise geolocation data.

Five and half months ago, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a comprehensive data privacy bill, which included a ban on the sale of sensitive data, like location data, health care information, immigration status, biometric data, and more.

Three months ago, the House passed its own bill out of committee.

Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google, which have been buddying up to the Trump administration, have spent those three months lobbying the House to water down the bill. They have spent a lot already and are ready to spend more.

We need to make sure that they don’t succeed.

Can you email your state rep to stress the importance of passing a strong data privacy bill?

If you’ve emailed recently, it’s a good time follow up with a call. Find your state rep’s phone number here.

Follow-up Links (Video, Slides, & More) from “Spring Forward: How MA Can Stand Up to ICE” Webinar

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us today! We are doing another “Spring Forward” webinar next Wednesday about opting out of Trump’s regressive corporate tax cuts. Learn more and RSVP here.

Watch last night’s event here:

Find Laura Rotolo’s slides here.

Some links Laura mentioned: 

PROTECT Act Hearing (3/18) 

Email Your Legislators / Gov. Healey

Call Your Legislators 

  • Find your legislators’ numbers at https://scorecard.progressivemass.com/. 
  • Quick phone script: “Please take urgent action to protect Massachusetts communities from ICE. We need to join other states in banning 287(g) collaboration agreements that deputize state and local law enforcement as ICE and ban informal collaboration between state and local law enforcement and ICE.” 

Call Gov. Healey

  • Phone Number:  (617) 725-4005 (only available 9 to 5) 
  • Quick phone script: “Please tell Gov. Healey MA needs to stop collaborating with ICE. I appreciated that she signed an executive order to ban new 287(g) agreements with state agencies, but we need to ban all such agreements, including the existing one with the Department of Correction.” 

Our New “Spring Forward” Series

This weekend, it will be simple to move the clocks forward, but it will take a lot more work in the coming weeks to move Beacon Hill forward.

To help educate and drive action, we are thrilled to host a series of virtual events about critical policies that the State House needs to pass and how we can work together to make it happen. This March, we’re kicking it off with the following two events:

Wednesday, March 11: How MA Can to Stand Up to ICE

7 pm, Zoom, RSVP here

Every day brings new horror stories about ICE’s violent, law-breaking activity across the country and here in Massachusetts. What can a state like Massachusetts do to stand up to ICE? Laura Rotolo, the Field Director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, will explain what we can get done this legislative session in Massachusetts and how you can help make it happen.

Wednesday, March 18: How MA Can Opt Out of Trump’s Corporate Tax Cuts

7 pm, Zoom, RSVP here

Trump’s regressive corporate tax cuts are going to cost Massachusetts nearly half a billion dollars this year alone — on top of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and other federal programs we rely on. States across the country are already saying NO and opting out, protecting essential revenue, and Massachusetts needs to join them. Phineas Baxandall of Mass Budget explains what’s at stake.

In solidarity,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts

TOMORROW: Hearing on the PROTECT Act

Wednesday, March 3, 11 am, State House, B1

The PROTECT Act (H.5158) was filed just over a month ago by the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus to strengthen protections for our immigrant communities and make sure that state and local law enforcement are following their duty to serve and protect, rather than doing the work of federal immigration enforcement.

The House Public Safety Committee is holding a hearing tomorrow, and the Protecting Massachusetts Communities Coalition has put together a testimony guide to help you write testimony to the committee about why it is so vital for Massachusetts to take action to stand up to ICE and protect our immigrant communities.

US House Republicans Just Voted to Attack Energy Efficiency. Why Are MA House Dems Joining Them?

Yesterday, down in DC, before the garbage fire of Trump’s State of the Union address, House Republicans voted — yet again — to roll back energy efficiency standards and programs. It’s clear why: they know that energy efficiency means less in profits for the dirty energy CEOs who fund their campaigns.

But then why are Massachusetts House Democrats doing the same?

Yesterday, Massachusetts House Democrats advanced a redrafted version of their formerly corporate-lobbyist-written energy bill.

Although there are some good things in the bill (more on that below), there’s a big poison pill: a $1 BILLION cut to the Mass Save budget.

This would effectively shut down Mass Save in 2027, taking with it the tens of thousands of clean energy jobs that are supported by energy efficiency and electrification work. It would immediately strip Massachusetts families’ ability to get the energy efficiency and electric upgrades that can result in healthier, more affordable homes while likely causing enormous cost to restart the program. Let’s be clear: when the Legislature cuts that much funding from a program, it’s never just temporary.

Meanwhile, gas bills have been increasing 10% each year thanks to continued gas pipeline spending, something the bill does nothing about.

Can you call your state representative today and urge them to stop scapegoating Mass Save while utilities spend billions on fossil fuel infrastructure and lobbying?

Here’s a sample script from our friends at Mass Power Forward:

“Hello, I am your constituent [YOUR NAME] calling from [YOUR ADDRESS]. I am calling about H.5151, the Energy Omnibus Bill. While there are some exciting provisions in the bill that we have advocated for around solar energy and clean heat, as well as curbing toxic biomass, I urge you to oppose the $1 billion cuts to Mass Save. Mass Save is saving us $2.72 for every dollar invested. We need to take on the biggest sources of high utility bills: utility companies spending billions on dirty, expensive fossil fuel infrastructure and millions on lobbying and executive salaries.”

Calling is more valuable than emailing (find your rep’s number here), but if you only have time to send an email, we’ve got you covered with an email template here as well.

Bad Process and Bad Outcomes

The House’s energy bill exemplified the perennial problem of bad process leading to bad policy. State representatives on the House Ways & Means Committee had only 45 minutes to read a 100+ page bill and decide whether to vote yes, vote no, or reserve their rights.

Many didn’t even have the time to vote due to the quick turnaround. Thank you to Rep. Natalie Higgins (D-Leominster) and Rep. Sam Montaño (D-Jamaica Plain) for voting to reserve rights, sending a message at the very least of “let me read this before I put my name to it.”

And the turnaround to a floor vote is similarly quick. They are voting on Thursday. Never mind that parts of the state are still without power due to the recent storm, and some representatives will have difficulty even getting to the State House.

But Some Rays of Sunshine

Although the bill needs the massive poison pill removed to be worth voting for, there are a few good things to highlight:

  • No changes to the 2030 climate goals (a major win!)
  • No more subsidies for toxic biomass
  • Removes the “pipeline tax” from the November House energy bill which would have allowed electric bills to pay for gas infrastructure
  • Positive regulations around labor and network geothermal clean heat generation
  • Positive regulations around balcony solar panels and vehicle-to-grid technology
  • Stronger regulations around reining in scammy third-party electricity suppliers

But at a time when the federal government is sabotaging climate action across the country, we shouldn’t be settling for poison-pilled climate legislation that leaves us committed to a dirty energy future.