Tell Gov. Healey: OpenAI Contract Needs to Be Open

Last Friday, Governor Healey committed Massachusetts to a three-year, multimillion-dollar contract with OpenAI, a company that has been in the news recently for collaborating with ICE, to deploy its AI tool for the Executive Branch’s 40,000 employees.

Healey did this upon the recommendation of the Commonwealth’s industry insider-dominated “AI Strategic Task Force,” but without consulting state workers.

As Beacon Hill works on passing new data privacy protections, Massachusetts residents should also be concerned about how Healey’s new partnership would handle sensitive data. We can’t know because the contract has not been released.

Workers, civil rights advocates, and consumer advocates need to be at the table to decide how new technologies will be embraced, not just those who will profit from them.

Here’s what you can do:

  • Contact the Governor’s office. Call (617) 725-4005 or use this email tool. Ask for the release of the full procurement documents and the data processing agreement, and ask why workers, consumer advocates, and civil rights advocates were excluded from this decision.
  • Contact your State Representative and Senator. Email your state legislators to ask whether the Joint Committee on Advanced IT plans to hold hearings on this contract. Find their emails here.

Just Say NO to Trump’s Regressive Corporate Tax Giveaways

Trump’s 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.

Here’s why: States use the federal tax code as a starting point to calculate how much people and corporations owe in taxes. Trump’s changes to the federal tax code cut taxes for the rich and large corporations. So, unless we act now, these cuts will be baked into our state’s tax code, meaning big tax cuts for the rich and large corporations.

We don’t have to let this happen. Tell your lawmakers now: reject Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires and protect Massachusetts.

Gov. Healey recently introduced a bill that starts to address the problem. But there’s a catch: although her bill would defer these regressive corporate tax handouts for this budget cycle, it leaves them in place for future ones. Regressive corporate tax cuts are bad this year, and they will still be bad next year.

As we already face a budget crisis due to Trump’s Big Ugly Bill, we can’t afford even more cuts to health care, food assistance, education, and other essential public services.

States like California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, as well as the District of Columbia, have already taken action to address this problem. Massachusetts should join them.

Can you write to your state legislators today?

EMAIL YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS

Already emailed your state legislators about this? Then call their offices to follow up.

The MA House Held “Listening Sessions” This Week. Did Your Rep Speak Up?

This week, MA House Democratic Leadership held a series of listening sessions to learn about what rank-and-file members want to do about ICE and about protecting our immigrant communities in Massachusetts.

The fact that these listening sessions are happening is an indicator that your calls and emails are breaking through: they know they need to do something.

But here’s a question: if they were listening, who was talking?

Was your state rep speaking up and advocating for policy that meets the moment? The only way to know is to ask.

Feel free to use our writing tool or find your state rep’s phone number and email and reach out with a simple script:

“I was glad to hear that the MA House held listening sessions this week about action to take to rein in ICE and protect our communities. It is important in Massachusetts that we prevent state and local law enforcement from collaborating with ICE or being deputized as ICE agents. What priorities did you bring up in the listening sessions this week, and how are you working with colleagues to turn them into law?”

Email Your State Rep

Other states are taking action. Just yesterday, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill to prohibit state and local governments from entering into agreements to detain individuals for civil immigration violations, stop the use of public land for immigration detention, and ban 287(g) agreements that turn local law enforcement into immigration agents. MA should be leading, not playing catch-up.

Tell Gov. Healey: De-ICE Massachusetts

Last week, Gov. Healey held a press conference focused on a new executive order and new proposed legislation aimed at ICE. But here’s a problem: she reaffirmed her commitment to continued collaboration with ICE.

MA is the only state in New England with a collaboration agreement, known as 287(g), between the state’s Department of Correction and ICE and the only New England Democratic governor to have any collaboration agreement at all.

Massachusetts should not be making ICE’s job easier. End stop.

Email Gov. Healey and tell her it’s time to end the contract with ICE.

NYT: “ICE Is Watching You”

In an excellent op-ed this morning, NYT opinion writer Tressie McMillan Cottom explains how ICE is building a massive surveillance apparatus through buying up our data (“ICE Is Watching You“):

“The federal government may have abdicated its responsibility to protect our civil liberties by regulating who can use our data and to what ends. Some states are stepping in, creating their own data privacy laws. But there is still much more to be done, in state legislatures and in Congress. And it all starts with the American people understanding that our freedoms are now bound up in who controls our data.

End the spectacle of vicarious violence. Abolish ICE.

But to end the structure of violence that has ensnared our civil liberties, we will also have to finally, finally turn our attention to who is controlling the damn phones.“

That’s why we are so committed to passing strong data privacy legislation this session.

The MA Senate passed a bill in September, and the House is likely to vote on its own bill soon.

Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google have been lobbying to water it down so that they can keep profiting off our data. Your state rep needs to hear from you that you want a bill with robust protection and robust enforcement.

Email Your State Rep

What if you have already emailed your state rep? Here’s what you can do next:

  • Call your state rep. You can find their number here. Here’s a quick message: “Can I count on the Rep to talk to House Leadership about passing a strong data privacy bill that bans the sale of sensitive data and has clear, robust enforcement mechanisms?” If you want a specific bill number, you can mention the Massachusetts Consumer Data Privacy Act (H.4746).
  • Email five friends. Do you know other friends in your own state rep district or on the other side of the Commonwealth? Ask them to take action too.

THURSDAY at the State House: Declaration of Independence from ICE

As ICE agents shoot, kill, and execute people in Minnesota, the people in Massachusetts stand in solidarity with the people in Minnesota:ICE out of Minnesota, ICE out of MA, and ICE out from all of our communities.

Join Indivisible Mass Coalition, Progressive Mass, ACLU-MA, MIRA, Brazilian Center, and Field First this Thursday, January 29 from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm at the MA State House to talk with your legislators and demand action now.

RSVP here.

You can also join a prep webinar tomorrow, Wednesday January 28 at 7:00 pm to get talking points to help facilitate a productive conversation with your legislator.

Register for the webinar here.

Can’t join in person? You can still take action.

Take Action: It’s Climate Week at the MA State House

Last November, the MA House tried to ram through a MAGA energy bill that would have rolled back our Commonwealth’s commitments to clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate action.

Because of an outpouring of opposition from people like you, the House pressed pause.

This week, the House Ways and Means Committee and House Leadership are holding listening sessions for state representatives to weigh in on what changes they would like to see to the bill.

This bill could be the vehicle for stopping costly gas infrastructure expansion and reducing bills with clean energy. But for that to happen, we need state representatives to be climate champions and advocate for bold action in these listening sessions.

Mass Power Forward has laid out a vision of what a real agenda for energy affordability and climate justice would look like. Your rep can help make it a reality.

Can you share these priorities with your state rep?

Email Your State Rep

As the bill moves forward, we need to be ready for quick action. Sign up here to be on deck for actions, such as showing up to the State House or contacting your legislator to support/oppose amendments.

Tell Beacon Hill: Don’t Let ICE Buy Our Data

The Massachusetts House may be taking up a data privacy bill as soon as this month.

Recent reporting has shown that ICE has been buying up cell phone location data in order to follow people from work or home. Currently, no laws prevent data brokers from buying and selling our sensitive data, like location data, on the open market. Strengthening our data privacy protections is essential.

Back in September, the Massachusetts Senate passed a robust data privacy bill that would prevent the purchase and sale of such sensitive data, along with other important measures to strengthen privacy rights.

Now it’s the House’s turn.

Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google, which have been buddying up to the Trump administration, are lobbying to water down the bill. Your state rep needs to hear from YOU about the importance of getting a strong bill passed as soon as possible.

Can you call or email your state rep today in support of passing strong data privacy legislation this month?

Find your state rep’s phone #

Email Your State Rep

ICE is Making Our Communities Less Safe. The MA Legislature Can Take Action.

The tragic murder of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis underscores what has long been clear: ICE agents make communities less safe.

ICE has been terrorizing communities across Massachusetts, breaking up families and breaking the law.

But MA lags behind other blue states in taking meaningful action to rein in police collaboration with ICE and protect immigrant communities.

Beacon Hill could pass legislation RIGHT NOW to change that. That’s why we’ve been working with the Protect Massachusetts Communities coalition to advance legislation based on the following three principles:  

(1) Don’t assist ICE.
Massachusetts law enforcement must never assist ICE in making civil immigration arrests (taking people into custody when no crime has been committed) or ask members of the public about their immigration status.

(2) Don’t turn police into ICE agents.
ICE is pressuring and incentivizing local police departments to sign up for its 287(g) program, which turns street-level officers into ICE agents. They are even offering bounty-style bonuses for police forces that bring in high rates of targeted residents. Massachusetts should prevent this from happening within our borders.

(3) Fund legal help to fight deportations.
Immigrants are five times more likely to win relief from deportation if they have representation, and detained immigrants with an attorney are ten times more likely to win relief than those without.

Key bills before the Legislature can advance these reforms, such as the Safe Communities Act (H.2580/S.1681), the Dignity Not Deportations Act (H.1588/S.1122), and the Immigrant Legal Defense Act (H.1954/S.1127).

Can you take action today by calling or emailing your state legislators about reining in ICE in MA?

And after you do, can you think of a few friends to email as well?

📞📞If you are able to make a phone call, call. Calls have a bigger impact than emails. Find your state legislators’ phone numbers here.

But emailing is also important. ✉️✉️ Send your state legislators an email here.

Memo to Beacon Hill: Just Say NO to Trump’s Regressive Corporate Tax Cuts

Trump’s 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.

But we don’t have to let this happen. Tell your lawmakers now: reject Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires and protect Massachusetts.

Here’s the context: States use the federal tax code as a starting point to calculate how much people and corporations owe in taxes. Trump’s changes to the federal tax code cut taxes for the rich and large corporations (by more than $3 billion/year in MA alone). So, unless we act now, these cuts will be baked into our state’s tax code, meaning big tax cuts for the rich and large corporations.

Other states across the country have already taken action, but we’re still waiting on Massachusetts.

As we face looming cuts already due to Trump’s Big Ugly Bill, we can’t afford even more cuts to health care, food assistance, education, and other essential public services.

Can you write to your state legislators today?