This holiday season, Santa Claus isnât the only one who knows when you are sleeping, knows when youâre awake, and knows if youâve been bad or good.
Thatâs because large data brokers are able to buy and sell sensitive data from your cell phone, like location data, without your consent.
Letâs do something about it.
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.
And last month, the House took the first step toward joining the Senate by voting a robust data privacy bill out of committee.
Itâs important that momentum doesnât stall over the holidays.
Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google are going to try to water down the bill, so your legislators need to hear from YOU about the importance of getting strong legislation done early in the new year.
Immigrants with work authorization, temporary protected status and other legal permissionsâincluding union membersâare being threatened and/or detained, along with other Massachusetts residents, in the federal administrationâs vicious campaign of mass deportation.
That’s why we’re joining allies across the Commonwealth for a rally and speakout in support of immigrants’ rights this Thursday at 12:30 pm in Boston City Hall Plaza.
Can’t make it? You can still take action.
Last week, the Legislature held hearings on key bills to protect the civil rights and safety of everyone in the Commonwealth. Help build momentum by writing to your legislators in support of the Protecting Massachusetts Communities Coalition’s three priority protections: (1) Don’t collaborate with ICE, (2) Don’t let police be ICE agents, and (3) Fund legal aid.
This Thanksgiving, families will be gathering across Massachusetts. But at many tables, there will be missing chairs due to the kidnapping of our immigrant friends and neighbors by ICE agents.
Federal immigration agents have been terrorizing communities across Massachusetts in service of Donald Trump’s xenophobic, hateful agenda. Families are torn apart, workplaces stripped of employees, and documented immigrants have feared their status will be revoked. Massachusetts can and must take action to better protect our communities.
Three key pro-immigrants’ rights bills will have hearings tomorrow:
Safe Communities Act (H.2580 / S.1681), which would end the voluntary involvement of our public safety officials in civil immigration matters
Dignity Not Deportations Act (H.1588 / S.1122), which would prohibit sheriffs from voluntarily renting beds to ICE and ban agreements to deputize state and local law enforcement to ICE
Immigrant Legal Defense Act (H.1954 / S.1127), which would ensure that immigrants navigating our complex immigration courts have legal representation and make permanent a recent budgetary appropriation
First, take a moment to email your state rep and state senator in support of these bills:
On Wednesday, the MA House’s Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy (TUE) advanced a bill that would gut the state’s commitment to clean energy.
WHAT’S IN THE BILL?
Here’s what the bill does:
Rolls back 2030 climate goals rollback
Guts Mass Save, removing decarbonization and electrification from its directive, reducing its budget, and adding incentives for gas furnaces back into the bill
Reduces the Renewable Portfolio Standard (clean energy requirement) from 3% to 1% growth each year
Removes a moderate-income discount electric rate that would save people money
Adds âcost effectivenessâ tests to everything, and removes the social cost of carbon from calculations, putting a finger on the scale against climate solutions
Prevents pollution reduction payments (alternative compliance payments) from going to clean energy projects
Creates a âpipeline taxâ – charging electric customers for gas pipeline supply
Repeals a landmark protection from new nuclear power facilities
Despite all of that, the vote was 7-0.
HOW DID THE COMMITTEE VOTE?
The 7 Democrats who voted to roll back our clean energy and energy efficiency commitments were House TUE Chair Mark Cusack (D-Braintree), Vice Chair Michael Kushmerek (D-Fitchburg), Bill MacGregor (D-West Roxbury), Jeff Turco (D-Winthrop), Dave Robertson (D-Tewksbury), Chynah Tyler (D-Roxbury), and Sean Reid (D-Lynn).If your state rep is on that list, make sure they hear your disappointment.
Two Democrats on the committee–Rep. Natalie Higgins (D-Leominster) and Rep. Margaret Scarsdale (D-Pepperell)–refused to join the bad policy bandwagon. In State House jargon, they “reserved their rights.” In plain language, they sent a clear message of “I’m not willing to support this bill as written.” If you are in their districts, make sure to thank them.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
We need to redouble our commitment to climate action, not walk it back. And the State House needs to hear that.
Can you let your state rep know it’s time to strengthen, not weaken, our climate commitments?
Itâs raining! Federal budget cuts are already devastating Massachusetts families, and the worst is yet to come.
This month, more than 1 million Massachusetts residents â overwhelmingly children, seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans â have faced hunger and fear because of the Trump Administrationâs cruel attacks on SNAP benefits during the federal shutdown. More than 337,000 residents are facing skyrocketing health insurance costs due to the loss of federal subsidies beginning in January.
And thatâs just the start. Up to 350,000 people in Massachusetts risk losing their Medicaid coverage, and up to 104,000 risk losing access to SNAP food assistance altogether, due to massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in the OBBA tax bill passed this summer. Federal cuts to PreK-12 schools, colleges, and childcare could hurt more than 1 million students. And Massachusetts is set to lose as much as $3.5 billion in annual federal aid once cuts to Medicaid and SNAP are fully phased in â blowing a massive hole in the state budget.
Cuts to healthcare, food assistance, and education threaten all of us, but we are not helpless. We need Beacon Hill to prioritize the people of Massachusetts over multinational corporationsâ profits and prevent the worst of these devastating budget cuts.
Join Raise Up this week to take action:
 â RAINY DAY ACTION ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13TH: Please join the Raise Up Massachusetts Coalition for a rally where we ask state legislators to use just 15% (~$1.2B) of the stateâs reserve fund (a.k.a. the ‘Rainy Day Fund’) to offset devastating federal cuts to SNAP, education, and healthcare. RSVP HERE PLEASE.
PHONE BANK ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13TH: Can’t join us on Thursday in person? We got you covered! Join us to for a phone bank to help drive calls and emails to legislators to pass Corporate Fair Share and use the Rainy Day Fund! RSVP HERE PLEASE.
CLICK TO EMAIL ACTION TO LEGISLATORS: Got some extra time before and after the Thursday actions? Take 2 minutes to email the Governor and your legislators in support of Corporate Fair Share and using the Rainy Day fund here. In solidarity,
Tuesday’s election had inspiring results in Massachusetts and across the country. In election after election, we saw that voters want their elected officials to stand up to the chaos, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration. Voters want elected officials who fight, not back down.
That memo needs to get to Beacon Hill.
On Friday, the Massachusetts House Energy Chair, Rep. MarkCusack (D-Braintree), told Commonwealth Beacon that he is considering repealing our critical state commitments to climate pollution reductions in an upcoming energy bill.
This is unacceptable and dangerous, especially as we see the Trump administration sabotage any recent federal progress on climate action. State leadership is even more important than it was before.
We need to redouble our commitment to climate action, not walk it back. And the State House needs to hear that.
Can you let your state rep know it’s time to strengthen, not weaken, our climate commitments?
Tomorrow is Election Day. 55 cities and towns across Massachusetts will be holding elections, and if you’re in one of them, you’ll be well aware that in the last week, especially the last few days, the election has become more visible.
Canvassers, lit, mailers, news coverage–the list goes on. But at this exact point when attention and visibility rise, our voter registration cutoff limits who can participate.
Our democracy is strongest when everyone can participate, but MA still puts up unnecessary barriers to participation with a 10-day voter registration cutoff. Given that the average American moves more than 11 times over the course of their lives, moving near Election Day could easily lead to disenfranchisement.
Even worse, if clerical errors exist on the voter rolls, voters can fill out a provisional ballot are left unsure if their vote will be counted. No one should ever lose basic rights due to clerical errors.
Same Day Registration can fix all of that, and MA should join our neighboring states in passing it. If Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut can all do it, why can’t we?
Witches, vampires, ghosts–they are all scary in movies. But the threats faced in real life are much scarier.
đThreats to Health Care and Food Assistance: Massachusetts faces deep cuts in health care access, food assistance, and more due to the Big Ugly Bill passed this summer, and we face looming cuts to SNAP given President Trump’s illegal decision not to spend emergency resources. Massachusetts has a higher GDP than Sweden: we are a rich state with ample resources, and we should be raising new revenue and tapping into our flush rainy day fund. (When it’s raining, you take out the umbrella.)
đThreats to Privacy Rights:As Big Tech behemoths like Facebook and Google become accomplices to Trumpist authoritarianism, we need to rein in their ability to buy and sell our personal data in an unregulated market place. The State Senate took action last month, but the House needs to as well. And the clock is ticking.
But we can prevent these frights with good policy.
When you watch a horror film, you know that one of the scariest things can be inaction. That sense that the outcomes were not inevitable at all, that opportunities were missed, that voices were unheeded, all of them empowering whatever villains lurk.
We have seen far too much inaction from Beacon Hill this year.
On the last day of the 10th month, only 49 bills have been signed into law. Of those 49, 21 were home rule petitions for one city or town, 13 were personnel matters about individual people, and 8 were budgets and supplemental budgets.
If you have ever interacted with your state representative’s or state senator’s office, you know how hard-working State House aides are. They coordinate the responses to constituent requests, they connect people to needed agencies and services, they help draft and decipher policy, they staff community events across the district, and much, much more.
But compared to the work that they do and the talent that they have, they are underpaid, and they lack a voice at the job.
Despite the organizing work by the Massachusetts State House Employee Union, the MA Legislature has yet to voluntarily recognize the union, and many otherwise staunchly pro-labor legislators have yet to voice their support.
When State House staff are not provided fair wages, safe and healthy work conditions, or a seat at the table, we lose talent and limit who can even consider entering public service in the first place. When we donât have all of the diverse voices of the Commonwealth at the table, we miss vital perspectives in crafting policy.
Can you write to your state legislators today to support collective bargaining rights for State House staff? Email Your State Legislators
S.1343/H.2093(An Act relative to collective bargaining rights for legislative employees) would permit legislative staff in the House and Senate to form a union, if they want to, for the purpose of negotiating their wages, benefits, and working conditions.
This bill has a hearing on Tuesday, and the State House Employee Union is collecting signatures from the general public on supportive testimony. Sign on to Public Testimony
The Trump administration is taking away healthcare from working families and seniors so they can put more money into the pockets of billionaires and big corporations. Here in Massachusetts, we could lose as much as $3.5 billion in federal aid that pays for health care, education, and food access for hundreds of thousands of people. We simply canât afford the harm that will cause.
That’s why we’re supporting Raise Up Massachusetts’s Corporate Fair Share campaign. The Corporate Fair Share bill would raise critical new revenue by requiring large multinational corporations like Amazon and Walmart to pay our existing corporate tax rate on more of the profits they hide overseas.
The bill has a hearing tomorrow at the State House at 10 am in Gardner Auditorium and a press event at 9:30 am right before. Can you join us?
Date: Friday, October 3, 2025 @ 9:15 AM (Action); 10 AM (Hearing)
Location: Massachusetts State House: Room 222 (Action); Gardner Auditorium (Hearing)
CAN’T MAKE IT TO THE STATE HOUSE? THERE’S MORE YOU CAN DO.
(1) Attend a Town Hall: Raise Up Mass coalition is holding a series of regional Protect Our Care Town Halls across the state to tell our legislators: itâs time to make big corporations pay their fair share in taxesâand stop the cuts. Chances are weâre holding one near you!
FIND A TOWN HALL NEAR YOU
(2) Email your state legislators: Whether they have co-sponsored or not, they should be hearing from you about the need to take action.
EMAIL YOUR LEGISLATORS
(3) Submit testimony: Let the Joint Revenue Committee know why this is important to you with this testimony template courtesy of Raise Up Mass.
