MA Passed a Budget on Time. What’s in It?

Let’s start out with the ugly, and then the good and the bad.

The UGLY: Yesterday, the US Senate passed a horror show of a budget to take away health care access and food assistance in order to fund tax cuts for the mega-rich and large corporations, and to create a police state in the US by increasing ICE’s budget several times over. If passed, it will be a disaster for the country and for Massachusetts. If you have friends in other states who have Republican Senators or Representatives, ask them to make a phone call in opposition to the Big Ugly Bill.

THE GOOD: On Monday, the Massachusetts State House did something it hasn’t done since 2016: it passed a budget before the end of the fiscal year.

There are some major victories in this budget to celebrate:

  • Banning tenant-paid broker’s fees
  • $2.5 million in continued funding for an access to counsel program, which provides legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction
  • $5 million for an immigrant legal defense fund
  • Permanently fare-free regional transit authorities
  • Increased funding for our public schools

THE BAD: But there were also disappointments in the budget:

  • Only $1 million in dedicated funding for No Cost Calls implementation
  • Less funding for local aid
  • Insufficient funding for housing safety net programs
  • Insufficient funds for SNAP case workers

Read more about the state budget here, here, and here.

Write to your legislator to express your support for the budget wins and your disappointment with what was left out.

Email Your Legislators

Healey Wants to Spend $360 Million on a New Prison. Tell Her No Way.

For years, our friends at Families for Justice as Healing have been organizing against a proposed $50 million new women’s prison to replace MCI-Framingham.

How has Governor Maura Healey responded? By proposing a $360 million new women’s prison.

Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and girls have been clear: what we need is not a new prison, but greater programming for those currently incarcerated, better reentry programs for people when they return to community, and greater community investments in housing, health care, education, and economic security and opportunity.

Think of how much that $360 million could do if it went instead to keeping communities safe and ending cycles of incarceration and harm.

Join FJaH in telling Governor Healey to stop the $360 million new women’s prison with the action toolkit at bit.ly/FreeHerMA.

Call daily between 9am and 5pm only – (617) 725-4005

Email any time using this form: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/email-the-governors-office Sample Email/Script:

“Hello, my name is _________________ and I am your constituent. I oppose your plan to build a $360 million women’s prison. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on prison construction is not investing in people’s wellbeing and will not make our communities safer. Our communities need this money for housing, healing, healthcare, treatment and more. We could actually make Massachusetts a model for the rest of the country by releasing many more women and implementing alternatives to incarceration rather than building yet another prison.”

Another Budget Takeaway: Fair Share Delivers

One major budget takeaway: The Fair Share Amendment has been delivering even more than expected, and it has proven essential. The Fair Share Amendment has been producing even more revenue than projected, and it has made possible critical new investments in education and transportation. Learn more about its $6 billion in positive impact so far at https://www.fairsharema.com/.

Press Release on Joint Rules Agreement

Earlier this year, both Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka promised reforms to make a more transparent, efficient, and accountable legislative process. We are delighted that, for the first time in six years, the House and Senate have agreed to Joint Rules, and that these new rules contain concrete, pro-democracy improvements. 

We have been clear for years that better process helps produce better policy, and that the top-down, closed-door way that Beacon Hill operates disempowers the public (at the expense of monied interests) and makes it harder for rank-and-file legislators to do their job. 

These new rules will make it easier for everyday people to engage in the legislative process by increasing the notice for hearings to ten days, providing bill summaries, and establishing hearing schedules earlier in the session. These new rules will provide greater accountability by making committee votes public and by making testimony publicly available. They will empower rank-and-file legislators to engage more in the policymaking process by making their votes more meaningful and their attendance at hearings more expected. They will push against the bottlenecks that occur late in the session by pushing up reporting deadlines. 

We look forward to holding Beacon Hill accountable to their new rules. Rules only improve the process if they are, in fact, followed. 

These new rules should be the beginning, not the end, of democratic reforms. That we have them at all is a credit to years of advocacy and popular education, the landslide win of Question 1 on the ballot last year, and the willingness of candidates to make Beacon Hill’s inertia and lack of transparency a key issue. There is more to do, such as structural reforms like fixing a stipend system that centralizes power or the deeper work of changing the culture of Beacon Hill in a way that encourages legislators to be more willing to speak out, stand out, and not settle for inertia and small wins. But today, we celebrate. 

Beacon Hill’s New Rules Are Late But Contain Wins for Democracy

At the start of the new legislative session, both Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano pledged a commitment to increase the transparency, accountability, and efficiency of the legislative process.

Later that month, we helped organize 30 advocacy organizations on a joint letter outlining out a suite of reforms to boost public trust in the legislative process and to make a better process for rank-and-file legislators.

With a week left until we hit the second half of 2025, we finally have agreed-upon Joint Rules from the MA House and MA Senate, the set of practices and procedures governing how joint House-Senate committees operate. (They still need a vote, but that is assured.) Rules determine timelines, deadlines, access to information, and more.

Although the fact that this did not occur until late June is damning, the fact that it happened at all is exciting, as the Legislature has been punting on the issue of Joint Rules since 2019 due to previously irreconcilable differences. It is also exciting to see real wins for the community of activists and advocates fighting for greater transparency and democracy in the State House.

It’s been clear from the start that the House and Senate would agree to a new rule in which House committee members report out House bills and Senate members report out Senate bills. And that was in these new Rules.

But what else is new in the new Rules? (See a more detailed mark-up here.)

NEW WIN: 10-Day Hearing Notice

How much notice should be provided for joint committee hearings has been a sticking point between the House and Senate since 2019. The Senate has advocated for 5 days, but the House has wanted to stick to 72 hours. Those were their positions in their Joint Rules proposals earlier this year.

However, in our letter in January, we argued for two weeks: two weeks is the standard for people seeking vacation time off work, and if we want everyday people to be able to testify, we should provide two weeks of advance notice. By embracing a 10-day standard, the Joint Rules were more pro-participation than either chamber’s original proposal.

NEW WIN: Hearing Schedules

In our joint letter, we urged joint committees to establish clear hearing schedules for the session early on (we said April 1st). The new Joint Rules say that joint committees must provide a schedule of hearing dates within three weeks of committee appointments. Again, this is more pro-participation than either chamber’s original proposal. Both this and the ten-day notice rule recognize that what is good for the public is good for rank-and-file legislators. If we want meaningful hearings, then people need to be able to show up to testify, and legislators need to show up to listen to them. That can only happen with sufficient notice.

NEW WIN: Public Hearing on Rules

At the end of the two-year session, the Joint Committee on Rules will conduct a comprehensive review of the joint rules, including a public hearing where everyday people can testify. Legislators have often said that regular people don’t care about the rules when they have argued against transparency measures; this shows that they have finally acknowledged people do.

Committee Votes

All joint committee votes will be recorded and posted on the Legislature’s website within 48 hours. This has been a sticking point for six years between the House and Senate and the subject of significant advocacy (and public shock at our outlier status).

Unfortunately, the language about committee votes does not include House language that would have required co-chairs provide committee members with a redlined version of any bill they are expected to vote on, and it does not include Senate language specifying that study orders (a polite way of killing a bill) require votes.

The new rules also specify that if no action is taken on a bill, it will be given a study order. This could become a way to avoid taking votes on bills and will have to be guarded against.

Publicly Available Testimony

Joint committees will be required to make written testimony publicly available, with limitations for testimony that includes sensitive personal information, obscene content, or information that may jeopardize the health, wellness, or safety of the testifier or others. This is a win for access to information vis-a-vis existing rules, but not as far as the Senate’s proposal and what we called for. The Joint Rules will allow committee chairs to set the rules regarding how testimony is made publicly available, but the best standard would be to simply post all of it (with the above redactions as needed), as done in several other states. We’ll have to see how this all works in practice.

Bill Summaries

Joint committees will be required to make a summary of each bill publicly available on the General Court website prior to its hearing. Summaries will be written by committee staff, as per the House proposal, instead of the bill filers themselves (as per the Senate’s).

Earlier Reporting Deadline

Joint committees will now have until the first Wednesday in December of the first year of the session (as opposed to the first February in the second year) to take action on all bills in their purview, an attempt at avoiding the legislative backlog that always results and at setting up the second year for a clear focus on legislating. The House will still abide by the rolling deadlines in its own rules, which require bills to be reported out 60 days after they are heard (with the possibility of an additional 30-day extension).

Conference Committees

As per the Senate’s original proposal, the first meeting of a conference committee (the three senators and three representatives negotiating versions of a bill) will be open to the public and media. We should hope that these are more meaningful meetings than the one held by the Joint Committee on Rules, which was more of a mumbling and disjointed press conference than a real meeting.

Also, as per the Senate’s original proposal, a minimum of 24 hours of will be required between a conference committee report filing and a legislative vote, allowing more time for review by legislators and the public. If a conference committee report is filed after 8:00pm, it cannot be voted on until the second calendar day following the day on which it was filed. More time for review is good for the public and good for rank-and-file legislators.

In a limited version of a House proposal, conference reports would be accompanied by summaries, but only “whenever practicable.”

Tracking Attendance

The House proposal had argued for tracking attendance at joint committee hearings, and the Senate proposal excluded any such measure.

The Joint Rules landed on a place that recognizes the importance of showing up while accommodating excused absences. The new attendance record-keeping would begin on October 1 (it is unclear why so late) and would count attendance both in-person and remote, both full and partial (regarding the length of the hearing).

Chairs would record all members as “Present”, “Not Present”, or “Hearing conflicts with a legislative session, hearing, conference committee or commission meeting under joint rule 29A,” posted along with the archived hearing livestream video. A member who is not present due to military service, a medical emergency, or other specified reason as agreed to by the rules of the joint committee, shall have such reason noted on the recorded attendance.

Formal Sessions Past July 31st

The the new Joint Rules would permit the Legislature to meet in formal session after July 31 in the second year of the legislative session in the following cases: reports of conference committees formed on or before July 31, appropriation bills filed after July 31, and gubernatorial vetoes or amendments. We argued against pushing more of the work of the session after July 31st, as legislators are not in the State House as regularly and thus decision-making would be more centralized and less accountable. Last session’s practice of conference committees going on through the fall and unfinished business as of July 31 wasn’t one worth encouraging.

Letter to AG Campbell to Protect Immigrant Taxpayers

Progressive Mass was proud to sign on to the letter below, organized by Greater Boston Legal Services.

June 5, 2025

Honorable Andrea Joy Campbell

Massachusetts Attorney General

One Ashburton Place

Boston, MA  02118

Re: A petition to challenge the impending use of confidential IRS data for immigration enforcement

Dear Attorney General Campbell,

On behalf of the many immigrant families living in Massachusetts, the undersigned urge you and other Attorneys General to consider bringing a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The goal of the suit is to prevent the agency from implementing a recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the first time to use confidential taxpayer information as immigrant locator tools.

Unlike individual plaintiffs who would put themselves at risk of deportation, Attorneys General have standing to bring their own challenges based on the lost revenue resulting from vulnerable immigrants dropping out of the tax system.

Background

DHS wants access to immigrant tax data in order to expedite the mass deportation mandate under Executive Order 14161 from the President. The broad scope of the data sought is apparent from the first paragraph of the MOU which references the EO:

WHEREAS by Executive Order (EO) No. 14161, Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats, 90 Fed. Reg. 8451 (Jan. 20, 2025), the President directed the Secretary of State, in coordination with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, to take immediate steps to identify, exclude, or remove aliens illegally present in the United States;

The administration believes that DHS access to the personal data of immigrant taxpayers is permissible under an exception to the tax-privacy statute that allows for the investigation and trial-preparation of federal criminal statutes. 26 U.S.C. § 6103(i)(2). There is no exception for civil immigration enforcement. There do not appear to be safeguards to ensure that the information shared would only be used for actual criminal investigations. While most information-sharing requires judicial oversight, the (i)(2) exception allows access to a subset of IRS data without going to a court. It is feared that the information extracted from IRS records will inevitably be utilized for civil immigration enforcement, a clear violation of taxpayer privacy rules. These strict privacy protections were enacted in response to Nixonian abuses and the present contemplated mass transfer of taxpayer information is utterly unprecedented. High level IRS officials including an acting Commissioner have resigned over concerns that the MOU violates taxpayer privacy rules.

A lawsuit by the Attorney(s) General would challenge the administration’s efforts to break down one of the strongest firewalls for government data: the privacy afforded to tax information. See 26 U.S.C. § 6103 (tax-privacy statute). Starting with people who have final orders of removal and subject to criminal investigations, the administration seeks to build information pipelines from tax-related agencies—such as IRS and SSA—to ICE. A pending lawsuit[1] in the D.C. Circuit has an uncertain future and we are looking to your office to take up the baton before it is too late.

The administration has stated its intent to seek information for as many as seven million people using this pipeline, alongside its articulated desire to create a “mega API” for IRS data. While DHS argues that it primarily targets those with final deportation orders (which have rarely resulted in criminal prosecutions) it is unlikely that ICE will truly undertake the time and expense to pursue criminal proceedings for so many people. Furthermore, those of us who have represented immigrant taxpayers before the IRS do not believe the agency has the competency to verify another agency’s criminal investigations particularly given the high volume of investigations that DHS would have to undertake.

The reported agreement has caused panic and confusion in the immigrant community among the many taxpayers who have relied on the IRS to keep their tax data private. The IRS encourages all taxpayers to comply with their tax filing obligations regardless of their immigration status, issues Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to those ineligible for social security numbers to facilitate compliance and has assured taxpayers –up to now- that their information is protected. ITINs were never intended to be tools for immigration enforcement. Indeed, immigrant ITIN filers pay more than their share of income taxes in Massachusetts and undocumented workers contribute payroll taxes even though they may never be able to access the Social Security or Medicare benefits they pay for with each paycheck.

Immigrant families have been traumatized. They are afraid to attend immigration hearings, go to work, send their kids to school, or even attend community gatherings such as church services. Now will they be putting themselves and/or family members at risk by filing their tax returns? A recent study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts contribute $650 million in state and local taxes. Immigrant workers are critical to our state economy and this breach in taxpayer privacy threatens to disrupt our taxpaying workforce. If the agreement is executed, immigrants will go further underground and we will see “downstream consequences” to our state revenues. Our tax system is built on voluntary compliance. ITEP has raised the alarm that tax revenues will decrease if the IRS is weaponized against immigrants and their tax information is used against them. We all lose when taxpayer privacy is weakened and inevitably results in the erosion of trust in the tax system.

We know you are already doing a great deal to alert and educate the residents of Massachusetts including immigrants, but a legal suit on behalf of vulnerable immigrant taxpayers seems necessary to prevent this imminent abuse of the law.

We look forward to discussing any questions you may have. Thank you for reading this and for all that the AG’s Office is doing during these very uncertain times. 

Sincerely,

Agencia ALPHA

Asian American Civic Association

Asian Taskforce Against Domestic Violence (ATASK)

The Boston Foundation

Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN)

Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston (BMA TenPoint)

Boston Tax Help Coalition, Office of Workforce Development, City of Boston

Brazilian Workers Center

Brazilian Women’s Group

Brockton Workers Alliance

Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee (CEOC)

Center for New Americans

Centro Presente

Children’s Health Watch  

Chinese Progressive Association

Coalition for Social Justice Action

Community Action Agency of Somerville (CAAS)

Community Economic Development Center- New Bedford (CEDC)

Community Labor United

Dominican Development Center

English for New Bostonians

Greater Boston Labor Council 

Greater Boston Legal Services

Haitian Community Partners Foundation

Health Law Advocates

Healthy Families Tax Credit Coalition

Horizons for Homeless Children

Immigrant Family Services Institute (IFSI) 

Immigrant Service Providers Group/Health, Somerville

International Institute of New England

Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA)

Jewish Vocational Services (JVS)

Justice at Work

Justice Center of Southeast Massachusetts

Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)

La Colaborativa

Lawrence Community Works

Legal Key Partnership for Health and Justice

Lynn Rapid Response Network

Lynn Worker’s Center

Massachusetts Advocates for Children

Massachusetts AFL-CIO

Massachusetts Association for Community Action (MASSCAP)

Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations

Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers

Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget)

Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA)

Massachusetts Immigrant Collaborative (MIC)

Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI)  

Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH)

MetroWest Worker Center/Centro del Trabajador  

Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts

Northeast Justice Center 

Northshore Community Development Coalition

Office of State Representative Russell Holmes

Office of State Senator Liz Miranda

Open Door Immigration Services

Pathway for Immigrant Workers

Progressive Massachusetts

Project Citizenship

RESULTS-Massachusetts

Rosie’s Place

Safety Net Project, Wilmer Hale Legal Services Center, Harvard Law School

SEIU Local 509

Strategies for Children

The House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association

The Neighbourhood Developers (TND)

Unitarian Universalist Massachusetts Action Network (UUMassAction)

United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2322

The Welcome Project 

Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment

Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts

Women’s Institute for Leadership Development (WILD)

[1] Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, et al. v. Bessent, et al., 1:25-cv-00677 (D.D.C.)This case was filed by Public Citizen before the Treasury-DHS Memorandum of Understanding, based on reporting of imminent disclosure of the information of tax filers using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs). As part of the litigation, the MOU, partially redacted, was made public confirming that a much wider target group of taxpayers is at risk. On May 12 the Court denied the Plaintiff’s request for preliminary injunction.

MA Senate FY 2026 Budget: What Votes Occurred on Record?

On Thursday, the MA Senate wrapped up debate on its FY 2026 budget proposal. You can read an overview of the investments in the budget here.

1,058 amendments were filed to the initial Ways & Means proposal. Of those, 493 were adopted, 371 were rejected, and 194 were withdrawn without discussion or debate.

Only 21 of the 1,058 amendments received a roll call (recorded yes/no) vote. Two-thirds (14 of the 21) were unanimous, offering no accountability but just an easy press release for a lead sponsor.

Several of the amendments were rejected on a 34-5 party line vote:

  • 34-5 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to worsen our housing crisis by making it easier for cities and towns to evade MBTA Communities Act compliance (Amendment #13, Roll Call #43)
  • 34-5 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to create a commission stacked with anti-tax and business groups to study unemployment insurance cost increases attributable to the disallowed use of federal COVID-19 relief funds for unemployment claims, and the resulting settlement agreement between the commonwealth and the federal government (Amendment #96, Roll Call #44)
  • 34-5 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tar (R-Gloucester) to redirect excess capital gains tax revenue to the rainy day fund away from the state’s pension liability fund (Amendment #263, Roll Call #45)
  • 34-5 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to raise the estate tax threshold to $3 million and drain vital revenue from the Commonwealth to redistribute wealth upwards (Amendment #756, Roll Call #47)

The Senate also voted 30 to 9 against an amendment from Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to block the transition to zero-emissions vehicles and scapegoat climate and energy efficiency regulations for higher energy prices (Amendment #373, Roll Call #46). Joining the 5 Republicans were Senators Mike Brady (D-Brockton), Nick Collins (D-South Boston), Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford), and Michael Moore (D-Auburn).

The Senate voted 34 to 5 in support of an amendment from Sen. Cindy Friedman (D-Arlington) to enable the Health Policy Commission to cap certain prescription drug prices. (Amendment #541, Roll Call #33). It was party line except for Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy) voting no and Sen. Patrick O’Connor (D-Weymouth) voting yes.

Progressive Groups Call Out Beacon Hill Inaction in Trump’s First 100 Days

The Honorable Speaker Ron Mariano

24 Beacon St.

Room 356

Boston, MA, 02133

The HonorableSenate President Karen Spilka

24 Beacon St.

Room 332

Boston, MA, 02133

Wednesday, May 14, 2025 

Hon. Speaker Ron Mariano and Hon. President Karen Spilka,

Two weeks ago marked the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second presidential term. These hundred days have been marked by an incessant barrage of chaos, cruelty, and corruption. We have seen consistent threats to Massachusetts—to essential social programs; to efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; to our ability to keep our residents safe; to our efforts to tackle the climate crisis; to the scientific research that powers our regional economy; to people’s constitutional rights of free speech, including abductions of MA residents. We have seen an undermining of the basic rule of law that has pushed us into a constitutional crisis as well as a global trade war that will cause economic harm to our Commonwealth. We have seen the exacerbation of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism–the list goes on–in rhetoric and policy. We need not recount every such harmful action taken and its impact on Massachusetts because you know them too well. 

But what is less known is how you will choose to respond. Indeed, 100 days into Trump’s presidency and 17 weeks into the 194th session of the General Court, only two bills had been signed into law: (1) a supplemental budget that included harmful restrictions on the access to emergency shelter for families with children and (2) another temporary extension of the ability of state and local bodies to hold hybrid and virtual meetings. That has not grown in the subsequent weeks. 

Although grappling with the full scale of present and future crisis from the federal administration is daunting, it is incumbent upon you to respond and to meet the moment as best you can. 

While you focus on planning for what’s to come, there are steps that we can take now, steps that have already been vetted in hearings in past legislative sessions:  

  • Guarantee that Massachusetts resources are used for state priorities, not federal immigration enforcement, by ending the state Department of Corrections’ 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), banning future 287(g) agreements, and ending intergovernmental service agreements
  • Protect access to courts by prohibiting police and court officials from initiating contact with ICE about a person’s pending release from police or court custody
  • Embrace the best practices already in place in cities and towns by ensuring that state and local police will not inquire about immigration status will not inquire about immigration status or engage in civil immigration enforcement related activities
  • Ensure the safety and well-being of the residents of the Commonwealth and those traveling from other states for reproductive care by shoring up privacy rights and banning the purchase and sale of personal cell phone location data
  • Strengthen our state’s shield law for reproductive and gender–affirming care

All of these are bills you can, and must, pass now. We must be proactive in our policymaking, not wait until the crisis reaches its apex before responding. 

Moreover, as we have already faced lost federal funding and face even more later this year, with expected harm to our public schools, our health care, our safety net programs, our infrastructure, and so much more, we urge you to present a plan for the public for how you will protect our essential services. Now is not the time for cuts. We can and must raise revenue to fund our needs, and there are many such options available, most notably by closing tax loopholes that allow billionaire global corporations to dodge taxes by hiding their profits in tax havens abroad. We must also not be afraid to tap into the state’s rainy day fund when the torrential downpour comes. 

To ensure the efficient and responsive legislative process that this work requires, we urge you to prioritize coming to an agreement on the Joint Rules for the legislative session. Both chambers proposed valuable reforms to make the legislature more open, accountable, and timely. Clarity on rules is essential for the work ahead: inertia thrives under uncertainty. 

We appreciate the words you have spoken in the past months to criticize the harm being done by the federal administration. What the Commonwealth needs now is your actions. 

Sincerely, 

350 Mass 

Act on Mass 

Asian American Resource Workshop 

Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network – Massachusetts

Chinese Progressive Association 

Clean Water Action 

Community Action Agency of Somerville, Inc.

Families for Justice as Healing  

Homes for All Massachusetts 

Indivisible Mass Coalition 

Lynn United for Change 

Massachusetts Peace Action 

New England Community Project

Our Revolution Massachusetts 

Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts

Progressive Massachusetts

Springfield No One Leaves 

Unitarian Universalist Mass Action

Video Recording & Follow-up Links: “DC Attacks, MA Fights Back: Protecting Health Care from the Broligarchy”

Hi everyone,

Thank you for joining us on Wednesday for the forum “DC Attacks, MA Fights Back: Protecting Health Care from the Broligarchy“! You can watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/s4HjwdaktFI. Thank you again to our amazing speakers!

Slide Decks

Jamie Willmuth’s Slide Deck on the Impact of Medicaid Cuts on Providers and the Workforce

Alex Sheff’s Slide Deck on the Impact of Medicaid Cuts on Health Care Access

Crisayda Belén’s Slide Deck on Corporate Fair Share

Actions You Can Take

Become a Phonebanking Volunteer to Protect Medicaid

Contact Your State Legislators in support of Corporate Fair Share

Join the Mass-Care 30th anniversary conference next month.

Join Progressive Mass’s State House Lobby Day on 5/28.

Thanks!

Jonathan

Our Response to “Response 2025”

Our statement on the MA State Senate’s “Response 2025”:

For months, Massachusetts voters have wanted to see our elected officials to be bolder and more proactive in protecting our Commonwealth from the chaos, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration. Back in December, we joined dozens of organizations in calling on the Legislature to start this work early. We are now at the start of the fourth month of the year and are 10 weeks into Trump’s second administration. Why is it only now that Senate Democrats feel the need to announce that they are thinking about how to respond to the disasters in Washington?

Somehow, the Senate’s announced response is more comical and more underwhelming than creating a new committee: they held a press conference to let the public know that an existing committee is going to do the work that it should have already been doing.

Until a few days ago, when the Legislature temporarily extended hybrid meeting access for public meetings again, the only bill that the Legislature had passed this session was to kick unhoused families out of shelter. Let’s just hope that their announced intention to take threats seriously is not another April fool’s joke.

Massachusetts voters want to hear real answers from Beacon Hill: how we will protect our essential services amidst looming budget cuts, how we will protect marginalized communities, how we will protect civil liberties and our democracy, how we will show a real governing alternative.”

Happy Sunshine Week! ☀️ Let’s Talk about Transparency

Happy Sunshine Week!

Sunshine Week is a nonpartisan collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, education, government, and private sectors that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government.

Sunshine Week celebrates a radical concept: that you deserve to know what your elected officials are doing.

In other words, what could be a better week to talk about the push for State House Transparency and our Scorecard Website?

Tomorrow, the three state representatives and three state senators who will negotiate a final set of Joint Rules for the legislative session will meet for the first time. There’s a lot at stake (they haven’t come to a deal in several sessions), including whether committee votes and testimony will finally be posted, whether we will see more timely advancement of legislation, and much more. Read on for what you can do to take action.

And *drumroll please* our Scorecard Website is now up to date with full data from last session as well as co-sponsorship data from this session. Want to know if your legislators are co-sponsoring the bills on our Legislative Agenda. We’ve got you covered.

The Fight for State House Transparency Continues

In February, both the House and Senate adopted a series of transparency reforms to make a more open, inclusive, and timely legislative process. They did not go as far as they could have, but the fact that they went as far as they did was only possible because of people like you who emailed, called, and met with your legislators.

But the fight isn’t over yet. The House and Senate have to negotiate the differences between their respective proposals for Joint Rules.

A six-person conference committee was just appointed to oversee these negotiations:

  • Sen. Cindy Creem (D-Newton)
  • Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem)
  • Sen. Ryan Fattman (R-Sutton)
  • Rep. Mike Moran (D-Brighton)
  • Rep. Bill Galvin (D-Canton)
  • Rep. David Muradian (R-Grafton)

In recent sessions, these conference committees have stalemated. But this session can and must be different. Legislators have felt the pressure from the public that voters across the commonwealth want to see these changes. Let’s keep up the momentum, get this done, and then get to the important work across so many urgent issues facing the Commonwealth.

We recently sent a letter with Act on Mass and Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts in support of critical transparency reforms. Now it’s your turn:

Email Your State Legislators

Email the Conference Committee

Last Session’s Votes…And This Session’s Co-Sponsorships

Our scorecard website is now up to date with our full data from the 2023-2024 legislative session.

The most striking thing about last session’s recorded votes in the State House? How few of them there were.

Last session saw only 203 votes in the MA House and 252 in the MA Senate, each approximately 50% below average and part of an ongoing decline. That’s bad for accountability. When all of the discussion and debate happens behind closed doors, voters are less aware of where their legislators really stand.

And not each of these recorded votes will be worth scoring: many are low-stakes votes where everyone agrees.

To account for the scarcity of votes last session—especially ones that were beyond unanimous or party-line—we included a few additional data points:

  • Whether your state legislators are visiting prisons and jails to serve as a force for accountability in the conditions there
  • Whether your legislators are holding office hours and town halls to engage constituents
  • Whether your legislators are co-sponsoring the bills that we are tracking on our Scorecard website

For the first two, we did our best to reach out to legislative offices to get information. If we’re missing something, just let us know.

But headed into the new session, our Scorecard website also has other important information: Co-Sponsorship. We’ll be tracking which legislators are co-sponsoring the bills on our Legislative Agenda. That’s a critical tool for you to be able to apply effective pressure — as well as to give credit to the legislators who are fighting the good fight.

Take a look, explore, and take action!

Statement on Passage of House and Senate Rules

“We are pleased that both the House and Senate have embraced reforms in the Joint Rules that will promote transparency, accountability, and (we hope) timeliness. Although more steps should be taken in the future to guarantee that the public’s work is done in public view, both chambers supported measures to expand access to information and to mitigate the end-of-session bottleneck, changes that resulted from a clear public message that voters demand better from the Legislature. We urge both chambers to come to a swift and comprehensive compromise for Joint Rules for the Session. It has been too long since both chambers agreed on a set of rules, and the legislative process has suffered because of that.

As we approach the month of March with still no committees formed and no bills being heard, we stand out in the country in our legislative delays. There is so much work that needs to get done to be proactive against the threats coming from the Donald Trump – Elon Musk administration, and further delay puts our Commonwealth at risk.

While we eagerly await the finalization of Joint Rules, we recognize that rules are only one element of the legislative process. For our Legislature to truly deliver for everyday people, we need cultural changes throughout the chamber. May new rules be a first step toward that.”