Progressive Mass and the Common Start Coalition are hosting a roundtable discussion where parents will share their experiences, we will discuss policy solutions to our current crisis in affordability and access with an opportunity to speak directly to legislators.
Date: Wednesday, March 29th Time: 6:00 pm Location: Zoom (link upon registration) Click here to RSVP
Equitable access to affordable high-quality childcare and early education is necessary to reduce racial, gender, and economic inequality in the Commonwealth. Let’s unite our voices for a common start!
If you’re like me, then you’re excited to see the return of in-person actions at the State House.
So I’m delighted to announce that we’ll be back at the State House with our 2023 Progressive Mass Lobby Day on Thursday, April 13, at 10 am in Room 428 at the State House.
We’ll hear from inspiring speakers and meet with our legislators about important bills.
More details will be coming soon, but for now, let us know you can come and mark your calendars!
And Join Upcoming Coalition Lobby Days
Common Start Lobby Day: Wednesday, March 22, from 11am to 1pm, Room 511B in the State House, RSVP to james@field-first.com
Progressive Mass turns 10! Celebrate 10 years of progressive political change at the 2023 Progressive Mass Gala, Sunday, March 5th, 7-8:30pm (online)!
Join us as we reflect on past victories, honor progressive champions, and gain inspiration for the work ahead.
This year we are excited to feature State Senator Jamie Eldridge and NAACP Boston Branch President and former candidate for Secretary of State Tanisha Sullivan.
We are thrilled to present our Progressive Leadership Award to these dedicated leaders:
Jordan Berg Powers, Executive Director of Mass Alliance
Mallory Hanora and Sashi James, Co-Directors of Families for Justice as Healing
Dálida Rocha, Field Director for the Yes on 4 for Safer Roads Campaign
Join progressive activists from around the Commonwealth to celebrate 10 years of Progressive Mass and come together for vision and inspiration that will help lay the foundation for the next ten!
Thursday, 2/9: Prison Moratorium State House for a Day of Action
The Healey administration is advancing the new women’s prison project, and now is the time to come together to stop it once and for all. This Thursday at 3 pm, join Families for Justice as Healing at the Massachusetts State House to let Governor Healey and Legislature that we do not need to build new prisons. Meet at the front steps of the State House on Beacon St for a rally with speakers, signs, and music and then we will go inside the building. You will get materials to drop off at legislator’s offices about the urgency to pass the Prison Moratorium NOW and other legislation to reduce the number of people incarcerated in MA. RSVP HERE.
Have a few minutes today for a quick action? Call Governor Healey and leave a message about why it’s time to put a pause on new prisons and jails: bit.ly/massmoratoriumguide.
Higher Ed for All Advocacy Day: Tuesday, 2/28
Affordable high-quality public higher education is essential to expand opportunity in all of our communities and create a more equitable and prosperous Commonwealth. Higher Ed For All is advocating for fully funded community colleges, state universities, and UMass campuses to knock down the barriers that too many potential college graduates’ encounter.
The Higher Ed for All coalition will be having an Advocacy Day at the State House on Tuesday, February 28. Never been to a lobby day before? There will be trainings in advance.
RSVP for the Advocacy Day at the State House on Tuesday, February 28.
RSVP for an Advocacy Day Training on February 16 or February 21.
Progressive Mass is turning 10! Join us for our 2023 annual meeting where we will review accomplishments from the past year, talk about our legislative agenda for the new session, and host a variety of breakout sessions focused on building skills and digging deeper into policy and action.
~Agenda~
1:00 – 1:25: Welcome & Business Segment
1:25 – 1:30: Announcement of new Legislative Agenda
1:35 – 2:20: First round of breakout sessions
How to Take Action at the City Level, with panelists City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen, City Councilor Helen Moon, and City Councilor Vincent Piccirilli
How to Take Action at the Town Level, with panelists Select Board Member Raul Fernandez, School Committee Member Melissa Pearrow, and Select Board Member Hanna Switlekowski
Organizing for Progressive Causes in Purple Areas, with panelists State Sen. Becca Rausch, Crisayda Belén (campaign manager for Yes on 4), and Liz Speakman (South Shore coordinator for Yes on 1)
How to Do Effective Digital Organizing, with panelists Maia Baker (former digital director for Yes on 1), Paul Bologna (former digital director for Ed Markey), and Kaitlyn Solares (former digital director for Yes on 4)
Next Steps for Improving Democracy in MA, with panelists Vandinika Shukla (advisory board member) and Brittany Buford (managing partner for partnerships) from Partners in Democracy
2:20 – 2:25: Special Guest: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley
2:25 – 3:05: Plenary session on Multi-Racial Organizing and Coalition-Building, facilitated by Mystic Valley Progressives co-chair Zayda Ortiz with panelists Carolyn Chou (executive director of the Asian American Resource Workshop), School Committee Member Andre Green, Kristen Halbert (political strategist and community activist), Dálida Rocha (executive director of Renew US and former field director for Yes on 4)
3:05 – 3:50: Second round of breakout sessions
Fair Share: What We Learned & What’s Next?, with panelists Phineas Baxandall (policy director of Mass Budget) and Shanique Spaulding (executive director of the Massachusetts Voter Table)
A Transformative Bill to Empower Students & Schools to Thrive; Time to Stop State Takeovers, with panelists Jeremy Shenk (member engagement coordinator at AFT-Mass) and Vatsady Sivonxay (executive director of the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance)
Mass Power FORWARD into Climate and Environmental Justice, featuring Claire Karl B.W. Müller (movement builder director at UU Mass Action)
Toward Housing for All, with panelists Jesse Kanson-Benanav (executive director of Abundant Housing Massachusetts) and Mark Martinez (staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute)
Putting Justice into the Criminal Legal System, featuring Criminal Justice Reform Working Group co-chair Caroline Bays
Progressive Mass Trivia Night 2022 Saturday, December 3, 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm Zoom
Who’s ready to play?! We’re looking forward to some time to unwind and enjoy the company of fellow advocates and allies after another busy election cycle.
Join us for a night of trivia and show off your knowledge of pop culture and politics while competing for fun prizes!
We live at a time characterized by numerous dire threats to justice, peace, and the very stability of our country. Among these threats are rampant militarism, galloping climate change, growing inequality, an ongoing and divisive pandemic, and the emergence of a dangerous right-wing extremist movement.
The goal of this Conference is to explore with activists and thought leaders how to address these enormous obstacles to the fulfillment of a progressive vision.
Click here to RSVP
Speakers:
John Nichols, National affairs correspondent for The Nation. His most recent book is Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis.
Jamie Eldridge, State Senator representing the Middlesex and Worcester District.
Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. The seventh edition of her Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict : A Primer was published in 2018.
T. J. Jackson Lears, American cultural and intellectual historian with interests in comparative religious history, literature and the visual arts, folklore and folk beliefs. He is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers and Editor in Chief of Raritan. He is author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920.
Lindsay Koshgarian, Program Director for the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. She is an expert in dissecting the Federal budget including the contrast between Pentagon spending and domestic needs.
Jordan Berg Powers, Executive Director at Mass Alliance. In his over a decade there, he has helped elect new progressive leaders across the state, recruited progressive champions to run, and trained hundreds of grassroots organizers. Jordan is active in campaigns for saving public education, environmental justice, and a more progressive tax system for the Commonwealth.
Jean-Luc Pierite, President of the Board of the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB). A member of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana and originally from New Orleans, he resides in Jamaica Plain.
Mallory Hanora, Executive Director of Families for Justice as Healing, a Roxbury based prison abolitionist organization led by incarcerated women, formerly incarcerated women, and women with incarcerated loved ones, which works to move Massachusetts towards community based solutions rather than constructing a new women’s prison.
Sponsored by the Massachusetts Progressive Action Organizing Committee, whose constituent groups are Massachusetts Peace Action; Our Revolution Massachusetts; Progressive Massachusetts; Progressive Democrats of America; North American Indian Center of Boston; and Incorruptible Mass.
Wouldn’t it be terrifying if you didn’t having a voting plan?! Don’t worry we have all the resources you need to get your vote out, and help get your community to the polls as well!
Upcoming Election Deadlines
Vote by mail:
We strongly encourage you to submit your mail in ballot by November 1st so it reaches your town clerk or local elections office by November 8th. Your ballot will be counted as long as it’s postmarked by November 8th and arrives by November 12, but please don’t wait until then!
If you haven’t sent in a vote-by-mail application yet and wish to do so, you can download a form here. The deadline to receive your application is November 1st at 5 pm.
If you’ve already received your ballot, you can send it back via mail or via a dropbox near you. And if you want to confirm receipt, you can track your ballot.
If you’re unsure if you applied for a mail-in ballot, use track your ballot to check
Vote early in person:
Early voting is available across the state, and each community has their own dates/deadlines. You can find locations in your community here.
Earlier this week, a coalition of 79 organizations and residents across the Commonwealth sent a letter asking the MA Legislature to come back and pass key policies that were left on the table at the end of the formal legislative session.
Can you call your legislator today to demand they reconvene for a special session?
Will you join us and allies for a rally outside the State House on Friday, October 28, from 4-5pm?
(graphic credit: Families for Justice as Healing)
Although the formal legislative session ended on July 31, the current Legislative session does not actually end until the beginning of January.
That’s right: the Legislature has more than two months in which they could come back and finish their work, rather than let Baker’s vetoes or intra-chamber bickering doom key policies like
The Jail and Prison Construction Moratorium, which would enact a five year pause on jail and prison construction and expansion
No cost calls for incarcerated people without amendments that would increase pretrial detention
Funding for hybrid meetings so towns can make local government accessible to residents by offering virtual attendance options
The HOMES Act, which would allow people to seal their eviction records so they can access housing
Funding for VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) to prevent cuts to services for sexual and domestic violence survivors
All of these policies have broad support in the Legislature, but they didn’t make it across the finish line on July 31st because of Baker’s late-breaking vetoes or the inability of our State Senate and State House to come to an agreement on how to respond.
Let’s be clear: those are not good excuses when the need for all of these policies is so great. So let’s take action.
Can you call your legislator today to demand they reconvene for a special session?
Will you join us for a rally outside the State House on Friday October 28 from 4-5pm?
The November 2020 US election was arguably the most consequential since the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln—and grassroots leaders and organizers played crucial roles in the contention for the presidency and control of both houses of Congress.
Power Concedes Nothing, a new collection edited by Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, and Maria Poblet, tells the stories behind a victory that won both the White House and the Senate and powered progressive candidates to new levels of influence. It describes the on-the-ground efforts that mobilized a record-breaking turnout by registering new voters and motivating an electorate both old and new. In doing so it charts a viable path to victory for the vital contests upcoming in 2022 and 2024.
Massachusetts progressives engage in grassroots electoral politics in a variety of campaigns. In this program, contributors to Power Concedes Nothing will present national lessons from the 2020 election cycle. They will be questioned by several Massachusetts progressive organizers.
Jacob Swenson-Lengyel served as the director of communications and narrative at PA Stands Up from 2020 to 2021. Previously he was a program manager at Narrative Institute, served as deputy director of communications at People’s Action, and worked at Interfaith Worker Justice. He is on the editorial board of Convergence.
Rafael Návar served as the California state director for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign starting in 2019 and was subsequently appointed to lead Sanders’ campaign in New York. He was the only Latinx state director for the Sanders campaign, and was senior advisor for Mijente and Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights’ historic outreach to Latinx communities in the 2021 Georgia runoff election. From 2012 to 2019 he served as the national political director for the Communication Workers of America, and he is a cofounder of Mijente.
Linda Burnham served as national research director and senior advisor at the National Domestic Workers Alliance for nearly a decade and co-authored, with Nik Theodore, Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work. She was a leader in the Third World Women’s Alliance in the 1970s, and co-founded, with Miriam Ching Louie, the Women of Color Resource Center, serving as the organization’s executive director for 18 years.
Moderator:
Elvis Méndez is Executive Director of Neighbor to Neighbor Massachusetts. He has worked as an Organizer for Warehouse Workers for Justice, Coordinator and Director of Organizing for the Immigrant Worker Center Collaborative, and Lead Organizer for the National Guestworkers Alliance among others.
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.png "Special Session Rally Outside the State House: Friday, October 28, 4 pm to 5 pm")
