Boston Globe: Special election for former speaker DeLeo’s seat will test appetite for progressive politics

Emma Platfoff, “Special election for former speaker DeLeo’s seat will test appetite for progressive politics,” Boston Globe (2/28/21)

Progressive Massachusetts, along with Pressley, Sanders, and the Massachusetts Teachers Association, have backed 27-year-old Juan Jaramillo.

“Replacing Bob DeLeo with someone who’s a progressive Latino labor organizer is a powerful statement about moving forward — both for how people understand that district, and valuable for the politics of the building,” said Jonathan Cohn, elections committee chair for the group. “This is a major opportunity for an upgrade.”

PM in the News: What’s the Matter with Mass?

Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn was quoted in a recent article in The New Republic on the state of the Massachusetts Democratic Party:

Jonathan Cohn, an organizer with Progressive Mass and dedicated chronicler of the state party, tells The New Republic that in order to understand why it’s so difficult for progressives to build power in the Bay State, one must first come to grips with Massachusetts’s underlying political ideology. “People think Massachusetts isn’t a terrain of conflict or struggle because they conceptualize conflict only through nationalized fights of Democrats versus Republicans, and we don’t have those kinds of fights because we have a nonexistent Republican Party and plenty of Democrats in our legislative supermajority whose voting records align with moderate Republicans,” he says.

…“You don’t have big donors or outside progressive groups mobilizing electorally here, because everyone’s under the impression that we’re all just living happily in this liberal utopia,” Cohn says.

“Then you also have Charlie Baker, who nobody is willing to attack outright,” he says. “Whether for his vetoes, or for his regressive stance on basic social welfare policies, everybody in the state is terrified of his approval rating, and so it keeps growing even as he continues to attack progressive policies and voices.”

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“If you are a wealthy, educated, socially liberal person, you align with the Democratic Party in most places, but Baker is a great asset for your fiscal conservatism,” Cohn says. “This is the kind of person that really defines the voice of The Boston Globe editorial board: They represent the mindset of white, upper-middle-class, inner-ring suburbia—socially liberal but into the idea that a friendly Republican governor is a check on a runaway Democratic legislative branch.”

PM in the News: The Fight for Election Day Registration

Progressive Mass Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn was quoted in a Boston.com article today about the right for Election Day Registration in Massachusetts:

“The biggest obstacle is that many legislators view elections only through a lens of incumbent protection or self-preservation and are afraid of seeing voters they don’t already know or haven’t already spoken with show up to the polls,” Jonathan Cohn, the issues committee chair for the group Progressive Massachusetts, told Boston.com.

Additionally, with Massachusetts’s early September primary, the current registration deadline for the primary often passes before many college students have moved in. In the college-dense Boston area, Cohn thinks some legislators oppose same-day registration due to fear that student constituents could back their opponents, particularly in the House where it’s easier to swing a seat.

PM in the News: A Boston Changed

The work of Progressive Mass chapters in Boston was highlighted in the Bay State Banner article by Yawu Miller, “Mayoral race will take place in a changed city.”

While activists have for decades been organizing to increase turnout in the city’s Black, Latino and Asian communities, in recent years chapters of Progressive Massachusetts in Jamaica Plain, Downtown Boston, West Roxbury and Roslindale have been doing the same. During the 2018 electoral year, the groups rallied behind Rollins and Pressley, likely helping to drive turnout in their areas.

PM in the News: New Boss — Same or Different Than the Old One?

Issues Committee Chair Jonathan Cohn recently penned an op-ed in CommonWealth about the ascension of Majority Leader Ron Mariano as Speaker of the House. Entitled “Don’t Expect Change for the Better under Mariano, it begins:

All signs point to House Majority Leader Ron Mariano being elected the next speaker of the Massachusetts House.

What does a Mariano speakership mean for a progressive policy agenda in Massachusetts? As Reps. Denise Provost and Jonathan Hecht remind us, he shares the same top-down leadership style as Speaker Bob DeLeo, with an even more conservative ideology.

If we want to get a sense of what a Mariano speakership will be like, it’s useful to look at the process and output of the working groups and task forces he has led. And that doesn’t inspire confidence.

You can read the full piece here.

Jonathan was also quoted on the Speaker change in CommonWealth and The Patriot-Ledger.

Shira Schoenberg, “A Deal-Making Speaker,” CommonWealth, 12/29, 2020:

Jonathan Cohn, issues chair of Progressive Massachusetts, a liberal activist group that has been critical of House leadership, said he believes Mariano was one of the driving forces opposing the passage of the Safe Communities Act, which would restrict state law enforcement officials’ ability to cooperate with federal immigration agents. Cohn said Mariano is “often doing the bidding of industry,” citing as an example a debate over drug pricing policy where Mariano took a pro-pharmaceutical company position. 

Joe DiFazio, “Longtime Quincy Rep. Ron Mariano becomes Massachusetts House speaker,” The Patriot-Ledger, 12/30/2020:

It has long been assumed that the speakership was Mariano’s once DeLeo left office, a conclusion that Johnathan Cohn said is bad for the House. 

“The thing that’s mainly disappointing to me is how it had pretty much all been settled years ago,” said Cohn, co-chairman of the issues committee for Progressive Massachusetts, a liberal activism group. “When it comes to worst-case scenario, it would be that if we end up getting an all-white leadership team that’s even more conservative, and that it becomes even harder to get things through the House, and the House and Senate’s relationship gets worse.”

Bay State Banner: Boston Embraces Progressive Politics

Yawu Miller, “Wu challenges Walsh as Boston embraces progressive politics,” Bay State Banner (9/16/20)

The growth of the activist groups Progressive West Roxbury/Roslindale and Jamaica Plain Progressives has helped candidates of color pick up votes in neighborhoods that in past years they might write off. Those groups regularly hold forums where candidates are asked their positions on progressive issues such as support for rent control and curbing police abuse.

Shifts have also occurred in Hyde Park, a majority people of color neighborhood that has long been dominated by Irish-American and Italian-American city councilors. In 2019, Ricardo Arroyo became the first person of color elected to the council from that neighborhood. Then, in March, a coalition of Black, Latino, Haitian and progressive white activists wrested control of the Ward 18 Democratic Committee from the mostly white group that had long dominated the city’s largest ward committee.

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While in years past, Boston’s electorate based support for candidates primarily on ethnicity and neighborhood affiliation, now it’s candidates’ stands on public policy issues that drives voter interest, notes Rachel Poliner, an organizer with Progressive West Roxbury/Roslindale.

“Now the City Council is more like the city’s creative think tank,” she said.

Boston Globe: “Ed Markey Beats Joe Kennedy”

Victoria McGrane’s write-up of the MA Senate primary included a quote from Progressive Mass Issues Commmittee chair Jonathan Cohn:

Markey also benefited from the frustrated energy of young progressives who watched their chosen candidates, Sanders and Warren, lose the presidential primary this spring. The Markeyverse, as his young online backers call themselves, started taking off in early March, as the primaries ended and the pandemic shutdown began.

“Ed Markey became their cause,” said Jonathan Cohn, chairman of Progressive Massachusetts’ issues committee.

Vox: “It’s been a weird campaign”

Progressive Mass Elections Committee chair Jonathan Cohn was quoted in Li Zhou’s write-up of the MA Senate primary for Vox:

 “On a number of issues, I would expect Markey to vote against a poorly negotiated bipartisan deal. Especially on climate and technology, I expect him to be introducing the new policy and moving the ball forward,” said Jonathan Cohn, of Progressive Massachusetts, who said he saw Kennedy as less likely to be making the same advancements.

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Ultimately, this lack of awareness is something the Markey campaign capitalized on to reestablish his image, Cohn said.

“Starting out with lower name recognition can be a blessing and a curse for a candidate,” he told Vox. “It allows them to craft what they want the narrative to be. They’ve had a very strong digital team, people who are either with Bernie or Warren in the primary, boosting the narrative about him.”