What “Government Efficiency” Really Means

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Chair Edwards, Chair Day, and Members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to S.1114: An Act requiring clean slate automated record sealing and S.1124: An Act to Remove Collateral Consequences and Protect the Presumption of Innocence.

We commend the past efforts from this body to create a fairer criminal record sealing system. However, the system has not been able to reach its full potential. As it exists, the system is burdensome and often prohibitive for applicants, with unnecessary barriers for all and even worse barriers for those with English as a second language or reading difficulties.

When people finally mail or deliver an application to have their records sealed, they have waited the period of time the Commonwealth established. However, due to the backlogs in the system, they are denied opportunities even longer. Backlogs can be regularly 3 to 4 months. No one benefits from such unwieldy administrative burdens. Moreover, the complex nature of the system can lead people to not even know they were eligible for record sealing until after they lose the prospect for a job, housing, or other opportunities.

This administrative burden similarly applies to cases where an offense is dismissed, as an individual needs an additional hearing before the record can be sealed.

All of this exacerbates the already wide racial and economic inequality in this Commonwealth, and it hurts the vital work of reentry and re-integration into community.

Fortunately, the solution is right before us: we can automate this process. People may not know when they are eligible for record sealing, but the Commonwealth does. If the Commonwealth has established that a record is now eligible to be sealed, that record should be sealed—taking the onus away from the individual.

We have heard a lot about “government efficiency” over the past few months. So often, those words are simply code for efforts to destroy valuable programs. But this bill is exactly what government efficiency *should* mean: it should mean making our systems work for people. Interfacing with government should be seamless, and interactions should boost faith in government action.

Other states have already realized this. Our neighbors in Connecticut and New York; fellow Democratic trifecta states like California, Colorado, Delaware, and Minnesota; and even more “moderate” or “conservative” states like Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia have successfully adopted automatic record clearing, to great success. Let’s join them.

In addition, we also urge support for H.2052/S.1178: An Act to reduce mass incarceration, which would end the practice of life without parole. Like the Clean Slate bill, this is about creating second chances. Eliminating the opportunity for parole bloats our prison populations, and it keeps people behind bars who, decades out from a criminal offense, pose no risk to the community anymore. Massachusetts talks about how our correctional facilities serve the goal of “rehabilitation,” and eliminating the opportunity to go before a parole board to make the case for release undermines that stated goal.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Let’s Show Our Commitment to Higher Ed with Green and Healthy Campuses

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Chair Comerford, Chair Rogers, and Members of the Joint Committee on Higher Education:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.1426/S.949: An Act to Provide Green and Healthy Public Colleges and Universities and Address Their Deferred Maintenance Needs.

Our state has created strong climate goals, and we must continue to work to meet and strengthen these goals. As we do so, making our publicly owned buildings a model for sustainability is key.

Establishing strong standards and requirements for energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and energy systems on our public campuses benefits the students, faculty, and staff who have healthier learning environments. It benefits our climate and environment. And just as importantly, it has major spillover effects to the industry itself: when the state sets standards, it spurs innovation and generates demand. By taking such action, the Commonwealth becomes both exemplar and spark.

To ensure that our students, faculty, and staff have the buildings they deserve, the Commonwealth needs to provide greater resources. Such capital expenditures can be difficult from the perspective of campus finances and debt management, but not nearly so from the perspective of the Commonwealth. Our Commonwealth needs to provide funding for such renovations and investments so that green, healthy, world-class facilities on all campuses do not mean higher tuition and fees for students, and thus more student loan debt and lost opportunities.

The Legislature has shown an impressive commitment to public higher education in recent sessions, especially through targeted Fair Share investments. Passing these bills will build upon that progress and strengthen our commitment to public higher education and the essential role it plays.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

“There’s No Such Thing as a Humane Prison”

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Chair Collins, Chair Cabral, and Members of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to An Act Establishing a Jail and Prison Construction Moratorium (H.3422 / S.2114).

Let me be clear: there is no such thing as a humane prison. As a famous adage goes, every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does. Our prison system is not designed for rehabilitation, and it is not designed for justice. It is designed for dehumanization and punishment, and no amount of branding or around-the-edges reforms can change that fact. Our prisons and jails are good at creating cycles of trauma; they are not good at creating public safety or community well-being and stability.

With this in mind, we find it deeply misguided that Massachusetts is considering spending $50 million on a new women’s prison. As of January 1, 2024, the population in MCI-Framingham stood at 213. In part as a result of sentencing reforms, Massachusetts’s incarceration rate has been falling, which raises the question: Why expand a system that costs more than $200,000 per person and only causes further harm? 

Studies have repeatedly shown that society cannot incarcerate its way to safety, and the family separation of incarceration and the well-documented inhumane conditions in Massachusetts’s prisons and jails fuel the community instability that is detrimental to public safety. Instead, investments in housing, health care, economic opportunity, and other social supports have been shown to be the true foundation of public safety for all. Think of how much $200,000 per person can do in creating opportunity and building up communities.

The five-year moratorium in this bill recognizes that such alternative visions of public safety exist on the ground, and they merit investment and experimentation and scaling. It provides time for the Commonwealth to do the work of listening to the most impacted communities and to center, rather than sideline, their voices in policymaking.

We were very grateful last year when this committee and this Legislature passed the Prison Moratorium 2022. Unfortunately, due to former Governor Charlie Baker’s veto, it did not become law. We are also appreciative that you advanced the bill out of committee last session. It is just as urgent to finish the job this session, and we urge you to advance these bills as swiftly as possible.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Let’s Stop Short-Changing Our Public Schools

May 12, 2025

Chair Lewis, Chair Gordon, and Members of the Joint Committee on Education: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth. 

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.678/S.388: An Act to fix the Chapter 70 inflation adjustment and S.345: An Act eliminating education funding inflation gap.

Back in 2019, your chambers took the necessary step of updating our state’s funding formula for aid to public school districts with the passage of the Student Opportunity Act. It was an important and overdue victory.

However, our public schools are losing out on the full benefits of the increased funding promised due to a glitch in how the Chapter 70 formula treats inflation.

The funding formula caps inflation in calculating year-to-year funding increases at 4.5%. However, we have seen several years of high inflation. The costs for our schools are rising, but the state’s support is not keeping pace. Indeed, the gap in funding schools faced in FY 2025 was $465 million. Cuts mean fewer teachers, fewer counselors, and fewer classroom resources, and they mean lost opportunities for our students to learn and grow.

This growing gap is occurring at a time when our public schools are already under attack from the Trump administration, and because of outdated policies like Proposition 2 1/2 , our cities and towns face severe, state-imposed roadblocks in filling the gaps themselves.

Moreover, this wasn’t how the formula was originally designed. When it was first passed in the early 1990s, the state would catch up with funding in low-inflation years to account for this discrepancy in high-inflation years. Our cities and towns could plan better, and our students could get what they need. But a technical change made a decade later eliminated that common-sense arrangement.

H.678 and S.388 would undo that misguided technical change that is costing our public schools resources and our students the present and future they deserve. S.345 would eliminate the arbitrary 4.5% inflation cap and calculate inflation by comparing it to the same period two years prior.

Massachusetts prides ourselves in our commitment to public education, and we must recommit to that with real resources. Our commonwealth has a higher GDP than Sweden: the resources are there; we just need the commitment.

In the budget hearing earlier this spring, students came to testify to talk about the impact of cuts on their schools, highlighting what that meant for them in terms of lost supports and lost opportunities. These students were praised and cheered by legislators. We ask that you accompany that praise with listening and action.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Just Say NO to Attacks on Trans Youth

May 6, 2025

Chair Gordon, Chair Lewis, and Members of the Joint Committee on Education:

As a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth, Progressive Massachusetts urges you to give an adverse report to H.584, S.350, and H.737.

These bills would restrict the participation of trans student athletes in school sports, undermining their rights, safety, and dignity.

We at Progressive Mass are proud of MA’s civil rights protections for the trans community, which were overwhelmingly upheld on the ballot in 2018. MA voters were and are clear: we believe that our trans friends and neighbors deserve to be treated with basic dignity and respect.

The trans community has been under attack by the hateful administration in DC, and a swift rejection of these bills is an important way to show that we stand by trans youth and against bullying.

If the state legislators supporting these three bills feel the need to obsess over the genitalia of teenagers, then we kindly recommend that they seek help and leave that obsession out of the Massachusetts State House.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Joint Testimony in Support of Full-Spectrum Pregnancy Care

Dear Chairs Murphy, Feeney, and members of the Joint Committee on Financial Services:

We, the undersigned organizations committed to advancing reproductive freedom, equity, and justice in the Commonwealth, write today in support of H.1311 filed by Representative Sabadosa and S.761 filed by Senator Friedman.

Massachusetts law, as currently written, requires insurers to offer coverage for childbirth and treatment of miscarriages, but permits cost sharing. For too many mothers and families navigating high deductible plans and increased out-of-pocket spending, the burden of this cost sharing results in long-term financial struggles.

Under this legislation, all Massachusetts-regulated health insurance plans would be required to cover the full spectrum of pregnancy-related care without any cost-sharing, ensuring that Bay Staters are not saddled with insurmountable debt post-pregnancy and enabling them to have greater control over their lives and financial futures. We are grateful to the Legislature for its old action to ensure coverage without cost-sharing for all abortion and abortion-related care, a key provision of Chapter 127 of the Acts of 2022. Now, we must go further to break down financial barriers to all pregnancy-related care.

A right to reproductive health care — including care for all pregnancies, abortion, and  miscarriage — is not a real right unless every individual is able to access that care, free from cost barriers.Being a new parent is tough enough. The last thing someone adjusting to life with a newborn needs to worry about is how they’re going to pay for the care they just received.

According to the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis’ (CHIA) 2023 Massachusetts Health Insurance Survey, nearly half of all Massachusetts residents reported that they or their families experience health care affordability issues, and nearly half are enrolled in a high deductible health plan. That’s more than 1.7 million people…

● Who may struggle to get out of debt once they start a family;

● Who could be forced to meet their deductible twice if the nine months of their pregnancy falls across two insurance plan years;

● Who may be forced to forgo prenatal or postpartum care because of costs;

● Who may delay family planning decisions because they are too concerned about making ends meet; or most cruelly,

● Who would be sent a hefty bill days after suffering the devastating loss of miscarriage.

The futures of people seeking pregnancy care should not be dictated by deductibles.

This is an issue of gender and racial equity. Massachusetts is already combatting an epidemic of racial inequities in maternal health. Black women in our state are twice as likely as white women to die from pregnancy-related complications, and financial barriers to care are compounding these poor health outcomes. Forty percent of mothers have reported delaying prenatal care because they lack the money or insurance to cover the visits. Newborns of mothers who do not receive prenatal care are three times more likely to have a low birth weight and five times more likely to die than children born to mothers who receive prenatal care. We must reimagine our health care system and health care spending to center and support the needs of birthing people, families, and Black and Brown communities by making all pregnancy care more accessible.

Based on CHIA’s Mandated Benefit Review of this legislation, we can make high-quality pregnancy-related care accessible to all Bay Staters for only an extra $2.09 per month on our monthly health insurance premiums—less than a cup of coffee. We don’t have to imagine a  Massachusetts where everyone has access to the pregnancy care they need to safely give birth and raise a family; where fewer of our loved ones die from pregnancy-related care; and where no one has to go into debt to start a family. All we have to do to make this our reality is pay an extra $25 a year on our health insurance premiums.

Every Bay Stater must have access to the full spectrum of pregnancy-related care so we all can decide if, when, and how to have a family or raise children. We can ensure that our friends, families, loved ones, children, and children’s children would be safer, happier, and healthier, because pregnancy-related care would be so much more accessible to them.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit our testimony, and we again urge you to give H.1311 and S.761 a favorable report.

Respectfully,

Rebecca Hart Holder, President, Reproductive Equity Now

Emily Anesta, President, Bay State Birth Coalition

Jonathan Cohn, Policy Director, Progressive Massachusetts

MaryRose Mazzola, Esq, Chief External Affairs Officer, Planned Parenthood League of

Massachusetts; Executive Director, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts

Amy Rosenthal, Executive Director, Health Care For All

Gavi Wolfe, Legislative Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts

Chloe Zera, MD, Massachusetts Section Chair, American College of Obstetricians and

Gynecologists

Testimony: Our Higher Ed Faculty and Staff Deserve to Be Compensated Well for the Essential Work They Do

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Chair Oliveira, Chair McMurtry, and Members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.2185 and S.1365: An Act to provide fair wages to employees of public institutions of higher education.

We commend the recent work from the MA Legislature to strengthen our Commonwealth’s commitment to public higher education, such as making community college free and expanding aid and scholarship programs for students attending our four-year public colleges and universities.

As we work to ensure more students are able to benefit from high-quality public higher education, we must also work to ensure that quality, and that means properly compensating faculty and staff.

Faculty and staff at MA’s public colleges and universities are paid less than their peers in private colleges and universities and in colleges and universities in nearby states. When we compensate faculty less, then we make our public colleges and universities less attractive to the best teachers and researchers when they are weighing various opportunities. We increase the burnout of those that we are able to attract, and we create a scenario where faculty and staff may have to take on side jobs to make ends meet. They lose out, and our students lose out too.

Not being competitive in compensation is especially concerning given that MA stands out in our high cost of living. We have among the most expensive housing, health care, and child care. Our state has much to offer, but so often that is only if you can afford it.

These bills would ensure that future wages of public higher education employees are at or above the national average when adjusted for cost of living and require the Commonwealth to pay for the full cost of fringe benefits and collective bargaining agreements. They help us to continue to deliver on the promise of public higher education and its role as a creator of opportunity, a bastion of critical thinking, and an engine of our state’s economy.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

“The purchase and sale of cell phone location data empowers bad actors.”

Wednesday, April 8, 2025 

Chair Moore, Chair Farley-Bouvier, and Members of the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to S.197: An Act to protect safety and privacy by stopping the sale of location data and H.86: An Act to protect location privacy, known collectively as the Location Shield Act. 

This Saturday, tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents rallied to protest the chaos, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration. 

If you attended a rally, you know when you arrived and when you left, and where you went next. Your friends and family might know that too, at least part. 

But do you know who doesn’t need to know that? Bad actors like Elon Musk. 

Right now, there is no law that prevents anyone with a credit card from purchasing cell phone location data. 

The purchase and sale of cell phone location data empowers bad actors: right-wing extremists seeking to target individuals seeking abortion care or gender-affirming care, domestic abusers seeking to track their victims, predatory bosses seeking to spy on their employees, the list goes on. And by attacking privacy rights, it also weakens the basic rights of free expression and dissent in a democracy. 

We have already seen the Trump administration detain and threaten to deport students merely for the act of attending protests, and they are not subtle about their desire to ramp up targeting and to target citizens as well. We should not be giving them any more tools to do so. 

As your chamber deliberates on our Commonwealth’s response to the disasters in DC, we urge you to make this bill a part of it. 250 years ago this month, Massachusetts was the site of taking a stand against the abuses of civil liberties by a monarchical government, and that is a legacy that we should continue. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

FY 2026 Budget Testimony: Protect Our Essential Services & Invest in Our Future

April 8, 2025 

Chair Michlewitz, Chair Rodrigues, and Members of the Joint Committee on Ways & Means: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth.

As we contemplate the daunting, anxiety-inducing, catastrophic possibility of steep cuts to the federal budget as Republicans in DC attempt to take an axe to health care, education, infrastructure, and so much more, we need to be prepared in MA to protect our essential services. We need to continue to do what we are doing—and we also need to be doing more. 

To make that possible, I urge you to embrace progressive sources of revenue as well as tap into the rainy day fund as needed. 

First on the rainy day fund. Like many of us, I have had the experience of holding an umbrella while walking in the rain. The rain gets heavier and heavier, but I think, “Oh, it’s not that bad yet” while getting fully soaked. Let’s not be that. When it starts pouring, don’t be afraid to take out an umbrella. 

But beyond that, I want to urge that “the money isn’t there” is a difficult argument to stomach in a state as affluent as Massachusetts. Indeed, our state’s GDP is higher than countries like Sweden or Belgium despite our smaller population. We have great wealth in this state, and that great wealth is why the Fair Share Amendment has been able to deliver so much. 

You have many tools at your disposal to raise necessary funds, such as but not limited to ensuring that billionaire global mega-corporations like Amazon and Apple are paying their fair share and are not able to dodge taxes by offshoring their profits in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. 

Similarly, as you are going to seek every opportunity to trim our investments, I would urge you to first do the same to the state’s tax corporate tax breaks to evaluate whether or not they deliver upon any goal at all. The sales tax exemption for private jets is but one of many examples. 

It shows a lack of regard for the most vulnerable populations to countenance cuts to mental health case workers and cuts to assistance to needy families, but not countenance cuts to the tax giveaways to large estates and day traders passed two years ago. 

We  know who has the money: the rich and large corporations. What matters is the political will to raise the funds. 

In the FY 2026 budget, we urge you to focus on increasing critical investments that underlie the quality of life in the Commonwealth and make this high quality of life accessible to all: 

  • Delivering on Our Promises to Our K-12 Students: The Student Opportunity Act from 2019 was a major win for students across the Commonwealth. However, the combination of high rates of inflation in FY23 and FY24 and a tight inflation cap under the SOA has led to a $465 million gap in district budgets.  As a result, districts across the state are being forced to cut their budgets, lay off educators and staff, and cancel long-needed investments. We must keep our promises to students.

We further urge you to fix charter school tuition reimbursements so that our public schools are not losing critical funding. Tuition dollars follow students, but if a class size falls from 25 to 23, a school cannot hire 23/25 of a teacher. So many of the costs of education are fixed costs, and siphoning off resources harms the 90% of students who attend local district public schools. 

Our students deserve not only well-funded schools, but also green and healthy schools that focus on the whole student. We urge you to increase funding for capital improvements for school buildings so that students can have the safe and healthy environment conducive to learning, and to provide funding for community schools so that districts can embrace this proven model that empowers students, parents, and educators to collaborate and provide vital wraparound services. 

  • Building on Recent Child Care & Early Ed Investments: Last session, you made historic investments in early education and child care, moving us closer toward a vision of quality and stability for providers, good pay for educators, and affordability and access for families. We join the Common Start Coalition in calling for continued investments:
    • $200 million to increase access to child care financial assistance (line item 3000-4060 in the FY25 budget): A $100 million increase over FY25 is needed just to maintain existing caseloads, and an additional $100 million would be enough to provide financial assistance vouchers to 6,000 additional children who are currently on the waitlist for CCFA.
    • $45 million to increase operational grants to child care providers to a total of $520 million (line item 3000-1045 in the FY25 budget): An increase in total funding to $520 million is needed to keep up with increased utilization of the C3 program by providers. Increased funding for the C3 program is essential to support the growing number of providers who accept families using child care vouchers.
    • $45 million to raise early education and care financial assistance reimbursement rates (line items 3000-1041 & 3000-1042 in the FY25 budget): This will improve access to child care financial assistance by increasing the number of programs that are willing and able to accept vouchers, allow programs to invest in quality, and raise workforce salaries for subsidized child care providers.
    • $20 million for the Head Start Supplemental Grant (line item 3000-5000 in the FY25 budget): Funding needed to increase salaries in Head Start classrooms and help programs that provide high-quality care to some of the state’s lowest-income, highest-need children, especially in anticipation of potential federal cuts.
  • Investing in the Opportunity Engine of Public Higher Ed: Last year, you made community college free, a transformative step that has benefited many residents already. We need to build on that commitment to opportunity by making our four-year public institutions debt-free for all students as well and ensuring that our colleges and universities have the resources needed to give a high-quality education and experience to every student. 

That means ensuring better pay and benefits for adjunct faculty, who often have to juggle high course loads for low pay. That means ensuring that our public higher education employees are paid at or above the national average, especially given the high cost of living in MA.  And that means ensuring that our public colleges and universities have green and healthy buildings and having the Commonwealth assume the capital debt of public higher education institutions and cover the costs of such upgrades. 

  • Increasing Funding for Access to Counsel: We join fellow organizations in the Right to Counsel Coalition in urging for an increase to the Access to Counsel pilot (Line Item 0321-1800) from $2.5 million to $5 million and making the program permanent. While upwards of 90% of landlords are represented, recent Trial Court data shows that over the past two years only 4% of tenants had legal representation. We can change this, prevent homelessness, and stabilize peoples’ housing by incrementally building a strong statewide Access to Counsel program.
  • Protecting Our Right to Shelter by Investing in Emergency Assistance: We believe in listening to the experts connected to communities on the ground about how best to solve the problems facing the Commonwealth. The Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless are the experts on how to best manage the emergency shelter system in Massachusetts and assume that all families have access to safe housing. We urge you to support their requests, which include:
    • Undoing harmful restrictions to emergency shelter: Removing the length of stay limits, which force families out of shelter before they can access safe housing; eliminating the “dual track” system, which kicks some families out of rapid track shelters in as little as 30 business days; removing the cap on the number of families in EA shelter, currently set at 5,800 families; restoring presumptive eligibility, which gives families temporary access to shelter while they gather documents to prove ongoing eligibility; and strengthening support for families leaving shelter, including by improving housing search, providing ongoing wraparound support, and increasing HomeBASE rehousing resources
    • Increasing funding for RAFT (Line Item 7004-9316): Increase funding for Rental Assistance for Families in Transition RAFT) to $300 million, up from the current FY25 funding level of $204.7 million ($197.4 million in General Appropriations Act funding and $7.3 million in supplemental funding)
    • Increasing HomeBASE (Line Item 7004-1008) Increasing the maximum benefit levels to $50,000 over the first 24 months of the program and up to $25,000 in subsequent years for families needing additional time

Moreover, we urge you to reject harmful proposed cuts in Governor Healey’s budget. 

  • Please reject Governor Healey’s proposed elimination of the 10% increase to cash assistance grants that recently took effect. This assistance is for our families with highest need, and it is unconscionable to think that that is where we would be making cuts in the budget. 
  • Please reject Governor Healey’s proposed cuts to mental health care and the corresponding layoffs of Department of Mental Health case workers. This is critical care, and it is about people’s lives. 

Thank you for your work on the budget and on this marathon of a hearing. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts 

“Our commonwealth did something rare in recent history: it took away the right to vote from a category of people who were formerly enfranchised. “

April 1, 2025

Chair Keenan, Chair Hunt, and Members of the Joint Committee on Election Laws: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth. 

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.63 and S.7: Proposal for a legislative amendment to the Constitution relative to voting rights.

I would like to begin with a bit of history. Felony disenfranchisement in Massachusetts is a recent phenomenon. Indeed, although we often think of the history of voting rights in the US as one of ever-forward motion, Massachusetts stands as an outlier. In the late 1990s, after incarcerated individuals in MCI-Norfolk started organizing for better conditions, Republican Governor Bill Cellucci and the MA Legislature responded with retaliation: a multi-step process of disenfranchisement. In 2000, Massachusetts voters approved a constitutional amendment to prohibit people incarcerated for felonies in state prison from voting in state elections; the subsequent year, Cellucci signed a law to extend this prohibition to federal and municipal elections. Our commonwealth did something rare in recent history: it took away the right to vote from a category of people who were formerly enfranchised. 

In 2022, the Massachusetts Legislature took an important step forward when passing the VOTES Act by including language creating protections for jail-based voting for those who still maintain the right to vote, but we must build on that momentum by ending remaining disenfranchisement, as these bills would. 

Felony disenfranchisement compounds the systemic racism of the criminal legal system. Approximately 8,000 residents of the Commonwealth are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, more than 50% of them are Black or Latinx. 

Felony disenfranchisement laws disenfranchise more voters than those directly affected. Whenever someone loses the right to vote even temporarily, they are likely to mistakenly think that they have lost it permanently. We must eliminate archaic laws that create voter suppression and voter confusion. 

Felony disenfranchisement exacerbates the humanitarian crisis in our prisons and jails. The Department of Justice, even under Trump’s first administration, pointed out that Massachusetts correctional facilities are engaging in torture, and a lack of political voice puts individuals at risk for abuse. 

Moreover, studies have often shown that fostering ties to the outside world is central to reducing recidivism. Civic engagement provides just that, and we should welcome it. 

If Massachusetts were to pass these amendments, we would be in good company. Maine, Vermont, Puerto Rico, and DC already ensure that all citizens of voting age are able to participate in elections, regardless of incarceration status. That is also true of a number of European countries, such as Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland. Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

At a time when democracy is under attack, let’s take this opportunity to strengthen and expand it.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts