NEXT WEEK: Show Your Support for Public Higher Ed, State House Employee Union

With the summer over, the Legislature is getting back into the swing of things, with a number of hearings coming up soon. Here are two key ones next week — and what you can do to help.

Monday, 9/18: Hearing on the Cherish Act

On Monday, at 10 AM in Gardner Auditorium at the State House, the Joint Committee on Higher Education will be holding a hearing on the Cherish Act.

Our public colleges and universities are essential vehicles for economic mobility and economic stability. However, our state has been underinvesting from public higher education for the last two decades. When the state reduces funding to public colleges and universities, the result is higher tuition and fees, and a growing debt burden faced by students and families.

The Cherish Act (S.816; H.1260) is a comprehensive response to the problems facing public higher ed today and charts a vision for what a higher education system for all would look like. The bill has four key parts:

Debt-Free Public Higher Education
Increased Student Supports
Recruitment and Retention of High-Quality Faculty and Staff
Green, Healthy, and Safe Campus Facilities

Click here to RSVP for Monday’s hearing.

Click here to register to take a free bus to/from the hearing.

Click here to submit written testimony.

Click here to sign up for a virtual written testimony workshop.

Click here to urge your legislators to attend the Cherish Act Hearing.

Click here to learn more about the Higher Ed for All Coalition!

Wednesday, 9/20: Show Your Support for the State House Staff

Last year, State Senate staffers announced that a majority of their colleagues had signed union authorization cards in March of 2022. They requested voluntary recognition from our Senate President, and after delaying for three months, she refused to recognize the union.

Since then, the Senate has maintained a card majority despite major turnover, and organizers are over 2/3 of the way to a majority in the MA House. In order to unionize, however, they need to change state law on public sector unionization.

H.3069/S.2014, An Act relative to collective bargaining rights for legislative employees, will get a hybrid public hearing in front of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight on September 20th at 1pm. These bills would extend to State House staff the same right to unionize, if they choose, that almost all workers in the Commonwealth already enjoy.

Read and sign onto written testimony from MSHEU requesting the SARO Committee support the bills. Please sign the letter from organizations/unions/supportive individuals.
Register to testify in person, or virtually, at the hearing on Sept 20th. You can fill out the linked form by 5:00 PM on Monday, September 18th to register.
Email your state legislators to ask them to co-sponsor H.3069 and S.2014.

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🔎New Feature on Our Scorecard Website

Do you know what your legislators are up to?

Our Legislator Scorecard website (https://scorecard.progressivemass.com/) helps you do so, and we’re happy to announce a new feature. We aren’t yet far enough into the session to update votes for this legislative session (Stay tuned!). However, now, in addition to looking up your legislator and the bills that they are co-sponsoring, you can look up co-sponsors by bill on the Sponsored Bills page.

This helps give you a big-picture view of which state senators and state reps are already on board with a bill and who needs some friendly, and organized, pressure.

PM Scorecard website with "Sponsored Bills" circled in green

Even if you actively follow the news (what little coverage of state politics there is), or check the State Legislature’s labyrinthine website, it can still be difficult to know how your legislators voted and what bills they are championing.

That’s why our Legislator Scorecard website is such a vital tool. It allows you to see how your legislators are voting on the progressive issues you care about, and it allows you to see if they are co-sponsoring key bills. Such data points help break down the information barriers that residents face to becoming effective everyday lobbyists.

So check out the new feature — as well as the old ones. And if you have any questions (An error? A bill you’d like to see us include? Something else entirely? Want to help?), let us know.

One more ask….We’ve been diligently keeping track of votes since 2011. And doing that takes work. It take staff time, volunteer time, and tech platforms that cost money.

So if you value that work, and I hope you do, please consider making a donation to keep it going.

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“The perils of one-party rule”

Kelly Garrity, “The perils of one-party rule,” POLITICO, July 24, 2023.

“There’s a sense of complacency in the Massachusetts Legislature,” Jonathan Cohn, political director for Progressive Massachusetts, told Playbook. “When you have a situation where most of them never face any type of electoral challenge — primary or general — if you don’t finish something, you can get the band back together in the next legislative session.”

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Letter: “Mass. lawmakers have two bosses, heed one (hint: it’s not the voters)”

“Mass. lawmakers have two bosses, heed one (hint: it’s not the voters),” Boston Globe, June 8, 2023.

The article “Lawmakers show little concern over sleepy start” (Page A1, May 30) astutely captured the problem of worsening inertia on Beacon Hill, with few bills, few votes, and almost no debate in the session so far. As the article points out, the over-centralization of power on Beacon Hill is a key culprit.

I often underscore that the State House suffers from a “two bosses” problem. In most jobs, the person who can hire and fire you is the same as the person who controls your pay. But for legislators, we — the public — are the ones who can choose, through our votes, to hire and fire elected officials, and legislative leadership, through committee chairs and other perks, are the ones who control the pay, with a scale that has become even more hierarchical in recent years.

With Massachusetts having the least competitive elections in the country, it’s no surprise which “boss” speaks loudest to legislators, but we all lose out from the lack of urgency around the many crises our state faces, from the growing costs of child care to the affordable housing crisis to a transit system in desperate need of care.

Jonathan Cohn

Boston

The writer is policy director of Progressive Massachusetts.

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We’re Tracking Co-Sponsors

By co-sponsoring bills, legislators can take a small step to show their support for the bill and help build momentum for it at the State House. That’s why we’re tracking co-sponsorship of our Legislative Agenda and other key bills on our Scorecard website: https://scorecard.progressivemass.com/.

Get Some More Co-Sponsors

Don’t see your legislators signing on to bills that matter to you? First of all, you should give them a call or send them an email. But even better: join us at the State House! Our 2023 Progressive Mass Lobby Day will be 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

- Immigrants Day at the State House: Wednesday, March 29, 10 am to 1 pm, RSVP at https://miracoalition.org/news/idsh2023/

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It’s Sunshine Week! Take Action to Support Open Government.

Happy Sunshine Week!

Sunshine Week is an ongoing initiative from the News Leaders Association to raise awareness about the importance of open government.

We could certainly use some sunshine in Massachusetts, as our state regularly ranks at the bottom of lists about government transparency.

Let your legislators know that you value open government and urge them to do the following:

Co-sponsor An Act to Modernize Participation in Public Meetings (HD.3261 / SD.2017), which would improve equitable access to open meetings by guaranteeing that members of the public can participate in person or remotely and establish a trust fund to help municipalities finance this goal.
Co-sponsor An Act to provide sunlight to state government (SD.131) and An Act extending the public records law to the Governor and the Legislature (SD.390), which would end the Governor and Legislature’s full exemption from public records law

Can you write to your legislators today?

Share Your Stories

Hybrid access for local meetings has helped increase participation and has removed obstacles facing working people, parents of young children, other caregivers, people with disabilities, people with limited transportation, among many other populations.

There are countless stories out there about the positive impact of such increased access. And the stories might include YOU.

Personal stories are a powerful tool to move legislators to take action. Has remote or hybrid access to public meetings enabled you to more fully participate in local government? If so, please use this form to share your story with the ACLU for this important campaign.

beacon hill transparency

Show Some Love to These Bills

Today is Valentine’s Day, a great opportunity to give some love to the bills on our 2023-2024 Legislative Agenda.

These bills would…

help us invest in our future
strengthen our child care infrastructure
improve our public education systems
make our state more affordable to live in
shift our criminal legal system toward rehabilitation and community well-being
make our state more welcoming of all residents in their diverse identities and backgrounds
accelerate an equity-centered transition to renewable energy
increase participation in our democracy

What’s not to LOVE?

Please reach out to your state legislators about our new legislative agenda for the session!

Write to your legislators here!

Help Communicate About Common Start in Your Local Community

The Common Start Coalition is looking for volunteers to help communicate about the Common Start agenda (affordable, high-quality early education and child care for all Massachusetts families) in local newspapers, cable access TV programs, and radio stations across the state.

Are you interested in writing a letter to the editor about Common Start in your local newspaper and/or going on a local cable access TV or radio program in your community to talk about Common Start? Please fill out this formto express your interest in communicating about Common Start!

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.

Follow-up to Last Week’s Prison Moratorium Lobby Day

Have a few minutes 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.

beacon hill Common Start decarceration higher ed

PM in the News: MassLive on the Senate’s Vote Repealing Term Limits

Alison Kuznitz, “Eight-year term limit eliminated for Mass. Senate President Karen Spilka,” MassLive, February 9, 2023.

Jonathan Cohn, policy director at the grassroots activist organization Progressive Mass, said the lack of floor debate Thursday likely stems from senators’ fear of retaliation from Spilka, particularly as committee assignments have yet to be released.

Yet should senators eventually elect a “very conservative” president, Cohn warned “you’re stuck with them for a long because there’s no fail-safe.”

“When you give one person that level of power- and agenda-setting for the body, it also just slows things down because you’re the one person and you’re in charge indefinitely for the future,” Cohn told MassLive. “It makes it clear that everything needs to run through you, and there are only 24 hours in the day. That centralization that exists in both House and Senate is something that causes a lot of the inertia that exists in the building.”

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PM in the News: State Senate Considers Ending Term Limits for Senate Presidency

Jennifer Smith, “Key lawmaker proposes ending term limits for Senate president,” CommonWealth, February 7, 2023.

Jonathan Cohn, political director for the left-wing grassroots group Progressive Massachusetts, voiced concern that eliminating term limits for the Senate president would be another step moving the Senate closer to the House in the way it does business.

The past few years have seen “what I would call a House-ification of the Massachusetts Senate,” said Cohn, “operating with a greater concentration of power that we have, in recent years, more attributed to the Massachusetts House, and now possibly embracing its style of governance.”

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Take Action: Tell Your State Senator You Want a democratic State Senate

Eight years ago, then House Speaker Bob DeLeo was able to get the MA House to repeal term limits for the Speakership, further concentrating power in the Speaker’s Office.

Now, MA Senate leaders are looking to follow, eliminating the term limits that still exist for the Senate President.

When one tries to diagnose the reasons for inertia in the Massachusetts State Legislature, where a commanding supermajority of Democrats end up passing too few bills and taking too long to pass them, one of the key underlying problems is the over-concentration of power. When too few people are in control of too many things, you get bottlenecks: things don’t get done. When those too few people also have the ability to retaliate against anyone who speaks out (demotion from committee leadership, lower salary, fewer staff, smaller and more remote office), then the quality of debate declines. And our democracy weakens.

Tell your state senator to oppose eliminating term limits for Senate President.

Massachusetts wants a small “d” democratic Senate. Amendment #23 to the Senate Rules package (S17) would take us in the opposite direction.

beacon hill democracy