The Legislature ended the session with a flurry of bills. Baker needs to sign them.
Continue readingThe Next Generation Roadmap Bill Is An Important Next Step
And Charlie Baker should sign it.
Continue readingTell Beacon Hill to Finish the Job
The current legislative session in Massachusetts ends in just three short weeks, with a few holidays in between.
And there’s a lot left to do.
The Legislature has to reject harmful amendments proposed by Republican Governor Charlie Baker to weaken police accountability legislation and strike vital language on equitable abortion access and prison oversight from the budget.
Important climate and housing legislation has been languishing in secretive conference committees while crises fester.
Key protections for workers like emergency paid sick time and for our immigrant communities like the Safe Communities Act and the Work and Family Mobility Act (driver’s license bill) were voted out of committee months ago but remain stuck in limbo.
It’s time to stop delaying and take action.
Can you email your state legislators today to demand swift action on these priorities?
We can’t let the clock run out with so much still on the table — and so much at stake.
Vote Yes on Question 1, Yes on Question 2
Election Day is just twelve days away. Can you believe it?
On your ballot statewide here in Massachusetts, you’ll see two ballot questions.
YES on Question 1: Right to Repair 🚙🚙
In 2012, Massachusetts voted for a Right to Repair ballot initiative that required automobile manufacturers to provide non-proprietary diagnostic information as well as safety information directly to consumers so that they can choose who repairs their car (rather than being dependent on the manufacturer itself). Technology has advanced in the past eight years, and Question 1 updates the legislative compromise that resulted from the 2012 ballot initiative accordingly. Curbing monopoly power and protecting consumers is a win for all of us.
YES on Question 2: Ranked Choice Voting 🗳🗳
Our first-past-the-post system forces ordinary voters to weigh whether they can vote for their preferred candidate or whether doing so would lead to a “spoiler effect” that gives a candidate they like less a clearer path to victory. This same dynamic can lead candidates and their supporters to try to force similar candidates out of a race due to a fear of “vote splitting.”
Within the current system, the ultimate winner may command less than a majority support, a contradiction of a basic tenet of democracy and a far too common occurrence in Massachusetts elections. We have some of the least competitive elections in the country, and candidates can win with small pluralities and then stay in office for decades. Ranked Choice Voting would eliminate these problems by enabling voters to rank the order of their preferences on the ballot and ensuring that whoever wins does so with majority support.
📢Find opportunities to volunteer with Yes on 2 here. 📢
📢Join Ayanna Pressley for a phone bank for Yes on 2 next Monday at 5:30 pm. 📢
Climate & Democracy Ballot Questions
Some state representative districts across the commonwealth will see non-binding advisory ballot questions. We are supporting a YES on two of them in particular.
YES on 100% Renewable Energy ☀️☀️
Question: Shall the representative for this district be instructed to vote in favor of legislation that would require Massachusetts to achieve 100% renewable energy use within the next two decades, starting immediately and making significant progress within the first five years while protecting impacted workers and businesses?
YES on Transparent Government 🗳🗳
Question: Shall the representative for this district be instructed to vote in favor of changes to the Legislature’s rules that would make the results of all votes in Legislative committees publicly available on the Legislature’s website?
It’s simple: if we want a livable planet, we need to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. And our legislators represent us, so we should be able to know how they are voting.
Find out what’s on your ballot here.
These Bills Passed in July. Why Are They Still in Conference Committee?
In July, the MA House and MA Senate both passed police reform bills (of varying ambition). And the House passed a climate bill (the Senate had done so back in January).
In each case, there are six-member committees of state senators and state representatives (“conference committees”) working to come up with a final bill.
So where are they?
The short answer: We don’t know.
The long answer: Conference committees are incredibly secretive processes. But the more your legislators hear from you about the need for the strongest bills possible on both fronts, the better the odds are that we will see better final products — or any final bills at all.
Can you contact your state legislators this weekend with four key asks for each bill?
Climate Bill
- Environmental justice language to protect vulnerable and historically marginalized communities that have borne the brunt of pollution and other environmental harms
- An accelerated timeline for emissions targets because we are already so far behind
- Increased renewable electricity generation because we need to be shifting away from fossil fuels and toward clean, green energy for us to even meet those targets
- A clear equity focus in any carbon pricing scheme that comes out of the bill so that the communities most impacted by environmental injustices can benefit from a sustainable transition
Police Reform Bill
- Strong reforms to qualified immunity as well as the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, as in the Senate bill, to ensure that victims of police brutality can have their fair day in court
- Breaking up the school-to-prison pipeline by granting schools discretion over whether or not to have school resource officers and ensuring that student information is not being passed on to police or ICE
- Reinvestment in communities because strong, thriving communities are the bedrock of any real vision of public safety
- Restrictions on the government use of facial surveillance because such tools are notoriously racist and inaccurate and violate basic privacy rights
Go Big or Don’t Go Home
In a mere eleven days — on Friday, July 31st, at 11:59 pm — the legislative session in the Massachusetts State House comes to an end.
The bills that didn’t make it past the finish line this year will disappear into the ether or return like a phoenix from the ashes in January next year, only to face the same grueling process.
But there are many policies that can’t wait until January. Indeed, passing them now is already far later than should have been done. And, frankly, the Legislature shouldn’t get to leave session until they finish.
What priorities are we talking about?
- Passing the Safe Communities Act so that state and local law enforcement aren’t being deputized as ICE agents
- Passing the Work and Family Mobility Act because mobility is a basic right, regardless of one’s citizenship status
- Passing the ROE Act because MA needs to strengthen reproductive rights here at home as they remain under attack on the federal level
- Passing the 100% Renewable Energy Act because we can’t keep stumbling forward into climate chaos
- Passing Emergency Paid Sick Time so that no worker has to choose between their health and their job security
- Passing guaranteed housing stability for at least one more year because if we want people to stay at home, they need a home to go back to
- Passing a budget that raises Progressive Revenue by making sure that corporations and the rich are paying their fair share
The Legislature can’t keep punting session after session and patting themselves on the back.
Four Weeks Left….
Unless anything changes, four weeks from today — Friday, July 31st — the formal part of the 191st Legislative Session of the Massachusetts General Court will come to an end.
That means that there are four weeks for the MA Legislature to up its game on pretty much every single front.
Four weeks for them to take action in support of immigrants’ rights, such as passing the Safe Communities Act and the Work & Family Mobility Act.
Four weeks for them to take action in support of reproductive justice by passing the ROE Act.
Four weeks for them to tackle the systemic racism in policing and the criminal legal system.
Four weeks for them to tackle our affordable housing crisis (and just over a month for them to take action before the eviction moratorium passed earlier this year expires).
Four weeks for them to take action to address climate change because Mother Nature doesn’t care about self-imposed deadlines.
Four weeks for them to pass Emergency Paid Sick Time so that workers don’t have to choose between their health and their job security in a global pandemic.
Four weeks for them to pass a budget that lives up to our values by raising progressive revenue to avoid deep, harmful cuts in public services.
None of this will happen unless your legislators hear from you — loud and clear — that they can’t keep procrastinating. That they can’t keep punting issues to later and later in the session until each session runs out. And then the cycle of excuse-making and delay continues.
Can you call your legislators to demand action in these final four weeks?
Find their contact information here, and then save it for next time.
The MA Senate’s Next Generation Climate Package: What’s in & What’s out
If this decade is our last shot to avoid climate catastrophe, we better start it off right.
Continue readingTake Action: The MA Senate Votes on Climate Action This Week
This decade — the 2020s — will be the decade in which our collective actions determine whether or not we’ll continue to have an inhabitable planet. And that means we need to start taking action–fast.
Tomorrow, the Massachusetts State Senate will be voting on omnibus climate legislation (for a good overview, read this).
The bill is strong in many ways, but it can be bolder and more equitable.
And that’s where you come in.
Can you call your state senator today in support of the amendments below?
100% Renewable Energy
- #53 2035 Renewable Portfolio Standard (Eldridge) – Increases the RPS to 100% by 2035 and prevents wood and trash burning from being eligible in the RPS
Environmental Justice
- #11 Regulations to Protect Low Income Households (Friedman) – Adds in language about low and moderate income protections
- #89 Giving Energy Sector Workers a Voice (Feeney) – Adds language to protect workers displaced by advancements in the renewable sector
- #105 DPU mandate (Chang-Diaz) – Adds “equity” to the DPU’s mission statement
- #113 Energy efficiency advisory council (Eldridge) – Adds environmental justice and youth representation to the energy efficiency commission
Equitable Investment in Green Infrastructure
- #80 Re-investing in greenhouse gas emission reduction, and our communities (Chang-Diaz) – Requires that at least 30% of revenue generated from a market-based mechanism be spent on green infrastructure and at least 40% of that revenue benefit low and moderate income people
Other Amendments that Support the Mass Power Forward Coalition’s Vision
- #33 Net Zero Stretch Code Improvements (Comerford) – Pushes up the implementation date for the net zero stretch code
- #54 Inclusion of combustion of fuel in emissions count (Eldridge) – Requires that burning any combustible fuel be counted towards state’s emissions
Take Action:
(1) Find your State Senator’s email address here, and then email them to urge them to support the amendments listed above.
(2) Follow up by calling your State Senator and ask that they support the amendments that you emailed them
Here’s a sample script:
My name is [ first name], and I live in [town/city]. I am with a broad coalition of environmental groups called Mass Power Forward and we’re calling about Senate climate legislation, specifically, S.2477 and amendments that have been filed to that bill. I sent an email to your office with the amendment numbers that achieve our goals of Environmental Justice, 100% clean and renewable energy for all, and creating equitable investments through carbon pricing.
We Cannot Achieve Shared Prosperity Under Water
The following testimony was submitted to the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy on Tuesday, January 14, 2020.
Chairman Barrett, Chairman Golden, and Members of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy:
I, Jonathan Cohn, Co-Chair of the Issues Committee of Progressive Massachusetts, am pleased to offer this testimony on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts. Progressive Massachusetts is a multi-issue, grassroots, member-based advocacy organization committed to an agenda of shared prosperity, racial and social justice, good governance and strong democracy, and sustainable infrastructure and environmental protection.
Progressive Massachusetts would like to go on the record IN SUPPORT of bills H.2810.
As a coastal state, Massachusetts is especially vulnerable to climate change. To put it bluntly, we cannot achieve shared prosperity under water.
More than a decade ago, the Global Warming Solutions Act was signed into law, committing the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% below the 1990 baseline in 2020 and by at least 80% in 2050. However, as advocates have often pointed out, and the Supreme Judicial Court ruled recently, Massachusetts is not on track to meet its own goals.
After President Trump moved to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, elected officials from both parties in Massachusetts condemned this misguided move and said that Massachusetts would continue to push forward with climate mitigation. But we need more than just rhetoric. We need concrete policies that enable us to realize and build upon our current commitments.
H.2810 is such a policy. A 2014 study prepared for the Department of Natural Resources found putting a price on carbon in a scheme akin to that of this bill “would reduce state GHG emissions to a larger degree than most other Massachusetts programs that currently operate for this purpose.”[1] Indeed, it could reduce economy-wide emissions by 5-10%, with much of this reduction coming from the transportation sector.
The environmental benefits of such a pricing scheme are not limited to climate mitigation. The reduction in air pollution resulting from the price incentive could save over 300 lives over the next twenty years.[2]
We are pleased that H.2810 takes important steps to counteract any potential regressive economic effects of a carbon pricing scheme, making sure that low-income residents are not bearing the burden of climate mitigation. We also underscore the importance of the bill’s allocation of 20% of collected funds for a new Green Infrastructure Fund that would facilitate the decarbonization of the transportation sector and increase investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate resilience. Getting the price right is just the first step in the critical task of mitigating climate change.
The situation at the federal level for climate policy ambitious enough to meet the challenges before us is grim. It has thus become increasingly important for states like Massachusetts to redouble their commitments. We must do so to avoid regression, and we must do so to provide models for national policies as our state so often has.
Please Give a Favorable Report to H.2810.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Chair, Issues Committee
Progressive Massachusetts
[1] www.mass.gov/eea/docs/doer/fuels/mass-carbon-tax-study.pdf
[2] https://climate-xchange.org/public-health-study/