Why Does Our Democratic Legislature Largely Adopt Our Governor’s Budget?

Last Thursday, the MA House passed its FY2019 budget 150-4. The dissenting votes came from the most conservative quarters of the Republican caucus.

This degree of unanimity seems like the polar opposite of what we see at the national level. Why is that? How do we have such broad bipartisan consensus around the budget year after year?

Let’s turn to the recent analysis of the House Ways & Means budget from the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. It begins, “The House Ways and Means (HWM) Committee’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 budget proposal largely aligns with the Governor’s proposal.”

In other words, this consensus is achieved by Democrats largely agreeing to the Republican governor’s budget. Oh.

Big Picture: Lack of Investment, Lack of Revenue

Where there are differences, they are certainly for the better.

Mimicking his Republican allies in Washington, Baker is still pushing an anti-health care agenda. His budget moved 140,000 low-income adults off MassHealth coverage, which would subject already struggling individuals to higher premiums and a loss of dental coverage and other vital benefits. Massachusetts would have the dubious honor of becoming the only state to repeal the Obama-era Medicaid expansion. The Legislature rejected this push last year, and the House rightfully chose not to include the Governor’s ask in the budget.

Mass Budget also outlines a few modest improvements the House made:

  • Early Education and Care. The HWM budget provides $20.0 million for Center-Based Child Care Rate Increases to improve early education quality by increasing the rates paid by the state to child care providers. That funding should aid in increasing salary, benefits, and professional development for early educators. The HWM Committee also proposes $8.5 million for a new initiative focused on professional development for early educators facilitated by Massachusetts community colleges.
  • K-12 Education. This budget provides $33.5 million more in Chapter 70 Aid (and related reserves) than the Governor proposed. In addition, it funds grant programs at $20.8 million more than the Governor recommended. This includes an added $9.5 million for charter school reimbursements and $8.9 million more for special education costs.
  • Housing. This budget proposal would increase funding for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP) to $100.0 million, which is $7.3 million more than FY 2018. MRVP provides housing vouchers to help low-income families, including those living in emergency assistance shelters, secure housing.

Given the crisis in housing affordability in Massachusetts, a $7.3 million bump in funding for housing vouchers doesn’t go very far. Consider this: a minimum wage worker would have to work 80 hours per week to afford a modest one-bedroom rental home at fair market rent.

The bumps in education spending don’t look that impressive when you dig deeper there either. As you might remember from the Question 2 debate two years ago, in Massachusetts, school funding follows the students, but since so many of the costs of education are fixed (think: the school building itself), the state offers a partial reimbursement to public school districts for lost funding when students leave to go to charter schools. Massachusetts, however, has not been meeting its statutory obligation here. According to the Mass Municipal Association, the shortfall is already $75 million and would grow significantly to between $85 million and $100 million under Baker’s budget. The House budget’s addition is only 10% of what’s needed. Baker’s budget underfunded special education reimbursements by $20 million; the House’s additional $8.9 million is less than half of what’s required.

And how does the House fund these modest improvements? By robbing Peter to pay Paul. Back to Mass Budget:

“Without any significant revenue sources beyond those in the Governor’s budget, the HWM budget funds these differences largely by underfunding various accounts – such as for the removal of snow and ice from state roads – that likely need to be funded eventually. This risks leading to challenges maintaining a balanced budget during the upcoming fiscal year.”

A common refrain from us here at Progressive Massachusetts is that if we want a Commonwealth where everyone can thrive–where we have quality public schools, public schools, health care for all, a clean environment, etc.–then we need more revenue (and more investment in our collective, long-term future). However, our Democratic Legislature, like our Republican Governor, has been hostile to raising revenue. We are an affluent state: third highest in per capita income and sixth highest in median household income. In other words, we aren’t lacking in revenue sources; we’re lacking in political will.

The expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in both the Governor’s budget and the House budget suffers from this same problem: if we are not meaningfully increasing revenue, then the EITC expansion will just be funded by cuts to other programs on which working people depend.

The Amendment Process: What Happened?

A week and a half ago, we drew attention to a list of amendments that would counteract this chronic underinvestment and improve the quality of life in the state by building on the recently passed criminal legal system reform, investing in public education, protecting our environment, and building strong communities for all.

More than 1,000 amendments were filed to the FY2019 budget. And, unfortunately, the House doesn’t make it easy to follow what happened to them all (in case you’re wondering, yes, it is on purpose).

Some amendments are withdrawn before debate begins, usually under pressure from House Leadership

The following amendments we highlighted were withdrawn:

  • Amendment 781 (Khan), which would set out punishment for police officers who have sex with individuals in police custody
  • Amendment 889 (Provost), which freezes the income tax at 5.1 percent. Automatic declines in the state income tax mean billions of dollars of lost revenue each year and less money to fund vital programs across the Commonwealth
  • Amendment 925 (Walsh, Chris), which would allow local governments and regions of the state to, with local government and voter approval, levy taxes to fund transportation initiatives

Now, the House rarely votes on individual amendments. For the sake of time and opacity, House Leadership will gather together thematically similar amendments to produce a “consolidated” amendment. BUT that “consolidated” amendment often doesn’t include many of the requests from the included amendments. The “consolidated” amendments effectively dispense with the amendments in the guise of addressing them. And then they pass almost unanimously, with everything “controversial” having been removed.

Most of the amendments we supported saw just such a fate.

Subsumed and eliminated via “Consolidated Amendment A” (Education and Local Aid)

  • Amendment 156 (Higgins), which would provide much-needed funding for public colleges and universities
  • Amendment 246 (Garballey), which would revise our outdated education funding formula along the lines of the the Foundation Budget Review Commission recommendations
  • Amendment 715 (Moran, Mike), which would ensure that immigrant students receive in-state tuition
  • Amendment 924 (Higgins), which would create new consumer protections for student loan borrowers and allow state to crack down on unscrupulous lenders
  • Amendment 950 (Koczera), which would increase funding for adult education and English classes (essential for new immigrants) by $1.9 million, to $34.5 million
  • Amendment 952 (Ultrino) / 977 (Coppinger), which would increase charter school tuition reimbursements for sending public school districts from $90m to $170m so that our public schools have the funding they need
  • Amendment 1343 (Decker), which would mandate at least 20 minutes of recess for elementary school students

Subsumed and eliminated via “Consolidated Amendment B” (Energy and Environmental Affairs)

  • Amendment 640 (Ferrante), which increases funding for the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program by $2m to $20m — Covertly dispensed with via Consolidated Amendment “B”
  • Amendment 864 (Walsh, Chris), which increases the funding for the Department of Environmental Protection’s hazardous waste clean-up program by $2m — Covertly dispensed with via Consolidated Amendment “B”
  • Amendment 906 (Rogers, David), which requires the state to issue a report on measures necessary–including new staffing, monitoring, permitting and other measures–to address water pollution and comply with the federal Clean Water Act — Covertly dispensed with via Consolidated Amendment “B”
  • Amendment 1005 (Muratore), which would provide initial funding and regulatory authority for the state to implement decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station Covertly dispensed with via Consolidated Amendment “B”

Subsumed and eliminated via “Consolidated Amendment E” (Public Safety and Judiciary)

  • Amendment 54 (Livingstone), which would provide funding for the Resolve to Stop the Violence Program, a restorative justice program in the Department of Corrections with proven benefits for reducing recidivism
  • Amendment 219 (Livingstone), which increases funding for community-based re-entry programs from $3 million to $5 million

Subsumed and eliminated via “Consolidated Amendment F” (Housing, Mental Health and Disability Services)

  • Amendment 269 (Connolly), which would increase housing voucher rent caps to current fair market rents, get vouchers out faster, set aside a portion for extremely low-income households, and increase funding for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program overall — Consolidated F
  • Amendment 801 (Khan), which increases the funding for Juvenile Court Clinics, which provide mental health evaluation, consultation, and liaison services for children and families in the juvenile court system, from $3.5m to almost $10m

Subsumed and eliminated via “Consolidated Amendment G” (Public Health)

  • Amendment 867 (Garlick), which would boost funding for Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Prevention services by $3.5 million, to $37.6 million, to increase access to culturally and linguistically appropriate crisis intervention and safety planning, legal services, and advocacy — Consolidated G

One amendment did pass (👏👏👏), although the House modified it to begin in FY2020 and did not provide the necessary funding. It’s a victory, but as with most victories, the fight continues.

  • Amendment 1361 (Decker), which would lift the “cap on kids.” The “cap on kids”/”family cap”  denies welfare support to children conceived while the family receives assistance. 8,700 Massachusetts children are currently harmed by this policy that many other states have already repealed.

Funding increases for the Massachusetts Legal Services Corporation (Amendment 243-Balser) and Regional Transit Authorities (Amendment 743-Peake) did make it into the budget via other consolidated amendments, but in much reduced form. MLAC got $750,000 extra, rather than $2 million. And RTAs got $2 million in additional funding, rather than the requested $8 million. The extra money is important, but the Legislature’s refusal to offer robust funding speaks to systemic indifference.

They Don’t Pass The Good Ones. But, Thankfully, They Don’t Pass the Bad Ones Either.

Marc Lombardo’s xenophobic Amendment 113, which would have taken away money from cities that choose not to be accomplices to a mass deportation regime, was withdrawn. Geoff Brad Jones’s Amendment 508, which mirrored Baker’s unconstitutional proposal to overturn the Lunn decision, was subsumed into “Consolidated E” and eliminated. So were Amendments 515 (Jones) and 1174 (Markey), which would have expanded state wiretap powers to “listen in” on a wider range of personal communication

Jim Lyons’s Amendment 347, which sought to create even broader authority for police to detain immigrants along the lines of a bill filed by Governor Baker, failed 10 to 145 (RC 334). One Democrat–Jim Dwyer–joined 9 Republicans in voting for it. Geoff Diehl’s amendment, which was akin to Lombardo’s withdrawn amendment in its assault on cities that choose not to have local law enforcement be deputized to ICE, was sent to further study on a 136 to 19 vote (RC335). The study, of course, will never happen (which is the point). Colleen Garry and Jim Dwyer joined 17 Republicans in voting for it.

Rep. Howitt’s Amendment 979, which would have curtailed the right to free expression, namely the use of economic boycotts against foreign governments (Think: the boycott movement against apartheid South Africa), was subsumed into and eliminated by “Consolidated H” (Constitutional Officers, State Administration, and Transportation).

If you’re still with us: The Senate will be voting on its budget (and its own series of amendments) mid-May. The two bodies will then go to conference and hash out a final budget.

Budget 2017: What Does Beacon Hill Value?

A budget is a statement of values. And the recently released House Ways & Means Budget shows that too many on Beacon Hill are content with the status quo of austerity and underinvestment.

Massachusetts lawmakers have fallen prey to the pernicious conservative ideology that taxes–our collective investment in our values and priorities–are always politically toxic. Instead of substantive conversations about how we invest in the infrastructure, services, and institutions that make Massachusetts a great place to live and work, our legislators instead year after year refuse to raise revenue — and leave the people of the Commonwealth begging for revenue crumbs of an ever smaller pie.

Yet, every legislator on Beacon Hill knows that Massachusetts has a revenue problem: when we do not take in enough revenue, we must cut budgets. Because of ill-conceived tax cuts over a decade ago (to the benefit of the wealthiest in MA), Revenue projections continue to fall short, leading to damaging cuts to vital services.

Those tax cuts have cost all of us over $3 billion each year. Each year! Our schools, the MBTA, roads, human services–think of what $3 billion a year could be doing to invest in job growth, education, public health, housing, transportation, and environmental protection.

Next week, when the House begins to vote on the budget, representatives will have the opportunity to take necessary steps to turn this around and to commit to the investments we need to make a Massachusetts that works for all.

Particularly, in the Age of Trump, where hostility to progressive values and policies is pervasive at the federal level, it’s more important than ever to make clear that the status quo is not working. Massachusetts needs to step up its game.

And to get legislators to start stepping up, we’re going to need YOUR help.

Call/email your representative by Monday morning to urge them to support the following ten budget amendments. The sample script is below; more info on each amendment appears after.

SAMPLE SCRIPT

I’m ___ from ___ . I’m calling to urge Rep __ to support budget amendments that support a strong Commonwealth. While these amendments would make a difference in the short term, I also want to urge my rep to fight for MORE REVENUE in the long term, including taxes on the wealthiest in Massachusetts.

Please support:

  • Amendments 42 and 43, which increase badly needed revenue
  • Amendments 780 and 382, which support housing assistance
  • Amendments 1003 and 1172, which invest in children and youth
  • Amendments 822 and 1182, which invest in equitable justice
  • Amendment 1196, which helps protect our environment
  • Amendment 151, which supports women’s health and family planning

Please share my concerns with the Rep. I will be paying attention to how s/he votes on these issues. Thank you.

Budget Amendments

Revenue

Amendment #42 (Rep. Denise Provost): Income Tax Rate Freeze.

This amendment would freeze the personal income tax rate at 2016 levels. From 2012 to 2016, we had four automatic income tax rate cuts, resulting in almost a billion dollar reduction in state revenue. These income tax reductions disproportionately benefit the super-rich, rather than working- and middle-class families: indeed, 20% of the rate reduction tax cuts go to the top 0.05% of Massachusetts residents.

Amendment #43 (Rep. Denise Provost): Educational Opportunity for All.

This amendment would subject any private institution of higher learning that has an endowment fund with aggregate funds in excess of $1 billion to an annual excise of 2.5% of all monies in aggregate in said endowment fund. The fund will be used exclusively for subsidizing the cost of higher education, early education, and child care for lower-income and middle-class residents of the commonwealth.

Affordable Housing

Amendment #780 (Rep. Paul Donato): MRVP funding

This amendment would restore funding for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program to $120 million from $100 million. This will increase the number of vouchers available, help preserve affordable housing developments, and restore the program to its 1990 funding level.

Amendment #382 (Rep. Mike Connolly): MRVP Improvements

This amendment makes technical changes to the way Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program funds are allocated, making the program more useful to people from a range of incomes in today’s very expensive housing market.

Education & Youth

Amendment #1003 (Rep. Alice Peisch): Early Educators Rate Increase

This amendment would increase the funding for the Early Education Rate Reserve, which increase reimbursement rates for subsidized early education and care providers, to $20 million from $15 million.

Amendment #1172 (Rep. Paul Brodeur): Youthworks

This amendment would increase the funding for the Youthworks program, which provides skills and training to young people through state-funded employment, to $13.5 million.

Legal Assistance & Jobs Not Jails

Amendment #822 (Rep. Ruth Balser): Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation

This amendment would increase funding for the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, which ensures that low-income residents of Massachusetts have access to legal information, advice, and representation, to $21 million.

Amendment #1182 (Rep. Mary Keefe): Job Training For Ex-Prisoners and Court Involved Youth

This amendment would increase funding for crucial programs to combat recidivism and create opportunities from $250,000 to $2 million.

Environmental Protection

Amendment #1196 (Rep. David Rogers): Department of Environmental Protection Administration and Compliance

This amendment would increase the operations budget for DEP from $24.4 million to $30 million. Recent budget cuts have forced staff reductions of 30% at DEP, crippling its ability to protect our to ensure clean air and water and enforce environmental laws. Given looming cuts to the EPA on the national level, we cannot afford such cuts anymore.

Public Health

Amendment #151 (Rep. Carole Fiola): Family Planning

This amendment would fund the family planning services line item at $5.8 million. Family planning funding helps providers offer a wide range of affordable preventative series, including critical screenings for breast, cervical, and other cancers; birth control and STI testing; and treatment for both men and women. With such vital services under the attack on the national level, it’s vital that Massachusetts push forward.

Take Action: A Budget is a Statement of Values (FY2019 House Budget)

As the saying goes, a budget is a statement of values. The FY2019 budget from the MA House, released last week, makes some modest steps forward, but in others, is just standing still (which, as we all know, is another way of moving backwards). Over the past few years, our Democratic Legislature has too often taken its cues for the budget from our Republican governor rather than from the needs of communities around the state.

In other words, we can do better.

Legislators last week filed a litany of amendments to the budget, and we’ve highlighted the ones we found most important to advancing our progressive agenda for Massachusetts.

Can you email your State Representative TODAY about these amendments?

(Need to look up his/her info? Find it here.)

The Funding Our Communities Need and Deserve

Next week, the MA House has the opportunity to improve the values statement of the FY 2019 budget by building on the recently passed criminal legal system reform, investing in public education, protecting our environment, and building strong communities for all.

Please ask your state representative to support the following amendments related to funding increases:

Building on Criminal Legal System Reform

  • Amendment 54 (Livingstone), which would provide funding for the Resolve to Stop the Violence Program, a restorative justice program in the Department of Corrections with proven benefits for reducing recidivism
  • Amendment 219 (Livingstone), which increases funding for community-based re-entry programs from $3 million to $5 million
  • Amendment 243 (Balser), which increases funding for the Massachusetts Legal Services Corporation (MLAC), which provides access to legal information, advice, and representation, for low-income MA residents, from $20m to $22m
  • Amendment 801 (Khan), which increases the funding for Juvenile Court Clinics, which provide mental health evaluation, consultation, and liaison services for children and families in the juvenile court system, from $3.5m to almost $10m

Investing in our Public Schools

  • Amendment 156 (Higgins), which would provide much-needed funding for public colleges and universities
  • Amendment 952 (Ultrino) / 977 (Coppinger), which would increase charter school tuition reimbursements for sending public school districts from $90m to $170m so that our public schools have the funding they need

Protecting Our Environment

  • Amendment 864 (Walsh, Chris), which increases the funding for the Department of Environmental Protection’s hazardous waste clean-up program by $2m

Building Strong Communities for All

  • Amendment 269 (Connolly), which would increase housing voucher rent caps to current fair market rents, get vouchers out faster, set aside a portion for extremely low-income households, and increase funding for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program overall
  • Amendment 640 (Ferrante), which increases funding for the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program by $2m to $20m
  • Amendment 743 (Peake), which would increase funding for Regional Transportation Agencies from 80m to $88m
  • Amendment 867 (Garlick), which would boost funding for Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Prevention services by $3.5 million, to $37.6 million, to increase access to culturally and linguistically appropriate crisis intervention and safety planning, legal services, and advocacy
  • Amendment 889 (Provost), which freezes the income tax at 5.1 percent. Automatic declines in the state income tax mean billions of dollars of lost revenue each year and less money to fund vital programs across the Commonwealth.
  • Amendment 950 (Koczera), which would increase funding for adult education and English classes (essential for new immigrants) by $1.9 million, to $34.5 million


Yes, You Can Enact Policy Through the Budget

The budget, importantly, is not just about appropriating funding. Legislators can also choose to enact policy through the budget. The following amendments would enact policy changes that would strengthen our public education system, treat all residents with dignity and respect, and foster safe, accessible, and sustainable communities:

  • Amendment 246 (Garballey), which would revise our outdated education funding formula along the lines of the the Foundation Budget Review Commission recommendations
  • Amendment 715 (Moran, Mike), which would ensure that immigrant students receive in-state tuition
  • Amendment 781 (Khan), which would set out punishment for police officers who have sex with individuals in police custody
  • Amendment 906 (Rogers, David), which requires the state to issue a report on measures necessary–including new staffing, monitoring, permitting and other measures–to address water pollution and comply with the federal Clean Water Act
  • Amendment 924 (Higgins), which would create new consumer protections for student loan borrowers and allow state to crack down on unscrupulous lenders
  • Amendment 925 (Walsh, Chris), which would allow local governments and regions of the state to, with local government and voter approval, levy taxes to fund transportation initiatives
  • Amendment 1005 (Muratore), which would provide initial funding and regulatory authority for the state to implement decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station
  • Amendment 1343 (Decker), which would mandate at least 20 minutes of recess for elementary school students
  • Amendment 1361 (Decker), which would lift the “cap on kids.” The “cap on kids”/”family cap”  denies welfare support to children conceived while the family receives assistance. 8,700 Massachusetts children are currently harmed by this policy that many other states have already repealed

It’s Also Important to Prevent Bad Things

Finally, several amendments have been filed to roll back civil rights and civil liberties protection. Our state legislators need to OPPOSE these.

  • Amendments 113 (Lombardo), 227 (Diehl), and 347 (Lyons), which would would create even broader authority for police to detain immigrants or punish the 31 cities and towns that have adopted measures to limit police participation in immigration enforcement
  • Amendment 508 (Jones), which would attempt to pass Governor Baker’s unconstitutional proposal to overturn the Lunn decision via the budget
  • Amendments 515 (Jones) and 1174 (Markey), which would expand state wiretap powers to “listen in” on a wider range of personal communication
  • Amendment 979 (Howitt), which would curtail the right to free expression, namely the use of economic boycotts against foreign governments (Think: the boycott movement against apartheid South Africa)

Over to You

The House will start voting on amendments NEXT WEEK, so it’s important to take action soon. Email your State Representative TODAY about these amendments, and give them a follow-up call about the ones most important to you.

[Want to read the text of these amendments by yourself? You can here: https://malegislature.gov/Budget/FY2019/HouseDebate/Amendments]

Time to Reinvest in Public Higher Education

The following is testimony submitted to the Joint Committee on Higher Education for its hearing on July 13, 2017. Chairman Moore, Chairman Scibak, and members of the Joint Committee on Higher Education, 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.633 and S.681.

Public higher education in the United States and especially in Massachusetts has played a critical role in expanding opportunity. A commitment to public higher education rests on an understanding that such institutions are anchors for the community, drivers of prosperity, producers of socially beneficial knowledge, and cultivators of forward-thinking individuals with skills and abilities that help them to succeed and us all to benefit. It’s quite simple: when public education in our Commonwealth is strong, we are all strong.However, since the early 2000s, we have been balancing the budget on the backs of students, with disastrous consequences.

Higher education has seen a 14 percent cut since 2001 despite substantial increases in enrollment. As a result, we are spending 31 percent less per student.

What does this mean in practice? Higher tuition and greater debt. Tuition now costs $4,000 more, on average, than it did in 2001. Three-fourths of students at public four-year colleges have to take out loans to afford their education, with their debt burden upon graduation more than 50 percent greater than it was at the start of the millennium.

Our chronic underinvestment in public higher education is preventing it from realizing its promise—and instead creating new roadblocks for working families across the state. Moreover, studies have shown that growing student loan debt has been a major drag on the economy, hurting us all.

Fortunately, it does not have to be this way. Bills like H.633 (free public higher education) and S.681 (debt-free higher education) offer a path forward.

Please Give a Favorable Report to H.633 and S.681.

Targeted Increases, Widespread Austerity: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Senate Budget

Last week, we recommended 13 budget amendments for the Senate debate. What happened to them?

The Good

To start off with the good news, five of them were adopted. The Senate budget now includes greater funding for the Community Preservation Act–and thus more money for affordable housing and green and open space (Amendment 286), the Department of Environmental Protection (Amendment 790), workforce training to help those involved with the criminal justice system (Amendment 883), and the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, which helps provide access to justice for more low-income residents (Amendment 896).

And in a unanimous vote of 38-0, the Senate passed Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz’s amendment (Amendment 75) to put the Foundation Budget Review Commission’s recommendations into statute, which puts the House of Representatives on notice of its support for the identical bill S.223, which is part of our 2017-2018 Legislative Agenda. The formula the state uses to provide local aid to schools relies on outdated assumptions from 1993, resulting in chronic underfunding. The music on the radio isn’t the same as it was in 1993; our assumptions about the cost of education shouldn’t be the same either.

The Bad

But some of the results were less inspiring. The Senate rejected–without recorded votes– amendments to expand the earned income tax credit (Amendment 16), to increase funding for family planning services (Amendment 507), to increase funding for affordable housing programs for those with disabilities (Amendment 641), and to increase funding for partnerships between universities and prisons that contribute vital reentry services (Amendment 906).

And then four amendments were withdrawn: Sen. Jamie Eldridge’s amendment (Amendment 23) to repeal a tax cut for the mutual fund industry (which could have brought in $143 million per year in additional revenue), Sen. Joan Lovely’s amendment (Amendment 389) to repeal the outdated, punitive law that prevents parents from receiving welfare assistance for children born after that parent started receiving assistance from the state, Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry’s amendment (Amendment 645) to increase assistance for individuals experiencing homelessness, and Sen. Eric Lesser’s amendment (Amendment 1025) to allow municipalities to put questions on the ballot to raise additional revenue for regional transportation projects.

The budget ultimately passed unanimously, as is both common and reflective of a lack of ambition, and will now go to conference.

The Ugly

Although we are grateful to see some of these targeted funding increases get into the budget, the pattern of chronic underinvestment we highlighted last week remains a problem. If we want our Commonwealth to work for all residents, then we need to grapple with the revenue shortfalls faced year after year and end the hold of conservative anti-tax dogma.

Is Beacon Hill Ready to Stand up to Trump?

If you’re like us, your inbox has been swamped over the past few months with rallies and action alerts about how to fight the reactionary Trump-McConnell-Ryan agenda coming out of Washington.

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Massachusetts is in position to be a leader in the resistance against Trump’s agenda–and a beacon of progressive policy for the rest of the country.

Although our Republican governor, Charlie Baker, is not going to stand up to Trump as much as he should, Attorney General Maura Healey has been at the forefront of fighting for civil rights and environmental protection, among other issues, in the Age of Trump.

And Massachusetts has the third largest Democratic supermajorities in the country, with 34 out of 40 senators and 126 out of 160 representatives. In theory, then, whether or not Baker is willing to fight Trump, the Legislature has the votes to do so.

But…

The Legislature, as our scorecards (and brand new scorecard page) show, routinely fails to live up to the ideal of what one might hope for from a Legislature this overwhelmingly blue.

Trump has created a sense of urgency among progressive voters. But, based on statements on policy and priorities, we have yet to see that same urgency from the State House.

A Beacon Hill Committee to Focus on Trump

In late March, Speaker Bob DeLeo appointed nine House Democrats to a working group to guide responses to “unprecedented actions” of the Trump administration.

The group consists of House Majority Leader Ron Mariano (D-Quincy); Speaker Pro Tem Patricia Haddad (D-Somerset); Assistant Majority Leader Byron Rushing (D-South End); House Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets Chair Antonio Cabral (D-New Bedford); House Steering, Policy and Scheduling Chair James Murphy (D-Weymouth); Public Health Chair Kate Hogan (D-Stow); Health Care Financing Chair Jeffrey Sanchez (D-Jamaica Plain); Rules vice chair Marjorie Decker (D-Cambridge), and Export Development vice chair James Arciero (D-Westford).

The working group is tasked with coming up with legislative solutions that are both “necessary and feasible.” The devil, of course, will be in the details….

…whose definitions of “necessary” and “feasible”?

…Will this group aggressively push a progressive agenda, or will they settle for the lethargic status quo?

We plan to follow the working group to the best of our abilities as it moves forward. But what do we know so far?

According to State House News Service, the group will focus on “economic stability, health care, higher education, and the state’s most vulnerable residents.”

Strong, progressive policies on all of these issues have been proposed this session. (We center our Legislative Agenda on many of them!)

Where do the working group members stand on them?

Economic Stability:

Trump, along with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, wants to make an economy that works just for the top 1%. How do we promote shared prosperity by contrast? We could do so by passing a $15 minimum wage and paid family and medical leave, for starters.

Four out of the nine–Cabral, Decker, Hogan, and Rushing–have co-sponsored the Fight for $15 bill. Six–Cabral, Decker, Haddad, Hogan, Murphy, Rushing–have signed on to paid family and medical leave.

Health Care:

Trump wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, denying health care to millions. The task facing progressives is to improve and expand upon the Affordable Care Act with a single payer/Medicare for All system that truly enshrines health care as a human right.

So far, only two out of the nine–Decker and Rushing–have signed on to such legislation.

Trump and the Republican Congress also have their sights set on taking away women’s rights over their own bodies. Congress has already passed legislation enabling states to defund Planned Parenthood. Progressives shouldn’t stand for that. One of the members of the working group, Rep. Haddad, is a leader sponsor of the ACCESS bill, which would require insurance carriers to provide all contraceptive methods without a copay. Decker, Hogan, Rushing, and Sanchez have joined her in support of this bill.

Higher Education:

Massachusetts has been under-investing in higher education for years, leading to higher tuition costs and spiraling student debt. Trump could make matters worse by reducing funding for higher education institutions and federal student aid, as well as by encouraging the expansion of predatory for-profit institutions.

Only one of the nine–Rep. Decker–has come out in support of making public colleges and universities tuition-free for Massachusetts residents. Rep. Arciero joins her in a strong, but less ambitious, goal of debt-free higher education.

Protecting the State’s Most Vulnerable:

Massachusetts has the opportunity to stand up to the federal deportation machine by passing the Safe Communities Act, which would prohibit the use of state resources for deportation raids and limit local and state police collaboration with federal immigration agents. The TRUST Act, its predecessor, stalled in committee year after year. But the necessity of the bill grows stronger each day.

Four out of the nine working group members are supporters of the Safe Communities Act–Cabral, Decker, Rushing, and Sanchez.

We can look back to last session for insights into the working group. Four out of the nine members of the committee matched the Speaker vote-by-vote on our scorecard of the last session (Arciero, Cabral, Haddad, Hogan). Two of them were more conservative than the Speaker (Mariano, Murphy), and three were more progressive (Decker, Rushing, Sanchez).

The House doesn’t take many roll call votes, but some can be illustrative. Last July, for example, the House voted to make state-issued IDs compliant with the federal REAL ID law per request of Governor Baker (H.4488). Real ID’s strict documentation requirements make getting a state-issued ID more difficult for the young, the elderly, trans individuals, people of color, the poor, and many legal immigrants. H.4488 also forestalled efforts to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, something which–unlike REAL ID–would increase public safety.

Decker, Rushing, and Sanchez sided with Massachusetts’s vulnerable populations. The other six sided with the Governor.

Massachusetts Democrats often talk a good game about opposing Trump.

But will they put their priorities and votes where their mouths are this session?

We’re #1…But Don’t Celebrate Too Fast

Last week, Massachusetts had the honor of placing #1 in the U.S. News & World Report state rankings. The 50-state analysis included more than 60 metrics, and on many of them, Massachusetts shines. We ranked #1 in education, #2 in health care, and #5 in economy. When it comes to education, Massachusetts is the birthplace of US public schools, and when it comes to health care, our 2006 health care reform law created a model for the nation.

But don’t crack open the champagne yet. Although, overall, we outperformed other states, Massachusetts fared abysmally on a number of key metrics.

Although Massachusetts had some of the highest test scores in the country, inequality remains a defining feature of our public school system. We ranked #31 on education equality by race. Quality Counts, which conducts an annual ranking of states on education, found a similar dynamic. Massachusetts ranked #1, but consistently fell near the bottom on any metrics focused on equity. We have great schools, but not everyone gets to go to them.

When our students graduate and go to college, they face high tuition (#41) and are saddled with debt for years after (#39). And the inequality in education is reflected in the resulting inequality in the economy: Massachusetts had one of the highest racial gaps in income (#40) and one of the highest Gini indexes (#45), a measure of the gap between the richest and poorest in the state.

And you can only take advantage of what Massachusetts has to offer if you can afford to live here, which isn’t easy. We were #45 in cost of living and #44 in housing affordability. Expensive housing prices force people to live further from work, leading to long commutes (#47), made worse by low-quality roads (#47).

Inequality and poverty breed crime, a dynamic exacerbated by an overreliance on outdated “tough-on-crime” policies. Massachusetts has some of the country’s most overcrowded prisons (#46) and biggest racial gaps in juvenile incarceration (#46).

So, clearly, something’s the matter with Massachusetts. What can we do about it?

Our 2017-2018 legislative agenda offers some vital steps forward.

Policies like a $15 minimum wage (S.1004/HD.2719) can help reduce inequality. Modernizing the Foundation Budget (S.223) will foster greater equity in education spending. Zoning reform and increased housing production (S.81) can reduce the cost of living in Massachusetts. Making public higher education tuition-free (H.633) or debt-free (S.681) will alleviate the debt burden faced by students at Massachusetts’s many great colleges and universities and make higher education more accessible. The Fair Share amendment, by imposing a progressive income tax and earmarking new revenue for education and infrastructure, can reduce inequality, improve education equity, and make for easier commutes.

Comprehensive sentencing reform that reinvests savings in job training and education (S.791/HD.2714)—or even just eliminating mandatory minimums for non-violent drug crimes (S.819/H.741)—will help reduce prison overpopulation and combat the multi-faceted injustices of the criminal justice system. And eliminating and reducing the fees involved in the criminal justice system (S.777/HD.2929) will make sure that we aren’t incarcerating people for the simple crime of being poor.

That’s a lot of work for the next two years. But if we are the #1 state, we should certainly be able to handle it.

On Question 2 the Voters Have Spoken. Is Beacon Hill Getting the Message?

I know that most of us here in Massachusetts are still reeling from the results of the Presidential election, but I feel compelled to share some thoughts on the outcome of the vote to raise the cap on charter schools.

On one hand I am delighted by the result of the vote. The voters of Massachusetts have spoken and they absolutely oppose any attempt to expand charters at the expense of traditional school districts. But on the other hand, I am utterly outraged at what the corporate education reformers have put our kids, our teachers and our school districts through over the last ten years given how little electoral support we now know that these champions of privatization have across the state.

Clear Message to MA Legislature

Consider this: Question 2 only passed in 16 out of 351 communities in the Commonwealth.

  • Seven of these communities are located in one single state rep’s district on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
  • The other nine are spread across six other state rep districts.
  • And the only other district where a majority of voters voted ‘yes’ is in Education Committee Chair Alice Peisch’s district in Metro West.

This means that the ‘yes’ side only carried two of the 160 state rep districts in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. It was even defeated by a 2 to 1 margin in Speaker DeLeo’s district of Winthrop/Revere.

And after years of supporters claiming massive support for raising the cap in minority-majority neighborhoods, ‘yes’ lost by jaw-dropping margins in those neighborhoods – particularly in Boston.

What is astonishing about this outcome is that over the last decade elected officials on Beacon Hill have shown tremendous deference to proponents of lifting the cap, largely out of fear that they might someday follow through with their repeated threats to take this fight before the voters where polling, they claimed, showed them easily winning a ballot referendum.

Fear-Driven Policy

And so for at least the last ten years education policy in Massachusetts has been created under a cloud of political fear as the privatizers, conservative think-tank researchers, neoliberal officials and their allies in the media have whipsawed state legislators, policy makers, school district officials — and even some of our teacher union leaders — into accepting the assumption that the corporate agenda was fait accompli.

They used their political clout to bluster and bully their way through Massachusetts politics, forcing the adoption of a whole host of policies that “test and blame” teachers and “test and shame” children.

And all of this was done with the explicit intent of setting up urban schools and school districts to fail and then using this manufactured “failure” as a pretense for transferring the control of public funds over to private, for-profit interests.

Those who might attempt to deny this need only recall Governor Baker’s television commercial targeted at white suburban voters, telling them that they had nothing to fear about Question 2 hurting “their” schools because the new powers granted by its passage would only be used to liquidate urban public school districts (wink wink).

Last spring the lead corporate privatizers were offered another very generous compromise by leadership of the state senate. But after so many years of getting their way the privatizers scoffed at the offer, instead opting to take the issue to the voters, thinking they would easily win.

Instead, they got absolutely, utterly crushed as the citizens of Massachusetts united behind their public schools — even in every one of the 93 communities where Donald Trump won. In 250 communities the ‘yes’ side failed to garner even 39% of the vote. And in 150 communities, it failed to reach even 35%.

If that is not an electoral mandate, then electoral mandates do not exist.

Through their own arrogance and overreach these corporate reformers have helped to prove two things that elected officials on Beacon Hill had better take note of:

  1. that Massachusetts voters absolutely cherish their traditional public schools and reject any expansion of charters at the expense of traditional district budgets, and;
  2. Massachusetts voters want so-called ‘failing’ schools fixed – not closed – so that every child in every corner of our state can receive an excellent education.

Here in Massachusetts we know what it takes to build great schools. We have done it from one side of the state to the other, both in wealthy districts as well as low-income neighborhoods, and every other type of community in between. In spite of this, we all know that there are some schools in Massachusetts that need to be fixed, and many that need increased support.

Reject the Spin

As we move forward from this election we need to reject the continued ‘spin’ of the privatizers and make great schools for all kids our number one educational priority. And this means an about-face on policies that were designed and implemented as the build up to raising the charter cap and shifting toward privatization.

  1. We need to end high-stakes testing as a requirement for high school graduation. 
    Yes, we can and should still test kids – but with much less frequency. And we should not be sending children who have attended school and passed their course requirements into a 21st century economy without so much as a high school diploma simply because they failed a single metric. Doing so only dooms their chances of a hopeful economic future.
  2.  We need to stop closing and/or taking over schools based solely on student test-scores.
  3. We need to stop forcing schools to compete against each other for dollars and students.
  4. We need to stop demonizing urban school teachers for problems that these brave educators have dedicated their entire professional careers to trying to solve.
  5.  We need to stop the state Board of Education from using a school ranking and punishment system that guarantees that the lowest income communities will automatically have the most number of designated “failing” schools.
  6. We need to pass the Fair Share amendment, also known as the ‘millionaires tax,’ so that we can properly fund our education and infrastructure needs, and;
  7. We need to fix the foundation budget so that schools that serve all types of kids have the chance at a world-class public education.

And most importantly, as this election proved, we need to stop letting a small handful of people with a corporate-driven agenda dictate policies that we know are bad for communities and horrible for lots and lots of our children.

Twenty-five years ago Massachusetts led the way in education reform and now our public schools rank among the best in the world. Let’s continue that work together, without the corrupting influence of for-profit privatizers, and together we can build a public school system where every single child has the opportunity to attend a great school.

Ted Chambers is proud to be a Boston Public School Teacher. He works at the Edwards Middle School in Charlestown. 

Election 2016: The Ballot Questions

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The national news on Tuesday was quite grim (I didn’t actually learn the ultimate results until Wednesday morning, avoiding the news late Tuesday night for the sake of mental health). And although those results have left me—and many of you, I’m sure—feeling rather hopeless, the results in Massachusetts earlier in the night can give some grounds for hope.

Here, I’m talking about the ballot questions. On all four statewide ballot questions, the progressive position won: the Progressive Massachusetts endorsed #NNYY. Massachusetts said no to expanding slots gaming, no to a rapid expansion of charter schools, yes to protecting farm animals, and yes to legalizing recreational marijuana and rolling back the drug war. The importance of these victories should not be lost on us.

Question 1 (slots) was always expected to fail, and Question 3 (farm animals) was always expected to pass. Question 4 (retail marijuana) had been trending to victory as well. Question 2 (lifting charter cap), however, was always expected to be close. Some recent polls had it tied, or with only narrow leads for the NO side. Earlier this year, Question 2 looked like it would pass easily.

And “Yes on Question 2” definitely had the money to achieve that victory.

As of late October, the YES side was outspending the NO side by over $6 million, with 82% of its money out-of-state (largely New York-based hedge fund managers and their ilk) and 76% of it dark money. On ballot questions, the side that spends more money almost always wins.

But here, the people won—and with a crushing victory, too. NO on Question 2 prevailed by a vote of 62-38, winning almost every city and town across the state with the exception of a handful of wealthy suburbs.

The success of Save Our Public Schools can serve as a testament to the power of grassroots organizing.

SOPS assembled a diverse coalition of groups committed to social justice and, because of the work of this coalition, was able to secure the endorsement of a majority of the State Legislature, most mayors, and more than 200 school committees. Parents, teachers, students, union members, electeds, and community members across the state spent months making phone calls, knocking on doors, and educating their friends and neighbors with a clear message about the importance of protecting our schools and investing in all our children.

Education funding can be a complicated issue, but we realized that, if we could just get our message to people, it would click. Those countless one-on-one conversations are key to organizing.  

The Save Our Public Schools campaign energized many parents and students to be more vocal and to stand up for what they know is right—and helped them build skills to continue the fight.

To paraphrase MTA president Barbara Madeloni, this wasn’t just a victory for Massachusetts, but a victory for all the teachers, parents, students, and union workers who wanted to know if we could beat big money. And the fight doesn’t end with Question 2, which was always defensive in nature. We need to continue to organize to make sure that we invest in all our children and fight to reclaim democracy and the commons. We’ve only just begun.

Jonathan Cohn is a Progressive Mass member and is co-chair of the Elections and Endorsement Committee. In the 2016 campaign season, he has spent hundreds of hours volunteering for the progressive candidates and campaigns endorsed by Progressive Mass members.

Dark Money and the Charter Campaign

Want a Halloween fright? Peel back the curtain and look at the dark money behind Question 2.

If you want to know who is funding all those commercials for lifting the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts, you’ll need a good pair of binoculars.

Just like grainy, horror-movie TV campaigns ads, the commercials you’re seeing in favor of lifting the cap are made by PACS and superPACS, organizations whose names often suggest the exact opposite of the position they support.

This is the proverbial dark money: Individual investors give money to organizations that don’t have to disclose donors’ names, but use the money to fund ads for candidates and causes under the organizations’ names.

In this case, we know that Alice Walton and Jim Walton each forked over big bucks to create committees to raise money for Massachusetts charter schools. In turn, those committees raised bigger bucks from out of state investors, including many New York hedge funds and investment banks.

But the Waltons needed a Massachusetts resident to create the committees.

Frank Perullo of Sage Systems and Novus Group contributed $100 to establish one of the committees. He is also a consultant to Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a pro-charter player that is founded and funded by Wall Street aces.

Thanks to Maurice Cunningham of WGBH News’s MassPoliticsProfs blog we also know that Great Schools Massachusetts has funded much of the $18 million that has been spent on pro-charter TV ads, but most of their money comes from Families for Excellent Schools, a New York-based hedge fund.

Why are these investors hell-bent for more Massachusetts charter schools? For the same reason bank robbers rob banks. That’s where the money is.

A bill called the New Markets Tax Credit Act, which was established in 2000, ensures that certain investors can double their money in about seven years with virtually no risk. And there’s money to be made in the real estate that charters end up owning, too.

As Juan Gonzalez wrote on shadowproof.com, “Charters are just another investor playground for easy money passed from taxpayers to the wealthy.”

Why from taxpayers? Those credits from the government to the charter school investors are from your federal tax dollars. 

Closer to home, Massachusetts will send approximately $450 Million to charter schools in fiscal year 2017. That is state tax revenue that would go to cities and towns to fund public schools.

Shortfalls in any part of the cities’ and towns’ school budgets are also made up by you through your local real estate and other taxes. And if not, your public schools will end up cutting vital staff like librarians, reading specialists, and school psychologists, which is what happened in Boston.

That makes all of us investors in charter schools, but we have no voice in how that money is spent or how the schools are run. In some cases, we also have given charter schools — or the people in the organizations that run the schools — real estate in our towns and cities. 

So charter schools turn out to be a wonderful way for people we’ll never meet, many of whom don’t live in Massachusetts, most of whom have no experience in or apparent interest in education, to make enormous amounts of money from all of us.

There are many reasons to vote against lifting the charter cap in Massachusetts that have to do with charter schools themselves. But for me, this is a scam fueled by dark money to siphon away our precious tax dollars under the guise of educating our children.

As Maurice Cunningham pointed out, Justice Louis Brandeis was prescient about Question 2 on the Mass ballot when he said, “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

D.B. Reiff is a member of Progressive Massachusetts