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

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

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

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

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

…..

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

PM in the News: The Fight for Election Day Registration

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

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

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

PM in the News: Redistricting Looms Large

Our Framingham chapter chair Beverly Hugo recently had an op-ed printed in the MetroWest Daily News about the importance of a diverse Redistricting Committee. The lines of our Congressional and legislative districts will be redrawn later this year, with major issues of representation at stake.

Redistricting will determine our political power for the next 10 years. Make sure the ‘redistricters’ reflect us

The Joint Redistricting Committee, which is to be appointed by Senate President Karen Spilka and Speaker of the House Ronald Mariano will oversee the 2021 redistricting process.

As is customary every 10 years, the process of redistricting has begun. Although this undertaking culminates in November with the Legislature voting on newly defined congressional and state districts, the process begins now with the appointment of members to the Joint Committee on Redistricting. 

Ultimately, the Joint Committee will determine whether the political power of our communities is fairly represented.  It will decide which candidates run for office and who they will represent. The delineation of legislative districts will affect nearly every issue our communities care about for the next decade. 

The goal of the committee is to ensure that district lines are centered on the voters, not political interests, and that the redistricting process is fair to all our communities. 

Having a truly representative committee composition will also encourage public participation in the process by attending hearings and submitting proposed maps. In addition, a well composed Committee will assure participation from historically underrepresented communities.

In decades past, we have seen what can go wrong during redistricting: the legislature could break our communities apart and dilute our political power; it could combine communities with very different priorities into the same district; or it could otherwise draw district lines that do not make sense for voters. Massachusetts did, after all, invent the gerrymander.

We also know what can go well. In 2011, Massachusetts broke from its legacy of closed-door redistricting, where district lines were essentially drawn by those in leadership without any regard for input from members of the legislature and the public. Instead, it conducted a far more open and transparent process with statewide hearings and platforms that allowed Bay Staters to submit their own maps – resulting in districts that reflected common interests of voters, rather than protecting incumbent politicians.

Redistricting will shape Massachusetts’ political future — and the process begins with the Senate President, Karen Spilka, and Speaker of the House, Ron Mariano. I am confident that they will meet their responsibility by appointing legislators to the Joint Committee who will equitably consider Massachusetts’ racial and geographic diversity. We call on them to do exactly that.

Beverly Hugo is the founder of Progressive Framingham/Metrowest.