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?
Yesterday, in a win for reproductive freedom, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that was designed to close abortion clinics and cut off access to care. This decision affirms that people should not be forced to jump through medically unnecessary hoops to access basic medical care.
But Louisiana isn’t the only state with barriers to care. In Massachusetts, young people seeking abortion are forced to go to court to plead their case to a judge, and families who receive a lethal fetal diagnosis later in pregnancy must travel across the country for abortion care.
That’s why the Massachusetts Legislature needs to pass the ROE Act this session. The ROE Act (S1209/H3320) will make sure that everyone, regardless of income, age, or insurance, can receive necessary abortion care.
This is an equity issue. History shows us that wealthy white women have found ways to get abortion care, no matter the barriers.. Women of color, especially Black and brown women, LGBTQ+ people, and people with low incomes, are disproportionately impacted by the political games that corrode abortion access. The Commonwealth can remove harmful barriers to care, support our health care providers, and be a true leader on reproductive freedom by passing the ROE Act.
Chairman Eldridge, Chairwoman Cronin, and members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary,
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the chairman of the Issues Committee of Progressive Massachusetts. Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide grassroots advocacy organization devoted to shared prosperity and racial and social justice.
Progressive Massachusetts would like to go on the record IN SUPPORT of H. 3320, An Act removing obstacles and expanding access to women’s reproductive health, and S. 1209, An Act to remove obstacles and expand abortion access, jointly known as the ROE Act.
Massachusetts has been a leader in health care in the US, with our 2006 health care law setting an example for the Affordable Care Act. But despite our achievement of near universality in health insurance coverage, not everyone has access to safe, legal abortion. We cannot fully achieve the goal of universal health care without reproductive justice.
Outdated, medically unnecessary laws have created insurmountable barriers for young people seeking abortion and people in need of abortion later in pregnancy after receiving fatal fetal diagnoses. Such cases force Massachusetts residents to delay care, cross state lines, or be denied care altogether.
Reproductive rights are under attack throughout the US, and the goal of the opponents of the basic right to bodily autonomy is clear: to have Roe v. Wade repealed by our conservative Supreme Court. Medically unnecessary laws and inaccurate definitions still on the books in Massachusetts could put these fundamental rights at risk here were that to happen. The ROE Act is an essential safeguard.
If we believe that health care is a right and, consequently, abortion care is a right, then no one should be prevented from receiving necessary care due to the cost burden. When rights depend on an ability to pay, they are no longer rights.
The ROE Act understands this. By codifying the state safety net programs’ coverage of abortion care into state law, people with low incomes who are ineligible for MassHealth will be able to access pregnancy-related care. By eliminating the onerous judicial bypass teenagers must navigate to access safe, legal abortion and ensuring that individuals who receive receives a fatal fetal diagnosis later in pregnancy can access abortion care in Massachusetts, the ROE Act ensures that no one has to cross state lines (with all the prohibitive costs entailed) to access health care.
Please Give a Favorable Report to H. 3320: An Act removing obstacles and expanding access to women’s reproductive health and S. 1209, An Act to remove obstacles and expand abortion access.
In January of 2017, Progressive Massachusetts unveiled our legislative agenda for the 190th legislative session — 17 items for 2017 (and 2018). As we near the end of the year — and the start of the next legislative session, it’s the perfect time to take stock of how the various bills fared.
Clear Victories
Reproductive Rights
The ACCESS bill, which updates MA’s contraceptive coverage equity law to require insurance carriers to provide all contraceptive methods without a copay, passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature and was signed by the Governor.
Democracy
Massachusetts became the 13th state to adopt Automatic Voter Registration. In this reform pioneered by Oregon in 2015, eligible voters who interface with select government agencies (here, the RMV or MassHealth) are automatically registered to vote unless they decline. With more than 700,000 eligible citizens in MA unregistered, AVR will increase the accuracy, security, and comprehensiveness of voter rolls.
The bill also enrolls Massachusetts in Electronic Registration Information Center, a coalition of states founded by the Pew Research Center that enable states to synchronize their voter rolls. ERIC has increased the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the voter rolls in participating states.
[Note: The original bill included smaller social services government agencies as well. The final bill allows for their later inclusion but focuses on the two largest sources of possible new registrants.]
Steps Forward
Criminal Justice Reform
The comprehensive criminal justice reform bill passed by the Legislature in April incorporated some elements from our priority bills (Read our write-up here):
Eliminating most mandatory minimums for retail drug selling and drug paraphernalia and limiting mandatory minimums in school zones to cases involving guns or minors. [Note: PM and advocates had sought the elimination of all mandatory minimums. The bill, however, left in place mandatory minimums for Class A drugs (like heroin), expanded this definition to include opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, and created a new mandatory minimum for assaulting a police officer, an overused charge wielded as a threat against protesters.]
Raising the felony-larceny threshold from $250 to $1,200 [Note: PM and other advocates had sought $1,500.]
Reducing fines and fees [Note: PM and other advocates wanted probation and parole fees fully eliminated.]
Establishing a process for expunging records, especially for juveniles convicted of minor offenses
There is still work to be done–from raising the age of criminal majority to severely curtailing (or outright abolishing) solitary confinement. That said, the bill, despite its shortcomings, was a step in the right direction.
Fight for $15
At the start of the session, we supported legislation to raise the minimum wage from $11 to to $15 by 2021, raise the tipped minimum wage from $3.75 to $15.75 by 2025, and require the minimum wage to increase with inflation starting in 2022.
The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition’s ballot initiative was slightly more modest in its ambition, extending the full phase-in date one year (due to a later start) and raising the minimum wage for tipped employees to only $9 (60% of the minimum wage) by 2022.
What passed in the ultimate “Grand Bargain,” an effort of the Legislature and the Governor to avoid three ballot initiatives ($15 minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, sales tax reduction) was more modest still. It raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2023, raised the tipped minimum wage to only $6.75, and dropped indexing. Unfortunately, the Legislature included a further concession to the business lobby, agreeing to phase-out time-and-a-half on Sundays and holidays. Although the bill is a net win for workers in Massachusetts, it’s possible that, due to the phase-out of time-and-a-half, some workers will be left worse off.
Paid Family and Medical Leave
The version of paid family and medical leave passed in the aforementioned “Grand Bargain” was less robust than the original legislation and the ballot initiative text, but still more robust than the programs that exist in other states.
Senate Victory, House Opposition
Several of our priority bills succeeded, or made partial progress, in the Senate, only to flounder in the House amidst fierce opposition from the conservative House leadership.
Fully Funding Our Schools
Massachusetts’s 25-year-old education funding formula is short-changing our schools $1-2 billion per year due to outdated assumptions about the costs of health care, special education, ELL (English Language Learners) education, and closing racial and economic achievement gaps.
The 2015 Foundation Budget Review Commission recommended a path forward for fixing it. The Senate unanimously adopted a bill to implement them. The House, however, insisted on leaving English Language Learners, Black and Brown students, and poor students (not mutually exclusive categories) behind.
Protecting Our Immigrant Friends and Neighbors
Despite Massachusetts’s liberal reputation, our Legislature has been historically hostile to strengthening protections for our immigrant community.
The Senate included four provisions from the Safe Communities Act, a bill that our members fought strongly for, in its FY 2019 budget: (1) a prohibition on police inquiries about immigration status, a prohibition on certain collaboration agreements between local law enforcement and ICE, (3) a guarantee of basic due process protections, and (4) a prohibition on participation in a Muslim registry. The amendment was a win-win for both rights and safety, but House Leadership opposed its inclusion in the final budget.
Bold Action on Climate Change
Many elements from our priority environmental legislation were incorporated in the Senate’s impressive omnibus bill:
Building on the Global Warming Solutions Act by setting intermediate emissions targets for 2030 and 2040
Establishing a 3% annual increase in the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to accelerate our commitment to renewable energy
Prohibiting a “pipeline tax” on energy consumers
Instructing the governor’s office to develop carbon pricing for the transportation sector by the end of 2020, for commercial buildings and industrial processes by 2021, and for residential buildings by the end of 2022 (not as strong as a revenue-positive carbon pricing scheme, but still in the right direction)
However, the House proved a roadblock yet again. The ultimate compromise energy legislation included only a 2% increase from 2020 to 2030, after which it would fall back to the current 1%. This would take us to only 56% renewable energy by 2050 instead of 100%.
Loss…But a Battle Not Over
Revenue & Reinvestment
Progressive Mass members played a major role in the signature collection for the Fair Share amendment (or “millionaires tax”), which would have created a 4% surtax on income above $1 million (inflation-adjusted) to fund education and transportation investment.
As a citizen-originated ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment, the Fair Share amendment had to receive the support of at least 25% of the Legislature in two constitutional conventions. It secured well more than double this amount, but the Supreme Judicial Court struck it from the ballot this June.
Inaction
Medicare for All
Although the Senate took modest steps in the direction of single payer, passing legislation to create a public option (a MassHealth buy-in) and require a study of whether a single payer system would save money relative to the current system, the House took no such action.
Housing Production
Although the Senate passed a comprehensive zoning reform bill to increase housing production in the suburbs last session, no such action was taken in either house this session.
Debt/tuition-free Higher Education
The cost of higher education has grown a lot in Massachusetts, and the Legislature continues to punt.
In Conclusion: We won some, we lost some, and we’ll keep on fighting.
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.
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.
TESTIMONY OF PROGRESSIVE MASSACHUSETTS IN SUPPORT OF S.499/H. 536
An Act Relative to Advancing Contraception Coverage and Economic Security in our State
May 19, 2017
Chairman Eldridge, Chairman Michlewitz, and members of the Joint Committee on Financial Services, I, Jonathan Cohn, co-chair of the Progressive Massachusetts Issues Committee, am pleased to offer this testimony on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts. Progressive Massachusetts is committed to an agenda of shared prosperity and social justice that makes sure that our Commonwealth works for all residents.
Progressive Massachusetts would like to go on the record IN SUPPORT of S. 499/H. 536, An Act Relative to Advancing Contraception Coverage and Economic Security in our State, or ACCESS.
Massachusetts has been a leader in health care reform, passing the legislation that would later become the foundation for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The ACA went beyond Massachusetts’s 2006 bill and brought about some of the greatest advances in health care access for women in a generation by eliminating co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses for basic preventive care, including contraception. The ACA guaranteed that women, regardless of their economic status, can afford birth control and can choose the birth control method that works best for them. 1.4 million women in Massachusetts now have access to preventive services like birth control with zero cost-sharing because of the ACA. However, the ACA and women’s health care in particular are under attack at the federal level. ACCESS is a vital piece of legislation to safeguard Massachusetts women from such attacks and to keep Massachusetts on the vanguard of health care reform.
Progressive Massachusetts is committed to making Massachusetts a leader in protecting working families and expanding the middle class, while reducing poverty and inequality. And we cannot have economic justice without reproductive justice. Contraception enables women to decide if and when they want to start a family, time births, have healthier pregnancies, and achieve their desired family size. With contraception, women are better able to plan their educational, financial, and professional futures, ultimately improving their lives, the stability of their families, and the well-being of children.
With the ACCESS bill, Massachusetts has an opportunity to build on the progress of the ACA. By establishing no-copay coverage for over-the-counter contraceptives, this bill will eliminate unnecessary financial barriers that undermine the accessibility of emergency contraception. The bill limits the ability of insurers to impose restrictions and delays in coverage and ensures medical decisions made by a woman and her doctor are respected. Moreover, by requiring coverage for a single dispensing of birth control intended to last for 12 months, this essential piece of legislation will decrease the likelihood of inconsistent use, and therefore unintended pregnancies, especially for those with limited access to transportation or pharmacies.
Massachusetts led the nation in health care reform, but the work is not done. It is time to be on the forefront again by proactively protecting and expanding access to basic, preventive health care.
Please Give a Favorable Report to An Act Relative to Advancing Contraception Coverage and Economic Security in our State (S. 499/H. 536).
We’re all here and prepared to fight,” Leda Anderson of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts emphasized to a standing-room-only crowd assembled in Jamaica Plain’s First Baptist Church last Thursday.
On January 12th, JP Progressives, a Jamaica Plain community group (and chapter of Progressive Mass) that frequently hosts political events and mobilizes volunteers for campaigns and issues, hosted “Progressivism During Trump,” a panel of experienced activists moderated by Mass Alliance (Progressive Mass is a coalition member) founding director Georgia Hollister Isman. Intended to galvanize post-election urgency into specific action, this event brought established progressive groups together to provide plans of action and field questions from community members late into the evening.
Despite some of the groups assembled being ostensibly apolitical, many made it clear that their fundamental missions were opposed to the imminent political atmosphere. “We are anti-racist and we are anti-oppression,” Boston NAACP president Tanisha Sullivan remarked, “and that’s all I’m going to say.”
“We have changed all of our agenda,” Liza Ryan of The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition shared with the audience, clarifying that MIRA is pushing offense as opposed to defense in advocating for their partner organizations under this administration.
Though national politics naturally loomed large in the conversation, much of the actions discussed were on the local level. Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty program of the ACLU Massachusetts, called for support for the state Trust Act (a bill prohibiting local law enforcement from detaining undocumented immigrants purely for their status), emphasizing the importance of pressuring the mayor, DA, and police. Dick Clapp of 350 Massachusetts and Boston Climate Action Network mentioned hosting house meetings in support of the Community Choice Energy Plan, an initiative to provide more of Massachusetts’ energy from renewable sources.
In response to a question about what threats progressive movements are likely to face, Anderson noted that this is the “first time in a really long time that anti-abortion politicians have controlled both houses & the White House.” Over the next four years, patients on Medicaid could be prevented from accessing the services provided by Planned Parenthood; about 30% of patients in Massachusetts rely on Medicaid now. The currently vacant supreme court seat means a risk of Roe v. Wade being repealed. Sullivan brought up the “sense of empowerment, of liberation by some who have been living in the shadows…that says that it is OK to be racist…we have to be committed to really working hard to stay vigilant on issues of race.” Ryan added the simple fact that due process is under threat, specifically in the case of undocumented immigrants and families. Expedited deportations with no hearing and unlawful detainment are just some of the problems these families encounter.
Despite naming the risks, the panelists and attendees retained optimism and hope for the future. “We like to call ourselves freedom’s law firm,” Crockford said of the ACLUM, calling for citizens to become doubly involved and not “sit out politics.” Ryan called for intersectional organizing and coalition building across issues: “We have to unify to win…Share narratives and work on messaging together. We can’t be divided; your issue is my issue. Get out of your comfort zone.”
The panelists recommended many specific actions to support their institutions and get involved. See below for a sampling of these actions.
ACLUM: Donate to ACLUM.org, and follow on social media. Sign up for email alerts.
Planned Parenthood: attend the Million Woman March. Join for Sexual Health Lobby Day on January 31st. Visit pplmvotes.org to sign up for email updates.
350 Mass: Join the node meeting that meets at the First Church in Jamaica Plain.
NAACP: Donate your talent & time; what skills do you have to contribute? What is the one issue that gets your blood boiling? If there is an org already working on that, how might you contact them?
You can review questions audience members asked the panelists at this link: www.slido.com Be Sociable, Share!
