Progressive Worcester endorses tonight’s rally in support of the immigrant and refugee community.
Please show up in solidarity and reject the toxic policies of Trumpism from creeping into Worcester. After the Rally, see it through, stay for the City Council meeting. City Council must hear from you.
And remember,
We can take action as a state. But the Legislature must act.
The Legislature can pass the Safe Communities act, to establish ‘sanctuary’ in Massachusetts, and protect vulnerable communities under Trump’s coming policies. Right now, Legislators are choosing which bills they will choose to highlight with their co-sponsorship.
Tell your State Rep and State Senator to co-sponsor the Safe Communities Act, and to push a bold progressive agenda — to resist, to protect the vulnerable, to build a stronger future with shared prosperity and justice for all. Rally. Show Solidarity at the Council meeting. Send a message to your legislator for #SafeCommunities.
RALLY DETAILS
We urge everyone to come out and support our immigrant and refugee community and tell Worcester City Councilors to reject Councilor Gaffney’s anti-refugee, anti-immigrant City Council proposal.
Worcester will not be bullied into turning in our undocumented neighbors, friends, families, young people, and coworkers. We expect that our elected officials remain committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all members of this community, regardless of their citizenship status. We urge our fellow community members to stand in solidarity with all those fleeing persecution, poverty and violence. Worcester cannot be a welcoming community for some of us, while turning its back on others.
Location: City Hall Day, time: Tuesday, January 31st from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the rally at 6pm today. A Declared Parking Ban is in effect for Worcester beginning at 2pm. Organized by Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Worcester.
Endorsed by: 350 Central MA ACLU of Central Massachusetts American Muslim Democratic Caucus Black Lives Matter Worcester Carpenters 107 Casa Cultural Dominicana de Worcester Central Massachusetts AFL-CIO Christian Community Church Clark University Geographical Society (PhD Students) Educational Association of Worcester EnjoinGood.org Episcopal Churches of Worcester (ECOW) Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement (EPOCA) HOPE Coalition Just Paint Studio Main South Community Development Corporation (CDC) Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office Massachusetts Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State Massachusetts Human Rights Committee Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition Central Region Mosaic Cultural Complex Muslim Community Link NAACP New England VegFest Progressive Worcester SEIU Local 32BJ SEIU Local 509 SEIU Local 1199 The Sierra Club SS. Francis Therese Catholic Workers Socialist Alternative South East Asian Coalition Stone Soup Temple Emanuel Sinai Transformative Culture Project UFCW 1445 UNITE HERE! VegWorcester Worcester Common Ground Worcester Community Labor Coalition Worcester Interfaith Worcester Islamic Center Worcester Refugee Assistance Project (WRAP) YWCA of Central Massachusetts
Do you know what North Korea and the United States have in common? They have similar per capita rates of incarceration, among the highest in the world. But lately some states have used an approach called justice reinvestment to dramatically cut the number of people in prison while continuing to lower crime rates, saving money in the process. In Massachusetts, a few bills are up for a vote this legislative session that take this approach to justice reform.
The “Tough on Crime” approach that came into vogue in the 80s and 90s led to an explosion in the prison population (especially when applied to non-violent drug crimes) but only a limited reduction in crime. It just isn’t a very efficient use of taxpayer money.
Justice reinvestment takes a different approach. It shrinks the number of inmates by reducing sentences and removing mandatory minimums for some crimes, restoring judicial discretion in sentencing, and expanding the use of parole. In contrast, over the past few decades Massachusetts has drastically cut the number of prisoners receiving parole, instead letting half of former inmates be flung back into society without any form of supervision. This makes them more likely to reoffend. Other proven ways to reduce recidivism are counseling, education, reentry, and jobs programs.
A few pieces of legislation have been proposed in the Massachusetts legislature that take this approach. HD.2714/SD.1128, An Act for justice reinvestment, is a comprehensive justice reform package. Among other things, it reduces sentences and calls for funding of jobs programs, not only for former inmates but also for people who fit at least two of these categories:
“is under 25 years of age; is a victim of violence; is a veteran; does not have a high school diploma (if over 18 years of age); has been convicted of a felony; has been unemployed or has had family income below 250% of the federal poverty level for six months or more; or lives in a census tract where over 20% of the population fall below the federal poverty”
HD.1794/SD.500 An Act to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences with regards to drug crimes, is a bill with just a few parts of HD.2714/SD.1128. It gets rid of mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes and gives judges discretion in sentencing for nonviolent drug offenses.
A related bill is SD.1389: An Act to reduce the criminalization of poverty, that reduces court fees and bans sending people to jail for inability to pay the fees.
At the national level, the appointment of Jeff Sessions warrants some concern for those who value justice.
The power of the U.S. Attorney General lies in three things:
Setting priorities for federal law enforcement about what kinds of things to investigate.
Deciding what laws to defend and which cases to bring to federal court.
Selectively giving money to states and towns.
Sessions is unlikely to devote many resources to issues progressives care about. For instance, he may not investigate excessive use of force by police. He holds the view that bad behavior is caused by a few bad apples rather than any systemic problems. To his credit, he has admitted that there is some racial bias in policing, but he has regularly opposed federal investigation into police misconduct. With a president who has called Black Lives Matter a “threat” that should be investigated by the Attorney General, this is not an encouraging sign.
He will likely not do much to uphold civil rights, especially not LGBT rights–he is a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage. Although the Constitution and federal law bans discrimination of various types, it doesn’t matter what the law says if it isn’t enforced.* Fortunately Massachusetts and other states can take it upon themselves enforce to enforce similar state-level protections.
So what will he focus on instead? We can expect that he will vigorously support Trump’s policies on deporting undocumented immigrants and probably enforce the Muslim ban. (He’s no Sally Yates, bless her heart.) He twice tried to pass legislation to make English the official language of government, i.e. removing your right to get government services in a language you understand. I think it’s fair to say he’s not a friend to immigrants.
Many have been upset over allegations that he is racist but less attention has been given to his opposition to legalizing marijuana. He has even said that “Good people don’t smoke marijuana”. Massachusetts and the other states and cities that have legalized or decriminalized marijuana could face increased federal interference. The Obama administration generally declined to enforce the federal laws in such places, to allow the fledgling experiment in legalization a chance to show results. Left alone, it may succeed or it may fail, and in either case we will have a better sense of what works. Under Sessions, as marijuana business owners and employees face prison and banks risk having their assets seized if they loan to these businesses, the prospects for success are dim. It would be a shame to undo decades of work, especially now that even many Republicans have become open to a softer approach to drug enforcement.
Sessions has many other troubling positions, too many to name here. For instance, he favors private prisons, so he may undo the DOJ’s recent moratorium on private federal prisons.
There are many threats to civil liberty under Sessions and Trump, so it is up to us at the state and local levels to defend and make lives better for our fellow citizens. We can start by passing HD.2714/SD.1128, HD.1794/SD.500, and SD.1389.
*As a fun example, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder stopped defending Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in court, before the Supreme Court finally declared it unconstitutional. That made Jeff Sessions really angry.
During his State of the State speech last Tuesday, Governor Charlie Baker congratulated himself on his commitment to addressing the opioid epidemic. He also congratulated himself on curtailing public spending in order to reduce the deficit without raising taxes. These priorities, however, are in fundamental conflict.
In December, in an act largely buried by the news around the presidential transition, Governor Baker unilaterally cut $98 million from the state budget, taking the axe to a wide range of programs. Among the agencies hit was the state Bureau of Substance Abuse Assistance (BSAA), which faced cuts of nearly $2 million. This money is neither an abstraction nor a rounding error: this is money that would be used to hire treatment and prevention coordinators, as well as to fund various treatment and community programs that directly combat addiction in local communities.
As a working paramedic, I see the devastating effects of opioid addiction on a daily basis. Opiate overdoses have become some of the most common emergencies we respond to, and many of the patients we treat have overdosed multiple times. While many of these people are successfully resuscitated (usually through the prodigious use of Narcan), an estimated 987 Massachusetts residents died of opioid-related causes the first six months of 2016 alone.
Baker made a step in the right direction last year when he provided $700,000 in Narcan grants to communities around the state. These grants allowed communities to supply Narcan to their first responders, which undoubtedly saved lives. While Narcan grants save lives in the short-term, the only way to effectively combat the opioid epidemic is to provide lasting solutions for addicts and to develop strong prevention programs that are visible to community members. By slashing funding to the BSAA, Baker removed resources intended to provide long-term treatment and rehabilitation to addicts across the state. These resources were also aimed at stemming the epidemic at its source, through the use of school prevention specialists and community outreach programs that can help prevent people resist the pull of opiates altogether.
Such short-termism has been a pervasive problem in state budgeting, as our elected officials fail to make the long-term investments in public health, education, and transportation necessary to guarantee that the Commonwealth for all of its residents. The Fair Share Amendment (“millionaire’s tax”), which will be on the ballot next year (and for which many Progressive Mass members are volunteering), will be a step in the right direction, but there is much more work to do.
By cutting funding to long-term solutions, Baker has shown he has little interest in concrete measures to end the opioid epidemic. People are still dying, and most of them are young. Telling a mother that her child has died from an overdose is one of the hardest things I have had to do. I doubt that Governor Baker can say the same.