This Saturday, thousands of us rallied on the Boston Common and around the state (and the country) to protest the chaos, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration — with a message of “Hands Off.”
If you went to a rally this weekend, you know what time you arrived, when you left, and where you went next. Your friends and family might know that too.
But do you know who doesn’t need to know that? Bad actors like Elon Musk.
Right now, there is no law that prevents anyone with a credit card from purchasing cell phone location data.
The purchase and sale of cell phone location data empowers bad actors: right-wing extremists seeking to target individuals seeking abortion care or gender-affirming care, domestic abusers seeking to track their victims, predatory bosses seeking to spy on their employees. The list goes on.
Fortunately, the solution is clear: our Legislature can pass the Location Shield Act (H.86 / S.197), which would ban the purchase and sale of cell phone location data.
The bill has had overwhelming support in the Legislature this session, and it will be having a hearing this Wednesday.
Here’s what you can do:
Check here to find out if your state rep and state senator are already co-sponsors of the bill.
Sunshine Week is a nonpartisan collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, education, government, and private sectors that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government.
Sunshine Week celebrates a radical concept: that you deserve to know what your elected officials are doing.
In other words, what could be a better week to talk about the push for State House Transparency and our Scorecard Website?
Tomorrow, the three state representatives and three state senators who will negotiate a final set of Joint Rules for the legislative session will meet for the first time. There’s a lot at stake (they haven’t come to a deal in several sessions), including whether committee votes and testimony will finally be posted, whether we will see more timely advancement of legislation, and much more. Read on for what you can do to take action.
And *drumroll please* our Scorecard Websiteis now up to date with full data from last session as well as co-sponsorship data from this session. Want to know if your legislators are co-sponsoring the bills on our Legislative Agenda. We’ve got you covered.
The Fight for State House Transparency Continues
In February, both the House and Senate adopted a series of transparency reforms to make a more open, inclusive, and timely legislative process. They did not go as far as they could have, but the fact that they went as far as they did was only possible because of people like you who emailed, called, and met with your legislators.
A six-person conference committee was just appointed to oversee these negotiations:
Sen. Cindy Creem (D-Newton)
Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem)
Sen. Ryan Fattman (R-Sutton)
Rep. Mike Moran (D-Brighton)
Rep. Bill Galvin (D-Canton)
Rep. David Muradian (R-Grafton)
In recent sessions, these conference committees have stalemated. But this session can and must be different. Legislators have felt the pressure from the public that voters across the commonwealth want to see these changes. Let’s keep up the momentum, get this done, and then get to the important work across so many urgent issues facing the Commonwealth.
Last Session’s Votes…And This Session’s Co-Sponsorships
Our scorecard website is now up to date with our full data from the 2023-2024 legislative session.
The most striking thing about last session’s recorded votes in the State House? How few of them there were.
Last session saw only 203 votes in the MA House and 252 in the MA Senate, each approximately 50% below average and part of an ongoing decline. That’s bad for accountability. When all of the discussion and debate happens behind closed doors, voters are less aware of where their legislators really stand.
And not each of these recorded votes will be worth scoring: many are low-stakes votes where everyone agrees.
To account for the scarcity of votes last session—especially ones that were beyond unanimous or party-line—we included a few additional data points:
Whether your state legislators are visiting prisons and jails to serve as a force for accountability in the conditions there
Whether your legislators are holding office hours and town halls to engage constituents
Whether your legislators are co-sponsoring the bills that we are tracking on our Scorecard website
For the first two, we did our best to reach out to legislative offices to get information. If we’re missing something, just let us know.
But headed into the new session, our Scorecard website also has other important information: Co-Sponsorship. We’ll be tracking which legislators are co-sponsoring the bills on our Legislative Agenda. That’s a critical tool for you to be able to apply effective pressure — as well as to give credit to the legislators who are fighting the good fight.
The Donald Trump – Elon Musk administration has been unconstitutionally withdrawing funding for climate initiatives at the state and local level, and Republicans in Congress want to cut such funding in the budget. While the fight to block these cuts proceeds, here’s something that MA can do now: make sure the major polluters who caused the climate crisis start paying up to fund the solutions.
The very companies who lied to the public for decades about climate change are benefiting while all of us, especially the most vulnerable, bear the cost.
The Make Polluters Pay bill (H.1014 / S.588) would require these major polluters to pay a one-time fee based on their historic emissions to fund climate-resilient infrastructure upgrades.
That means more money for restoring coastal wetlands; upgrading roads, bridges, subways, and transit systems; preparing for extreme weather; energy efficiency upgrades and retrofits; supporting the creation of self-sufficient clean energy microgrids; and addressing urban heat island effects through green spaces and urban forestry.
New York and Vermont have already passed such a bill. Let’s make MA next.
The Make Polluters Pay campaign is going to have a campaign launch this Sunday. Join 350 Mass, Mass Youth Climate Coalition, and Mass Power Forward along with lead sponsors Senator Jamie Eldridge, Representative Steve Owens, and Representative Jack Lewis to kickoff the 2025-2026 Make Polluters Pay Campaign! RSVP here.
During the hearing, Mayor Wu and three other mayors had to withstand the racist, intellectually dishonest attacks from House Republicans but made clear that protecting the rights of our immigrant communities makes us safer.
Cities like Boston and countless others across the Commonwealth have passed ordinances to make clear that local law enforcement do not work for ICE and should not do the work of federal immigration enforcement. But we need to enshrine local best practice into state law and strengthen the protections for our immigrant communities against the threats from the Trump administration.
That’s why it’s essential for your state legislators to co-sponsor critical legislation this session in support of immigrants’ rights:
Safe Communities Act, which would end the voluntary involvement of our public safety officials in civil immigration matters
Dignity Not Deportations Act, which would prohibit sheriffs from voluntarily renting beds to ICE and ban agreements to deputize state and local law enforcement to ICE
Immigrant Legal Defense Act, which would ensure that immigrants navigating our complex immigration courts have legal representation
Last night, Republicans in the US House voted to advance a budget outline that entails steep cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and other essential programs in order to fund tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations.
Their priorities are clear. And so should ours in Massachusetts.
The federal budget fight isn’t over. Every Democrat present voted NO yesterday (that includes MA’s 9-member delegation), and there is still time to block harmful cuts. But MA needs to ensure that, regardless of what Congressional Republicans do and regardless of Elon Musk’s illegal federal funding freezes, we are not cutting essential services. We need to do more to meet the needs of all, not less.
Unfortunately, Governor Healey’s proposed budget would halve the number of mental health case workers, limiting access to essential care. Thankfully, she put a pause on her plans to close two of the state’s mental health hospitals, but more funding will be needed.
And we know how to raise such funds. It’s not by giving tax cuts to rich people and large corporations as our Legislature did two years ago. It’s by ensuring that large corporations are paying their fair share.
That’s why we’re supporting Raise Up Mass’s Corporate Fair Share campaign to ensure that billionaire global corporations like Apple, Google, and Walmart pay their fair share and can’t get away with tax-dodging antics.
Can you email your legislator in support of this important legislation?
Did you know that Massachusetts taxes a smaller share of offshored corporate income than New Hampshire? An Act Combating Offshore Tax Avoidance (HD.3390/SD.1684) would fix that, bringing us in line with the federal government and other states and raising hundreds of millions of dollars in new annual revenues.
MA needs to combat offshore tax dodging and make the world’s most profitable mega-corporations pay their fair share in state taxes, instead of cutting public services like healthcare and education that we all rely upon.
Thank you so much for joining us last night! We had 140+ people join to learn and take action together—and to keep the momentum going. And we filled up quite a few voice mails. (And if you weren’t able to make it, you were missed!)
Earlier today, the House released a summary of their proposed rules changes. There are some positive signs, but we are awaiting the full text and will keep you posted. But for now, the important thing is to make sure that YOUR state rep is hearing from YOU.
Don’t forget to call or email (or both!) your state representatives, and to share the ask with your networks! Again, you can find our action guide at https://tinyurl.com/transparencyactionma. Pass this on to family, friends, and neighbors and ask them to take action for transparency too.
While Republicans in DC are creating havoc and letting white supremacist Big Tech billionaires like Elon Musk dismantle the federal government, what are Democrats in Massachusetts doing? Are they taking steps to protect MA from the barrage of cruelty coming from DC? Are they charting a vision for what progressive governance looks like?
No, they are voting today to kick unhoused families out on the streets.
For over 40 years, the Emergency Assistance (EA) shelter program has provided shelter and services to eligible Massachusetts children and families experiencing homelessness. This program represents a commitment to protect children and families in the greatest need. Since November 2023, new policies from the Governor and Legislature have chipped away at access to shelter.
The House is planning to chip away even more by reducing the length of stay even further, excluding many immigrant families, and increasing the administrative burden to gain access to emergency shelter.
Let’s be clear: if Beacon Hill wants to control the costs of emergency shelter, they should listen to providers and advocates, not the comment section of the Boston Herald.
At the start of the legislative session, both Senate President Karen Spilka and Speaker Ron Mariano said that they would take up reforms during the Rules debate in February to increase transparency and boost public confidence in the legislative process.
It’s no surprise why they are singing such a tune: Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s ballot question about auditing the State Legislature won every single city and town with a commanding lead, and the press rightly and repeatedly called out the Legislature last session for missing deadline after deadline and doing so much of their work in the dark (when and if there was work even being done).
But here’s what’s clear to us: we, the public, should be saying what would boost public confidence in the legislative process. That’s not a decision to be left just to State House Leadership.
Everyday people need to have clear ways of following what happens in our State House, making their voice heard, and seeing that their voice can actually have an impact.
Improving public access to information by making committee votes and testimony public
Increasing opportunities for public engagement in the legislative process by providing adequate notice of hearing schedules, further limiting the number of bills per hearing, providing testifiers with an understanding of speaking order, and guaranteeing the right of incarcerated individuals to testify (a practice which began last session)
Creating a more open, robust, and timely committee process by requiring public committee markup sessions and public committee reports with bill summaries, moving up the hearing and reporting timelines, expediting hearings for bills that advanced in the prior session, and requiring Conference Committees to meet in open session
Providing more time to read legislation, whether bills or floor amendments
Inauguration Day was rough. We know that we have our work cut out for us over the next four years to protect Massachusetts from Trump’s hateful agenda and to ensure that Massachusetts is a more just and equitable Commonwealth where “all” really does mean “all.”
You’ll hear from us soon about bills that we can advocate for this session to do both (we’ll be announcing our legislative agenda at our annual meeting), but beyond the work of protecting MA and charging forward, there’s one more critical piece: we can’t go backwards.
And going backwards is exactly what Governor Maura Healey is trying to do with new proposed restrictions on emergency shelter access.
Over forty years ago, Massachusetts passed a right to shelter for unhoused families, based on a moral belief that babies and children should not be forced to sleep on the streets.
But over the past year, Governor Healey has been chipping away at this law bit by bit. After making tighter and tighter time limits for emergency shelter, her latest proposals combine new requirements designed to restrict access, limits as short as 30 days, and a Trumpian ban on undocumented immigrants and new arrivals.
As Trump demonizes immigrants and launches an agenda of cutting vital services to give tax cuts to the rich, the last thing that Massachusetts needs to do is tell him “We’re on board.”
Forty-one years ago, Massachusetts enacted the first-in-the-nation “right-to-shelter” law, guaranteeing all homeless families with children and pregnant women access to temporary housing and other emergency services.
However, over the past year, Governor Maura Healey and our State Legislature have been chipping away at this critical guarantee. Just last month, the MA Governor’s Office announced policy changes that further dismantle the state’s emergency shelter system for all families by creating a two-track system, with some families being sent to barracks-style respite centers capped at 30 days and other families being capped at six months.
Let’s be clear: with our rapidly growing rents, weak tenant protections, and exclusionary zoning policies across the state, affordable housing opportunities do not magically appear after six monthsjust because the state wants to wash its hands of any responsibility to care for our residents. Kicking families out of shelter during the coldest months of the year is especially obscene.
Recently, a group of local elected officials from across the Commonwealth sent a sign-on letter to Governor Healey urging her to end these harmful restrictions. Can you also ask any local elected officials you know (your City Councilor, your Select Board Member, your School Committee Members, etc.) to join them? In solidarity,
Let’s Talk about Transparency
