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]

Take Action on Gun Violence — and Join Us on March 24th

Students from across Massachusetts walked out of class (or, if they had a snow day, out of their homes) to march to the State House to demand action on gun violence.

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Massachusetts has some of the strongest gun laws in the country and, correspondingly, one of the lowest gun death rates. And we should be proud of that. But the question isn’t whether we’re doing better than other states — it’s whether we’re doing as best as we can. And there, the answer is a clear no.

The Massachusetts Legislature, however, has the opportunity to strengthen our gun laws this session, although time is short.

H.3610 would create an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO), a kind of court order that family members and law enforcement can request to temporarily restrict a person’s access to guns because they pose a significant danger to themselves or others. When family members are empowered to act, they can prevent warning signs from turning into a mass shooting or gun suicide.

Our neighbors in Connecticut have already passed such a bill into law, and legislation is moving forward in New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Maine as well.

Call or email your legislators today to ask them to co-sponsor the bill and then contact their colleagues of the Joint Committee on Public Safety & Homeland Security and ask them to move the bill out of Committee.

And if you’re planning to go to the March for Our Lives on the Boston Common on Saturday, March 24th, RSVP here so that you can connect with us when there.

3 Ways to Resist Trump’s Agenda Here in Massachusetts

We’re running out of time in the legislature. We’ve got 4 action items for Pres Day!:

  1. Register for Lobby Day
  2. Make calls this week for Safe Communities
  3. Push to increase voter participation

Today’s President’s Day, and if you’re like me, the person in the White House right now is the last person I want to be celebrating.

This holiday invites another important thought: Is Massachusetts doing enough to resist Trump’s reactionary agenda? (Spoiler: NO).

Despite a ballyhooed “anti Trump commission” announced one year ago, there has been exceedingly little passed by the Legislature that would reaffirm Massachusetts values, build a bulwark against the increasingly frightening excesses of the Trump Administration, let alone, chart a strong progressive path forward. Forget about Massachusetts leading the resistance. We are hardly keeping up.

We can’t rely on Legislators to discover the courage to rise to the challenge.

WE have to push them.

In honor of President’s Day, here are four things you can do to push back against Trump’s agenda. As time marches on, the risk of resignation is real. Resist. 

(1) – (2) – (3) – (4) – TOP

(1) Push for a Progressive Agenda: Sign up for our Lobby Day

Our legislators have power, the hour is growing late, and they need to use it. Join us April 4 Wednesday, March 14th, to tell them just that.

Never been to a lobby day? They’re informative and important. You get to….

  • Hear from progressive state legislators on the bills that advance the cause!
  • Learn the important issues and the latest updates on our legislative agenda!
  • Learn, practice, and share ‘how to lobby effectively’ wisdom!
  • Build progressive alliances with new friends from across the state!

The speaking program and information session starts at 9:15 AM in Room 437, followed by in-person meetings with legislators.

Register for Lobby Day now, and we’ll see you on April 4 Mar. 14!

 (1) – (2) – (3) – (4) – TOP 

(2) Stand up for Community Safety, Immigrants’ Rights: Pass the Safe Communities Act. Full Stop.

Of all the legislative actions before the MA Legislature, Safe Communities Act is the one that most directly looks at the extremely worrying practices of the Trump administrations, and puts up a firewall between Massachusetts and Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant deportation agenda.

Our local law enforcement should not be doing the terrorizing work of federal ICE agents. People in our communities should not fear that their local police—who are supposed to be keeping us safe—are collaborating, without any due process, with the feds. That is just unfair.

Both Illinois (ILLINOIS!!) and California have already passed similar “Trust” / safe communities legislation. Massachusetts is dragging it feet, and it’s time to say ENOUGH:TAKE ACTION.

There are lots of behind-the-curtain machinations with the bill… But the objective remains, absolutely, resolutely, the same:

  • Pass the Safe Communities Act, with no compromises to its common-sense, deeply American principles of justice, due process, and community safety. 

…and the path to achieving those goals is simple:

  • Persistent, relentless–and if necessary, escalating–pressure on our legislators and their leadership. (They have superpowers: they can change the structural system. Don’t let them tell you they are powerless to use it.) 

This is a message that is absolutely urgent, and PM is working hard on the ground with grassroots groups all across MA to ramp up the political pressure.

We’re prepared to stand with our immigrant family and neighbors, our brothers and sisters of color, our Massachusetts community of many faiths.

And we need to tell Legislature that they should too.

Help us make a big legislative push this week. And we’re checking the temperature next week to assess…do we need to push even harder? Make 5 calls to leadership on Beacon Hill this week – and even better – organize to get one friend a day to call, too, today through Friday (sign up here!)

 

(3) Fight for Voting Rights

Thankfully, Trump’s sham election commission has been disbanded. 2016 made it absolutely clear: we need to be playing more than just defense when it comes to voting rights. Our democracy simply isn’t very strong when 700,000 Massachusetts residents who are eligible to vote are unregistered, their voices unheard.

Ten other states and DC that have embraced Automatic Voter Registration, a simple reform that increases the accuracy and security of voter rolls and brings more people into the democratic process. Legislation (H.2091 / S.373) is pending in Massachusetts, and was reported out of committee less than two weeks ago. It’s time to bring it to the floor.

AVR quite simply expands the voting universe of registered voters who actually are able to vote. When you push past all the excuses, there’s one central question that should be asked: What do legislators stand to gain by keeping the voter rolls, and voting participation, lower?

Email your Representative TODAY in support of AVR!

Charlie Baker’s Record On Consumer Protection and Climate Action

By Joel Wool, Progressive Mass Issues Committee

Charlie Baker didn’t run for governor on a platform of consumer protection or climate action. But now that he thinks climate change is real and man-made, he talks a lot about his administration’s work on clean energy and climate change, even as his messaging to his base, and his reelection campaign, evoke themes of “hold the line on taxes” and small government.

There’s nothing wrong with the Governor’s beliefs on climate change evolving and he’s not unique in disliking taxation (as much as we desperately need more revenue). And yes, it’s also really important to have bipartisan action on climate change. As I see it, the problem is pretty simple: beneath a rhetoric of climate action and balanced “combo platter” of energy solutions, the Governor has approved policies that are bad for ratepayers, bad for the environment and bad for democracy.

TLDR: YOU CAN TAKE ACTION to help reform the DPU and advance clean energy. Email your legislators today.

A number of the Governor’s appointees are so bad they might as well be lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry, and overall, the Governor’s energy strategy is bad for consumers, prioritizes investor-owned utilities whose executives contribute to his campaign, and is dishonest, hiding “little known taxes” on energy bills and fees.

What has Charlie Baker’s administration done that is so awful? His administration has approved automatic rate increases, a gratuitously high return on equity for Eversource energy (more on this below), unprecedented fees on solar, cuts to compensation for renters and low-income renewable energy customers, a tax on electric bills to fund fracked gas pipeline expansion (struck down by the MA SJC) and the Governor has failed to maintain the few campaign pledges related to the environment around funding of environmental programs and meaningfully addressing gas leaks.

On rate decisions, you can get a detailed description on what Eversource proposed here.
For the basic money figures, here you go. Eversource got a hike of upwards of $30 million from its customers, even as it complained that this paled in comparison to its request, which was about three times higher. Environmental justice groups and municipal officials vigorously opposed the request at every stage, but DPU ignored their protests.

(What do utilities do with this money? Sure, some of it goes to fund poles and wires, pay staff and invest in new energy infrastructure. Eversource, National Grid and Unitil don’t generate power; they make money from the return on building new infrastructure like distribution lines, and its investors lose out economically when your local energy solutions like solar obviate the need for more poles, wires, substations and other facilities. Increasing return on equity means Massachusetts ratepayers spend more money to enrich utility investors – the utility claims, essentially, that exorbitant returns are a necessary expense.

Even before the hike, Eversource regularly used consumer funds to pay membership fees out to trade groups like Associated Industries of Massachusetts and Edison Electric Institute. These groups subsequently lobby against clean energy policy – even at times, in the case of AIM, supporting policies that make it hard for large customers to go renewable.)

The type of hard-to-understand fees on residential solar approved by Baker’s DPU are FIRST IN THE NATION. This isn’t the kind of policy Massachusetts wants to lead on, setting a precedent that will surely be picked up on in other states. Advocacy group Vote Solar is appealing the decision to the MA Supreme Judicial Court.

Oh, and what’s that about the “pipeline tax”? Governor Baker’s Department of Public Utilities ruled that it was okay to put a fee on electric customer’s bills to expand multi-billion dollar fracked gas infrastructure across New England. The MA Supreme Judicial Court struck that idea down as it violates a 1990’s law that restructured the electricity market, in part to encourage competition, advance efficiency and shield consumers from risk that should be borne by investors.

In summary, the out-of-control Department of Public Utilities has consistently acted to (1) hike rates (2) guarantee utility investor profits (3) attack clean energy and (4) attempt to prop up fossil fuels – sometimes violating the law to do so and getting reprimanded through the court process.

YOU CAN TAKE ACTION to help reform the DPU and advance clean energy. Email your legislators today.

Outside of DPU, and amidst anti-pipeline protests, Governor Baker has said doesn’t “take a backseat to anybody” on renewable energy. He may honestly believe that, but for the purposes of explication allow me to list a few United States Governors and numerous Massachusetts Republicans who are well ahead of Governor Baker on clean energy and climate change.

Governors:

Governor David Ige – Hawaii – Supports a transition to 100% Renewable Energy, which Hawaii has in statute. (Baker was recently featured in a discussion alongside Gov. Ige)

Governor Jerry Brown – Aggressively resisting Trump agenda, pushing regional climate cooperation on the west coast. CA has a 50% renewable energy by 2030 mandate in law.

There are plenty of others.

(Massachusetts’ renewable energy commitment will get us to 100% renewables by 2105, even though moving faster on renewables would cost little and create thousands of jobs)

Massachusetts Republicans to whom Charlie Baker takes a backseat:

Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr – A longtime supporter of climate action, energy planning, repair of gas leaks

House Minority Leader Brad Jones – A longtime advocate for environmental conversation, he’s worked with Democrats on many issues. Recently, he co-authored a letter signed by 120+ legislators urging reforms to the Department of Public Utilities and higher standards on Gas Infrastructure.

Senator Ryan Fattman of Sutton – A big fan of the outdoors, rumor has it he’s a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club!

Mayor Bob Hedlund and Senator Patrick O’Connor of Weymouth – Strong opponents of a gas compressor station in Weymouth.

The House Can Strengthen Criminal Justice Reform

Mon, Tue, Wed of this week (Nov. 13-15), the Massachusetts House will start voting on a comprehensive criminal justice reform. The House bill, as expected, is not as comprehensive or as progressive as the Senate bill.

We must work to make it better before the vote on its final form: we must contact our State Representatives, NOW, loudly, and in as large numbers as we can. 

The House will be voting on amendments Monday through Wednesday. 

It’s vitally important representatives hear that you want to see a stronger bill that delivers on the promise of comprehensive criminal justice reform. Mass incarceration has proven socially a socially and economically damaging phenomenon, and it’s time for Massachusetts to move beyond it.

Email/call your Representative TODAY and tell them to support/oppose the amendments below (when you’re done–take a sec and let us know you called/contacted your Rep: it helps us know where we need to target more!). We’ll be tracking the progress on these measures in the spreadsheet below. SUPPORT these Amendments: 

  • Amendment #19 (Cahill), which allows for diversion for juveniles in the court system
  • Amendment #41 (Gonzalez), which allows for good time eligibility for those who are serving mandatory minimums which would be repealed by bill
  • Amendment #42 (Gonzalez), which eliminates price gouging from telephone companies and requires comparable rates for prisons
  • Amendment #48 (Atkins), which requires decent cell conditions, good time eligibility, and access to programming for those in solitary confinement
  • Amendment #67 (Meschino), which eliminates cash bail for juveniles
  • Amendment #89 (Linsky), which would raise the level of what constitutes a felony to $1,500 in line with the Senate bill (as opposed to the House bill’s $750)
  • Amendment #112 (O’Day), which would track the savings from reduced prison populations and reinvest half of it in job training, job placement, and other supports to further reduce unemployment and recidivism (justice reinvestment)
  • Amendment #142 (Holmes), which provides for alternatives to incarceration for the primary caretakers of dependent children
  • Amendment #144 (Balser), which would strengthen the data collection for and limitations on the use of solitary confinement, and protects the rights of those in solitary confinement
  • Amendment #148 (Khan), which would raise the top age at which a young person is treated as a juvenile in the courts to 19, making far greater rehabilitation and support available to them
  • Amendment #157 (Carvalho), which eliminates racially discriminatory mandatory minimum sentences related to  arbitrarily defined “school zones”
  • Amendment #160 (Khan), which would allow for the expungement of juvenile records
  • Amendment #194 (Keefe), which would repeal mandatory minimums for all non-violent drug sentences except trafficking in fentanyl and carfentanil.
  • Amendment #197 (Keefe), which eliminates parole fees and public counsel fees for people who are indigent

OPPOSE these Amendments: 

  • Amendment #1 (Puppolo), which would allow for more restrictive bail if someone is brought in again while they are out on bail
  • Amendments #4 & #7 (Frost), which establish mandatory minimum sentences for assaulting a police officer, peddling a dangerous myth of a “war on cops” and putting a chilling effect on protest
  • Amendment #8 (Linsky), which calls for jail time for anyone who disrupts a court proceeding
  • Amendment #13 (Linsky), which allows for viewing sealed records for youth program volunteers
  • Amendment #23 (Lyons), which creates manslaughter charges for anyone providing a drug that results in death, thus making individuals less likely to call for emergency medical help in such situations
  • Amendment #39 (Velis), which allows for the keeping of pregnant women in solitary confinement  
  • Amendment #40 (Velis), which strikes out time limits for solitary confinement
  • Amendments #53, #115, & #174 (Jones), which would expand the state’s wiretapping law and curtail privacy rights
  • Amendment #124 (Jones), which strikes the CORI sealing provisions of the underlying bill
  • Amendment #126 (Jones), which strikes the increase in the felony threshold for larceny in the underlying bill
  • Amendment #127 (Jones) & #137 (Lyons), which give local law enforcement authority to hold people in custody based on a detainer from ICE.

Your outreach is URGENT and CRITICAL. Please, use your influence with your networks and talk them thru doing this, too, ASAP. We’re trying to make it easy–but we need the numbers to be effective! 

ACT NOW to Turn the Tide on Mass Incarceration

URGENT ACTION: Contact Your Senator to strengthen the Criminal Justice Reform bill: 

SUPPORT: Amendments 1, 8, 76, 100, 114, 124, 129, 149, 134, 135, 152

OPPOSE: Amendments 5, 25, 18, 60, 121, 24, 87, 29, 28 37, 40, 42, 80

Tomorrow (Thu 10/26), the State Senate will be voting on comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform legislation.

The bill has many good, thoughtful provisions that will make a real difference in people’s lives and address the serious issue of mass incarceration in Massachusetts—ending mandatory minimums for many crimes, reducing the CORI sealing time, ending the imprisonment of people unable to pay fines and fees, among others.

However, there are still areas that need improvement. And that’s where you come in.

The Senate will be voting on a number of amendments, a major opportunity to strengthen the bill.

Please email or call your state senator today and urge them to SUPPORT:

  • Amendment 1 (Cyr), which would guarantee equal protections for LGBTQ prisoners
  • Amendment 8 (Barrett), which would protect the ability of prisoners to have in-person visitations
  • Amendment 76 (Keenan), which would enable access to appropriate treatment for opioid addiction for addicts while incarcerated
  • Amendment 100 (Hinds), which would require police to undergo implicit bias training
  • Amendments 114 and 124 (Creem) and Amendments 134 and 135 (Eldridge), which would curb the abusive practice of solitary confinement
  • Amendment 129 (Creem), which would repeal mandatory minimum sentences
  • Amendment 149 (Creem), which would allow current prisoners serving mandatory minimum sentences for crimes for which mandatory minimums have been repealed to be eligible for good conduct credits earned on and after the effective date of the law.
  • Amendment 152 (McGee), which would create a Justice Reinvestment Trust Fund to allow the savings from the decrease in incarceration to be redirected towards job training and programming for communities that have been disproportionately impacted by mass incarceration.

Please also urge your senator to OPPOSE:

  • Amendments 5 (Tarr) and 25 (Moore), which would reduce the felony theft threshold to $1,000
  • Amendments 18 (Rush), 60 (Tarr), and 121 (Tarr), which would reimpose mandatory minimum sentences, taking discretion away from judges
  • Amendments 24 (Moore) and 87 (O’Connor), which would expand the use of invasive surveillance technologies
  • Amendment 29 (Moore), which would eliminate valuable juvenile justice improvements
  • Amendments 28 and 37 (Tarr), which would make anyone who shares drugs that result in death guilty of manslaughter, thereby creating the possibility that, in the event of an overdose, people sharing drugs would be hesitant to call for help
  • Amendment 40 (Tarr), which would leave in place a harsh 1980 law that denies prisoners serving mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes all possibility of participating in programs aimed at reducing recidivism while they are incarcerated
  • Amendments 42 and 80 (Tarr), which would retain current parole fees

Criminal Justice Reform – It’s time to make this happen!

By Caroline Bays, Progressive Watertown

Last week, the Senate unveiled the eagerly anticipated Criminal Justice Reform bill. While those of us interested in comprehensive reform did not get everything we wanted, the final Senate version represents a significant step forward in returning some real justice to our criminal justice system. 

So what’s in the bill, and what can you do to help? 

 Here are some of the key provisions:

  • Removal of mandatory minimums for nonviolent offenders for non-violent drug violations including drug trafficking near schools, drug paraphernalia ownership, and heroin possession. The bill does not remove heroin trafficking mandatory minimums and rolls fentanyl into the same category as heroin.
  • Expansion of diversion eligibility.
  • Elimination of some court fees, such as the indigent counsel fee, and parole fees, although probation fees are not repealed as we had hoped.
  • Complete overhaul of the bail system in accordance with the SJC ruling earlier this year, ensuring bail will be more affordable to all defendants.
  • Protections for inmates in solitary confinement, who will be regularly reviewed and given the opportunity to be released from solitary if they can show that they are ready to return to general population.  The bill also improves access to programming and guarantees rights to the LGBTQ prisoners.
  • Raise of the age of criminal majority from 18 to 19 and that of criminal culpability from 7 to 12. The bill also allows for consensual sex between teenagers close in age and decriminalizes disturbing a school assembly. It expands diversion availability for those up to age 26.
  • Sealing of criminal records (CORIs) after 3 years for misdemeanors and 7 years after felonies and seals juvenile records after 1 year.
  • Lift of the felony theft threshold to $1,500 from $250.
  • Requirement for the court to make written findings before sentencing a primary caretaker. 

While this bill may not give us all we wanted, especially in terms of repealing all mandatory minimums, it still represents significant reform in Massachusetts. If we want to keep this bill intact and have true meaningful reform, we must act now. The House in Beacon Hill is not on board with these changes, and we face an uphill battle to keep these reforms in the final bill.


So – call or visit your state representative today! Let him or her know that it is important to support the reforms outlined in the Senate’s bill. The House is already showing signs of writing a much more conservative bill, so it is really important to make your voice heard NOW!


And please come join us at the State House on Thursday, October 12 at 11:00 a.m. for a rally to support the legislation!

Time for Bold Criminal Justice Reform

When I talk to allies on Beacon Hill, they say that criminal justice reform is going to be one of the top issues the Legislature takes up this fall. But whether it will be real reform, or just tinkering around the edges, remains to be seen. Massachusetts needs to turn the tide on a failed “tough on crime” paradigm that has wreaked havoc on communities and fueled mass incarceration without making us any safer.

And that’s where you come in.

Representative Claire Cronin, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, is planning to meet with every state rep about the bills in her committee. She needs to hear from her constituents and her fellow representatives that Massachusetts wants real reform.

Call your state representative today and ask them to tell Chairwoman Cronin that Massachusetts wants bold criminal justice reform this fall.

Here’s a sample script to use. Feel free to personalize it and explain why the issue is important to you.

My name is [NAME], and I’m from [BLANK]. The Massachusetts Legislature is expected to take up criminal justice reform this fall, and it is important that we take bold action to address the systemic racial and economic inequalities of our criminal justice system, rather than resort to tinkering around the edges. I urge you to meet with Chairwoman Claire Cronin of the Judiciary Committee and recommend that the Committee advance the following bills:

H.741, which would repeal mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug-related offenses and give discretion back to judges

H.967, which would raise the felony threshold so that people’s lives are not ruined for small offenses

H.2359, which would end excessive probation and parole fees so that we don’t criminalize poverty and turn our jails into debtors’ prisons

H.2308, the gold standard omnibus bill that combines these and other reforms and reinvests the savings into job training and expanded economic opportunities

You don’t need to explain every little detail about the bills to the aide or legislator over the phone–they just need to know the bill numbers and why you care about the issue.

Why are Democrats Pushing Voter Fraud Myths in Massachusetts?

Yesterday was the 52nd anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. And it was an important reminder that we still have work to do.

Two weeks ago, in a major win for democracy, the Suffolk Superior Court ruled that Massachusetts’s 20-day voter registration deadline is unconstitutional, noting that it arbitrarily and unnecessarily excludes thousands from the democratic process.

Unfortunately, not everyone is cheering the decision. Secretary of State Bill Galvin is planning to appeal the ruling, suggesting that it would create “chaos” for town and city clerks if people could register closer to an election, despite the fact that we are in the 21st century. But it gets worse. While Galvin is parading around Massachusetts and getting good press for supposedly opposing the Trump agenda by (rightfully) refusing to provide voter information to the Trump-created “Election Integrity” Commission, he has also been peddling the same dangerous voter fraud myths that Trump and Republicans have been pushing on the national level and in states seeking to roll back voting rights.

We can’t allow that here. Massachusetts is the only state in New England without some form of Election Day Registration (EDR). It has worked for our neighbors, and it would work here. And it’s one of the most reliable ways to increase turnout.

Call/Email Secretary Galvin (617-727-9180; cis@sec.state.ma.us) now to demand that he drop his appeal, and that he stop spreading lies about Election Day Registration.

But there’s more that you can do to fight for voting rights.

We have the opportunity this session to pass two key bills that will strengthen our democracy:

H.2091/S.373 (Automatic Voter Registration) would bring our elections into the 21st century by automatically registering citizens who interact with government agencies (“opt-out” instead of “opt-in”).

H.2093/S.371 (Election Day Registration) would make sure no eligible citizen is prevented from voting on Election Day.

Massachusetts often lags behind our peers when it comes to voting rights, and these bills can help change that. Our democracy is strongest when everyone is able to participate.

Call your legislators now to demand that they co-sponsor these essential bills and lobby their colleagues and Leadership to do so as well.

Let’s not just play catch-up–let’s start serving as a model for other states.