CommonWealth: Election Day voter registration is good for democracy

PM Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn penned an editorial for CommonWealth in honor of National Voter Registration Day today:

TODAY — THE FOURTH Tuesday of September—is National Voter Registration Day. It’s also the day that Boston voters will go to the polls for hotly contested preliminary elections for City Council.

If the past is any guide, turnout will be low (we’ll be lucky if it passes 10 percent), a product of both apathy and design.

We all have work to do to counter the apathy that drives low voter participation and to build a stronger civic culture. However, that’s a multi-year, ongoing process. Eliminating the barriers that exist by design is much simpler.

Take, for example, our 20-day voter registration cutoff date….

The Appeal: Why Does MA Still Have 287(g)s?

As Daniel Nichanian of The Appeal wrote, Illinois has banned 287(g) agreements (which deputize state and local law enforcement to ICE), but other states have yet to catch up:

And in Massachusetts, where Democrats enjoy a veto-proof legislative majority, lawmakers have repeatedly ignored or killed the Safe Communities Act, which includes a measure that would ban 287(g) within the state. “As long as the Massachusetts legislature continues to punt, they are being complicit in Trump’s racist deportation agenda,” said Jonathan Cohn, the chairperson of the issues committee at Progressive Massachusetts, a group that advocates for this bill. “Inaction is the result of a legislature and leadership that is unrepresentative of the diversity of the state.”

Boston Globe: The Stirrings of a Primary?

The Boston Globe‘s Victoria McGrane and James Pindell analyzed the dynamics of a contested Senate primary between Markey and Kennedy within the Massachusetts Democratic Party. PM issues and elections committee chair Jonathan Cohn weighed in:

“A challenger needs to make the case that there’s some issue that hasn’t been addressed and some urgency that’s lacking,” said Jonathan Cohn, chairman of the issues committee of Progressive Massachusetts, a grass-roots advocacy group. If there’s such a case to be made against Markey, he said, “I haven’t heard it.”

Bay State Banner: An Issue-Focused Council Race

JP Progressives’s Ziba Cranmer was quoted in a new article by Yawu Miller in the Bay State Banner about the year’s Boston City Council elections:

JP Progressives’ Cranmer said interest in this year’s races is already ramping up. Between in-person attendance and online views, 300 people watched the group’s at-large candidates forums.

“It’s about at the same level of interest as the DA’s race was last year,” she said.

Bay State Banner: A District 5 Forum hosted by PWRR

“District 5 candidates gather for West Roxbury forum” — Yawu Miller, Bay State Banner (5/30/2019)

In a prelude to what promises to be a hard-fought eight-way race for the District 5 City Council seat, four candidates squared off during a recent forum sponsored by the West Roxbury/Roslindale Progressives group.

The forum, held at the St. John Chrysostom Church in West Roxbury, brought out candidates Ricardo Arroyo, Maria Esdale Farrell, Alkia Powell and Mimi Turchinetz. To participate in the forum, candidates were required to respond to a questionnaire by the organizing group and to have submitted enough signatures to appear on the Sept. 24 preliminary ballot.

The Appeal: Felony Disenfranchisement across States

“Debate on Felony Disenfranchisement Is Already Here in State Legislatures Around the Country” — Daniel Nichanian, The Appeal, 5/2/2019

The committee vote was not public. Only four of its 17 members answered my multiple requests for comment about how they voted.

All those who replied told me that they voted to advance the reform. They are state Representatives Russell Holmes and Lindsay Sabadosa, and state Senators Sonia Chang-Díaz and James Eldridge. All four are Democrats, but so are 14 of the committee’s 17 members. “It’s very easy for prisoners to lose hope and their connection to society, and restoring the right to vote would provide an enhanced capacity to stay connected,” Elridge told me. State organizers have taken issue with the secrecy of this process. “When legislators vote behind closed doors to continue to a racist history of disenfranchisement, with no public record of how they voted for their constituents, that’s a fundamental failure of democracy,” Jonathan Cohn, an organizer with Progressive Mass, an advocacy group that supported the proposal, told me in a written message. He added that the lack of public votes is “a systemic problem for activists in Massachusetts because bills can be killed with everyone having ‘clean hands.’

CommonWealth: How Progressive of a Budget?

 “House Progressives get some action on budget priorities” — Andy Metzger, CommonWealth (4/26/2019)

Jonathan Cohn, who chairs the Issues Committee for Progressive Massachusetts, an outside advocacy group, said he wants the House Progressives to reach higher, and keep pushing for progressive increases in state revenue – which could come in the form of higher taxes.

“We always want the House Progressive Caucus to be bolder than they often are in their asks,” Cohn said. “I think that they’re all good causes to fight for, however a lot of budget asks end up feeling like tinkering since without adding to the size of the budget in a meaningful way it will just be very important but small programmatic increases.” ….

Legislative leaders have said they will begin deliberating about proposals to hike revenues later this session, and Cohn wants the Progressive Caucus to keep up the pressure on that front.

2019 Lobby Day News Coverage

“Progressives Push Legislative Agenda” — Trea Lavery, Bay State Banner (4/10/19)

“Especially since out of the White House we’re not going to see a lot of great policy for the next few years, it’s up to the states to show a lot of policy leadership,” said Jonathan Cohn, the chair of the organization’s issues committee, before attendees broke out to attend meetings with individual legislators.

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“Progressives See Potential For House To Shift Left” — Mike Deehan, WGBH (4/5/2019)

“We want the the State House in general to understand that there is a progressive population out there that is really strongly in favor of all these progressive issues,” Watertown Selectwoman Caroline Bays said Wednesday while at the State House for the annual lobby day organized by liberal advocates Progressive Massachusetts. Over a hundred dedicated lefties met with lawmakers to try to push moderate Democrats to dive in on social and economic issues Beacon Hill is reluctant to take up.

But those issues, be it more funding for district schools, enhanced health care for the poor, or expanded service and repairs for the MBTA, need to be paid for in order to balance the state’s budget.

For progressives like Bays, that answer is easy. Tax more, preferably the well-off.

“Today when I was lobbying my state my state rep, I said you’re taxing me too little,” Bays said.

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“Progressives try to push Mass. Legislature to left” — Victoria McGrane and Matt Stout, Boston Globe (4/5/2019)

“Even though the state might not be as liberal as many people think it is, we should make it as liberal as people . . . like to think it is,” Jonathan Cohn, chairman of the group’s issues committee, told members from many of its 16 chapters across the state…..

“It takes people like us to push things to the top of the pile,” Rachel Poliner, of West Roxbury, told them. “Times are different than they were a few years ago. . . . You could say that all of us — as voters and as legislators — have been a little too complacent. Why is the MBTA in the shape it’s in? Right, so we’re upping the ante.”

Bay State Banner: A Push for the Safe Communities Act

“Activists renew push for immigrant protection law” — Yawu Miller, Bay State Banner (2/17/2019)

Jonathan Cohn, issues committee chair at Progressive Massachusetts, said new legislators are ready to push the Safe Communities Act forward.

“They understand that the standard operating procedure of the State House isn’t sufficient and that they need to be taking bolder steps,” he said. “Hopefully, they’ll bring some incumbents along.”