Christian Wade, “Lawmakers recess, leaving many loose ends,” The Eagle Tribune, August 2, 2024.
“Rather than advancing a robust, shared legislative agenda throughout the past year and a half, our Legislature pushed so many important priorities off to the very end of the session, creating bottlenecks and setting themselves up for failure,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director at the group Progressive Massachusetts. “It does not have to be this way.”
Gintautas Dumcius, “Why are so many amendments being withdrawn on Beacon Hill?,” CommonWealth Beacon, July 30, 2024.
“It’s an idiosyncrasy that drives some crazy, while others say it’s just pols being pols. The quirk isn’t limited to the Senate. Progressive Massachusetts noted that the House’s version of a climate bill drew 107 amendments, and 91 ended up withdrawn. “Our great deliberative body,” the advocacy group sarcastically posted last month to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
According to Jonathan Cohn, the group’s policy director, the strategic case for moving a policy issue forward by taking to the floor via an amendment, even if it gets withdrawn, rests on the idea that enough people see or hear the speeches. “I don’t mean to burst the bubble of legislators, but people don’t watch it,” he said. Writing an opinion piece has more impact than a floor speech, which he likened to “fan service.”
“Filing an amendment, getting a handful of supporters and then saying, ‘I’m done, I’m withdrawing it,’ doesn’t move the ball forward,” Cohn added.
It also highlights the decline of debates. As the State House News Service summary of the Senate’s passage of a housing bill noted, “There was little disagreement and few divided votes.”
Beacon Hill observers say some lawmakers would prefer not to be put on the record about a topic that could cost them support, or even worse, reelection. That amounts to an “incumbent protection racket,” Cohn said.”
Jennifer Smith, “Business groups cheer, progressives knock House axing transfer fees,” CommonWealth Beacon, June 4, 2024.
“Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, cited the poll in critiquing the House’s proposed bond bill. He said axing the transfer tax option was “taking tools off the table.”
“Let’s be clear: members of House leadership are being dishonest when they claim that they oppose a local option real estate transfer fee because it is a ‘piecemeal’ solution that doesn’t help every city and town,” Cohn wrote in a statement. “Such concerns were nowhere to be found during the budget process, when those very same representatives had no problem stuffing the budget full of outsized perks for their own districts.”
Matt Stout and Samantha Gross, “$1.5m for a wedding venue and conference center. $250,000 for historic ships. Here’s what top Senate brass put into the budget.,” Boston Globe, May 17, 2024.
“It really is a fundamentally broken process where you have pet projects of specific legislators getting designated funding outside any kind of rationale or equitable analysis of whether or not that is a worthy use of public funds,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director for the group Progressive Massachusetts. The approach, he said, means that earmarks are doled out “not based on need, but rather on power and proximity to power.”
Cassandra Dumay, “Are Massachusetts politics on immigration changing? Strategists, activists weigh in,” The Sun Chronicle, May 12, 2024.
Jonathan Cohn, policy director of the activist group Progressive Massachusetts, said Democrats who choose to “appease” “the most stridently anti-immigrant voter” pose a more important threat to their party than Republican campaigning.
“Too many Democrats have adopted a conservative framing of an increased number of immigrants and refugees as being a terrible burden — rather than viewing them as people who we should feel so blessed want to live here,” Cohn said. “The bigger issue is Democrats demoralizing their own base by abandoning them than Republicans being energized.”
Gintautas Dumcius and Bruce Mohl, “Political Notebook: Healey’s no-new-taxes talk | Rollins pay adjustment | Who is Jeanne Louise?,” CommonWealth Beacon, May 3, 2024.
Jonathan Cohn, policy director for Progressive Massachusetts, said Healey’s “clichéd ‘no new taxes’ line is out of step with her own promises and the needs” of the state. He pointed to high child care costs, health insurance premiums, and traffic as forms of taxation that hit working and middle-class residents.
Nik DeCosta-Klipa, “What was the point of Massachusetts’ new tax break for renters?,” WBUR, April 17, 2024.
“Nobody is going to complain about getting $50 back, but it doesn’t mean very much,” Jonathan Cohn, the policy director for the left-leaning group Progressive Massachusetts (and a renter himself), told WBUR. “Given that many people’s rents will go up by more than $50 each year, that’s not even combating one-twelfth of an annual rent increase for people.”
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Cohn credits the Healey administration for pursuing other, more “meaningful” measures to address the housing crisis in the multi-billion-dollar bond bill, which is primarily aimed at funding and encouraging more affordable housing. (Whether — or how much of — the bill passes before the end of the legislative session this summer remains to be seen.) Healey’s administration has also moved to aggressively enforce the state’s MBTA Communities Act, which requires cities and towns near the T to zone for additional multi-family housing.
Colin A. Young, Michael P. Norton, and Chris Lisinski. “Healey Plans To Reduce Gov’t Hiring, Critics Say It’s Coming Too Late.” State House News Service. April 3, 2024.
Blowback came from the left, too. Progressive Massachusetts Policy Director Jonathan Cohn castigated Healey and the Legislature for having approved a series of targeted tax cuts last year after voters in 2022 “made clear that they support higher taxes on the rich and greater investment in our commonwealth.” He said the governor’s January budget cuts and her hiring restrictions “are the result of such decisions.”
“The Legislature should not operate from a standpoint of scarcity. Whether that means putting a pause on the regressive tax cuts from last year’s bill or finding new ways to raise money (e.g., by closing corporate loopholes or ending misguided corporate tax incentives), the Governor and Legislature can’t pretend there isn’t money available,” Cohn said. “Even more, the rainy day fund remains flush, and adding more money to it each year is not a badge of honor if it can never be used.”
He added, “When voters gave Massachusetts a Democratic trifecta, it was not out of a desire for tax cuts for the rich and hiring freezes; it was to make the Commonwealth better for all.”
Lisa Kashinsky, Kelly Garrity, and Mia McCarthy. “The fallout from Healey’s ‘hiring controls’.” Politico. April 4, 2024.
“If the governor believes that the commonwealth is facing an economic downturn that would necessitate such a freeze, she should communicate to the public what she believes is the cause of the revenue shortfall and outline how the commonwealth will protect critical investments,” Progressive Massachusetts’ Jonathan Cohn told Playbook.
Matt Stout, “‘My personal life is my personal life.’ Healey defends decision not to disclose details of four-day trip.,” Boston Globe, March 18, 2024.
Jonathan Cohn, policy director of the group Progressive Massachusetts, said while Healey shouldn’t be expected to disclose what hotel she’s staying in or other intimate details, “you should be at least willing to tell people where you went.”
“It’s a sense of accountability to the public,” Cohn said. The public “should be able to know when you’re gone for a period of time without it being somehow shrouded in mystery.”
Kelly Garrity and Lisa Kashinsky, “A Controversy of Healey’s Own Making,” Politico, March 19, 2024.
Progressive Massachusetts’ Jonathan Cohn said that while residents “don’t need to know the full itinerary of a private vacation,” it’s better to hear about it from the governor herself “than to only learn of her absence because another official is ‘acting’ governor for a few days.”
The Eagle Tribune Editorial Board. “Our View: Lawmakers Owe Constituents Light, Not Darkness.” The Eagle Tribune. March 16, 2024.
“So much of the legislative process occurs behind closed doors,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director of the group Progressive Massachusetts. “Recorded votes are a critical opportunity for legislators to show the public where they stand.