This week, Progressive Mass joined a coalition of over 100 groups from across the Commonwealth in joint testimony to the House and Senate Committees on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy in support of legislation to put a pause on new gas infrastructure.
PM Joins Coalition of 20 Organizations Calling for Elimination of Fines and Fees in the Juvenile Justice System
This week, Progressive Mass joined a coalition of 20 organizations from the Massachusetts Coalition for Juvenile Justice Reform in a letter to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary in support of legislation to eliminate fines and fees in the juvenile justice system.
As the joint letter notes, “By eliminating the remaining eight fines and fees imposed on juveniles, it will firmly root the juvenile court process on conditions based on the developmentally appropriate needs of youth and not on their financial status.”
A “Yes in My Backyard” Call from Newton
From Bill Humphrey, Progressive Newton
Thank you to Chairman Arciero, Chairwoman Edwards, and other esteemed members of the Committee for hosting a hearing and collecting written testimony. I am submitting testimony on behalf of Progressive Newton (which I chair) and in my individual capacity as a Newton City Councilor in support of The Yes in My Backyard Bill (HB1379/SB858). Progressive Newton supports affordable, high-quality housing in safe, walkable, and vibrant neighborhoods and supports affirmatively furthering fair housing to ensure everyone has equal access to housing.
Specifically I wish to offer insights into two provisions of this legislation that have already essentially been adopted in Newton. The first concerns Accessory Dwelling Units and the second concerns Inclusionary Zoning.
The City of Newton in 2022 adopted local zoning changes to make it much easier to build Accessory Dwelling Units, and this new system is similar to that proposed statewide by The Yes in My Backyard Bill (HB1379/SB858). These smaller, separated units of housing on existing lots, usually primarily occupied by a Single-Family Home, not only add to our overall housing stock without much wider impact, but they also specifically help families find proximate housing for elder relatives and adult children (including those with disabilities) or help “big house” elder owner-occupants find a bit of extra rental income to be able to stay in their homes longer or to be able to afford historic preservation (especially if the unit is a traditional carriage house). These ADUs have not always been easy to build or set up under local rules, and this has discouraged them from being created. This legislation will help correct this on a consistent basis across the Commonwealth. It will allow more multi-generational families to live together, enable new incomes for owner-occupants of older homes, and facilitate additional units of new housing across Massachusetts with a smaller effect on existing neighborhoods than some larger development projects that sometimes generate more controversy.
The City of Newton has also already adopted ambitious but fair and rational Inclusionary Zoning targets, which promote the creation of more affordable units than ever before in market-rate projects but without economically discouraging overall production of housing in a substantial way. The Yes in My Backyard Bill (HB1379/SB858) establishes a reasonable compromise at a state level, by proposing that “The Department of Housing and Community Development shall be responsible for developing guidelines to ensure that municipalities do not adopt inclusionary zoning ordinances or bylaws that [unduly] constrain the production of housing in that community.”
Many other provisions in the legislation are also things presently being explored as potential local changes in Newton, but these two points are steps Newton has already taken, and they have been widely supported.
City Councilor Bill Humphrey
Newton MA 02468
Passing the Prison Moratorium and Ending Life without Parole Go Hand in Hand
Massachusetts Judiciary Joint Committee
Testimony for S.1979/H.1795 and An Act to Reduce Mass Incarceration, (S.1045 / H.1821),
Caroline Bays, Watertown Massachusetts
Dear Chairs Eldridge and Day,
Thank you for hearing my testimony today on S.1979 / H.1795, an act that would establish a five-year moratorium on building new prisons.
I am usually before you as a Watertown city councilor or as a board member on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts. But today I am here on behalf of my dear friend who has spent the last 16 of his 35 years in prison.
Six years ago, I had a life-changing event when I was asked to visit this young man who was experiencing a mental health crisis. As a result, I have seen up close how dysfunctional, counter-productive, and destructive prisons are to the human beings who live within those walls.
Prisons no longer even pay lip service to rehabilitation; they are designed purely for punishment. They no longer try to help people get back on their feet and become productive members of our society. The stories I have heard–the danger, harm, cruelty, and viciousness he has experienced are destructive not just to him but to our society and who we are as a state.
Prisons as they are currently structured do not make us safer–they make us less safe. And we are harming the most vulnerable members of our society–people who need help. We are putting people who are mentally ill in prison; we are putting people who are addicted to drugs in prison; we are putting people who are experiencing dire poverty in prison.
Since when did we decide that it was morally right to treat those who need our help as criminals and deny them the support and treatment they need? Whom does it help? This is cruel to those impacted and actually decreases our safety.
In addition I also ask you to support An Act to Reduce Mass Incarceration (S.1045 / H.1821). These bills go hand in hand because ending life without parole and the imprisonment of people who committed crimes when they were teenagers not only counters everything we know about human development, it unnecessarily imprisons people who are perfectly safe to release back into the community. In addition these sentences are disproportionately imposed on people of color. Please pass these necessary next steps in order to create a more just and equitable society.
I urge you to help us look for solutions that will benefit everyone–the incarcerated people and the general public. We have an opportunity to truly change how our society manages public safety. The creation of prisons has not only failed to end crime, by disconnecting people from their families, education, jobs and societal support, mass incarceration has actually been responsible for an increase in criminal infractions. Let’s be the state that shows how to end this cycle of incarceration and create solutions that really do lead to healing – of individuals and our community. Thank you for your time.
Time to Leave Fossil Fuels in the Ground
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Chair Barrett and Members of the Senate Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.
We urge you to give a favorable report to S.2135/H.3237 (Gomez, Williams, & Ramos): An Act establishing a moratorium on new gas system expansion.
This summer has been an ongoing series of warning signs of the need to take bold and comprehensive action on climate change. Earlier this month, from July 3 to July 6, we experienced the four hottest days on record globally. We have seen extreme flooding hit neighboring states as well as our own, and the same for the dystopian impacts of raging wildfires in Canada.
This should serve as a wake-up call that our response to climate change, despite recent progress, is not enough. We have known for many years now that the majority of fossil fuels must be left in the ground if we are to have even a chance of staying within safe boundaries of global warming.
The state has a commendable goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, but we will not be able to reach that if we continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure in the Commonwealth.
These bills would establish a moratorium on new gas system expansion. The moratorium, which would last at least through 2026, would create time to work out a plan for what a just transition looks like and would prevent us from rushing into new infrastructure that, if we are to meet our own goals, cannot and will not be used.
Pipelines are built to be used, and we should avoid creating the lock-in effect for unsustainable fuels that are harmful to human and environmental health.
We need to say farewell to fossil fuels and give our full embrace to the suite of policies needed for an equitable and ecologically resilient future.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
Let’s Support Open Government with Transparency and Hybrid Meeting Access.
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Chair Collins, Chair Cabral, and Members of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group with chapters across the state committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.
We urge you to give a favorable report to H.3040 / S.2024: An Act to Modernize Participation in Public Meetings (Rep. Garlick & Sen. Lewis) and S.2064: An Act extending the public records law to the Governor and the Legislature (Sen. Rausch).
Modern Open Meeting Access for All
Since early 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Legislature has suspended provisions of the Open Meeting Law to enable public bodies to carry out their responsibilities remotely, with virtual access and participation by the public. As in-person gatherings were able to safely restart, many public bodies have shifted toward hybrid meetings, enabling both in-person and remote attendance by both officials and the public.
Such hybrid meetings have been a boon to public participation. Remote access has removed obstacles facing working people, parents of young children, other caregivers, people with disabilities, people with limited transportation, among many other populations who may not be able to travel to a city or town hall or spend hours waiting for their time to speak. Yet retaining a robust in-person component recognizes the value of in-person discussion and deliberation to democracy and ensures that unreliable Internet access, common in rural and low-income urban areas, is not a barrier to participating in our democracy.
Although the Legislature recently extended the option for hybrid meetings until 2025, we should not be relying on piecemeal extensions but instead reform Open Meeting Law for twenty-first-century democracy and technology. H.3040/S.2024 provides a path for doing so, recognizing both the importance of open government and the needs cities and towns face in making that a reality.
Expanding Public Records Law
In the 2016 public record reform law, the Legislature created a commission to explore whether to expand the public records law to the Legislature and the Governor’s office, but that commission ended up yielding no formal report. Massachusetts remains the only state in the US where both the executive and legislative branch of state government claim full exemption from public records law. The same governing bodies that require cities and towns to adhere to strict Open Meeting Law rules exempt themselves from even a basic level of transparency.
As other state governments understand, making executive records like calendars, emails and texts, visitor logs, and call logs accessible is key to accountability: when such documents are fully kept secret, the public is left in the dark about whom the Governor is meeting and why, and what they are prioritizing.
The difficulty in obtaining information from the Massachusetts Legislature not only makes our state an outlier but also stifles the democratic process. The majority of states make committee votes electronically available, including states like California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, and Oregon. And states like Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, and Oregon make committee testimony fully available to the public.
The most moneyed interests are those who benefit from closed, hierarchical systems because they will always be able to work their way behind closed doors—whereas the public and researchers are rarely so lucky. Openness helps foster social trust: open government should be viewed as part and parcel of the work of civics education that has bipartisan support in the State House.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
Let’s Learn from the Pandemic and Pass the Community Immunity Act.
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Dear Chair Cyr, Chair Decker, and Members of the Joint Committee on Public Health:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.
We urge you to give a favorable report to H.2151/S.1458: An Act promoting community immunity.
If we want to be ready for the next pandemic, or even just ready for the next outbreak of a disease we thought we were decades past, we need to be strengthening and standardizing our infrastructure for immunization. We need to leave the past three years with lessons borne out in policy.
A look at our current immunization infrastructure leaves much to be desired. We currently lack full and accurate reporting on vaccination rates among young people, relying instead on voluntary surveys of schools, summer camps, colleges, and daycares. The limited data available show alarming rates of under- and unimmunized children in communities across the Commonwealth. To put that into perspective, in the current school year, more than 200 high schools, more than 200 middle schools, more than 200 elementary schools, and more than 1,600 child care centers and preschools failed to report any immunization data to state public health officials. Of the kindergarten programs that submitted data, 152 lacked herd immunity to protect against the spread of measles, and 15 lacked herd immunity to protect against the spread of polio.
We cannot fix a problem without a full and accurate read of it, and the Community Immunity Act’s data reporting requirements are a key first step. But the bill, as necessary, goes further, with targeted education and outreach about vaccine safety and efficacy and standardization and centralization of vaccination protocols. Standardized state-level policies determined by public health officials are crucial when determining exemptions if we are to make sure that medical and religious exemptions are not abused and that local superintendents are not overburdened.
We ask that you swiftly advance the Community Immunity Act out of the Public Health Committee with a favorable report. Please help to keep all of us safe and healthy, particularly people who are immunocompromised and rely on community immunity.
Thank you for your consideration and your service to the people of the Commonwealth.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
We Need More Housing, and We Need More Affordable Housing.
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Chair Edwards, Chair Arciero, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group with chapters across the state committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.
We urge you to give a favorable report to H.1379/S.858: An Act relative to yes in my backyard and S.870: An Act to improve the housing development incentive program.
Massachusetts faces a growing affordable housing crisis. To rent the average 2-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts requires an income equal to $41.64 per hour. [1] Home ownership has become increasingly out of reach, as median housing sale price in Metro Boston nears $1 million. [2] We need action, and we need to be using every tool in the toolbox to make our state more affordable for all.
If we want to see more homes, and more affordable homes, being built, then we need to reform our zoning laws. According to a recent analysis by the Eviction Lab, Massachusetts metro areas accounted for 3 of the top 10 metro areas with the most restrictive zoning laws. Such restrictive zoning laws push up costs and reinforce residential segregation: indeed, according to census data, more than 60 percent of Massachusetts’s Black population lives in just ten cities.
The MBTA Communities law, recently passed and currently being implemented by cities and towns, can make a dent, but we need more ambitious and comprehensive policy. H.1379/S.858 would require multifamily zoning and remove costly parking mandates around public transportation, encouraging dense, transit-oriented development that is good for climate and good for communities. It would also expedite the process of converting unused state-owned land into affordable housing or vacant commercial properties into multifamily housing, among many other steps.
We also need to make sure that we are building more affordable housing, and S.870 would reform the Housing Development Incentive Program to ensure that it actually does so. Currently, the HDIP program subsidizes units with shockingly high rents in hot markets in little need of the “carrot” of tax incentives. [3] The program needs to be refocused to where it can have clear benefits for surrounding communities and to design mixed-income housing that addresses the full range of housing needs in our gateway cities.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
[1] National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Massachusetts.” Accessed July 25, 2023. https://nlihc.org/oor/state/ma.
[2] Kohli, Diti. “The Typical House in Greater Boston Now Costs $900,000. Here’s What That’ll Buy You in the Rest of America.” Boston Globe. July 20, 2022. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/20/business/typical-house-greater-boston-now-costs-900000-heres-what-thatll-buy-you-rest-america/.
[3] https://www.masslegalservices.org/content/MLRI_HDIP_Report_12_15_22.
Let’s finish the wins for No Cost Calls and the Prison Moratorium.
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Chair Eldridge, Chair Day, and Members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.
We urge you to give a favorable report to H.1795: An Act establishing a jail and prison construction moratorium and H.1796: An Act relative to telephone service for inmates in all correctional and other penal institutions in the Commonwealth.
We were very grateful last session when the Legislature passed the Prison Moratorium and No Cost Calls. Unfortunately, due to vetoes from Governor Baker, they did not become law. It is just as urgent to finish the job this session, and we urge you to advance these bills as swiftly as possible and to strengthen the No Cost Calls language in the FY 2024 budget currently under negotiation.
H1795: The Prison Moratorium
If you have not yet watched the testimony from women at MCI-Framingham during the State Administration & Regulatory Oversight hearing on the Prison Moratorium, please do. The Committee had the opportunity to hear from the most directly impacted individuals, and their testimony was powerful.
We find it deeply misguided that Massachusetts is considering spending $50 million on a new women’s prison. As of January 1, 2022, the population in MCI-Framingham stood at 179, with more than 20% held in pre-trial detention. In part as a result of sentencing reforms, Massachusetts’s incarceration rate has been falling, and the population at MCI-Framingham could be reduced further through tools such as medical parole.
Studies have repeatedly shown that society cannot incarcerate its way to safety, and the family separation of incarceration and the well-documented inhumane conditions in Massachusetts’s prisons and jails fuel the community instability that is detrimental to public safety. Think of how much we could do for expanding economic stability and opportunity with that $50 million, rather than creating a new prison. The five-year moratorium in this bill recognizes that such alternative visions of public safety exist on the ground, and they merit investment and experimentation and scaling.
H1796: No Cost Calls
Choosing between paying rent or buying groceries and being able to connect with loved ones is a decision no one should be forced to make, but Massachusetts is currently forcing this dilemma on thousands of families across the Commonwealth. Families are being charged exorbitant fees to maintain vital connections with incarcerated loved ones — a regressive tax on the most vulnerable populations of the Commonwealth.
While only 21 percent of the state’s population is Black or Latinx, more than 54 percent of the people imprisoned by the Department of Corrections are. Black and Latinx children are, respectively, nine and three times more likely than White children to have a parent in prison. As communities already struggle with the high cost of housing, health care, and transportation, no one should be forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries and maintaining contact with loved ones.
Moreover, punitive policies targeted at the families of incarcerated individuals leave us all worse off: numerous studies have shown that contact with loved ones promotes lower recidivism rates and successful reentry.
Additional Bills
We would further like to go on the record in support of the following bills:
- H.1401/S.997: An Act relative to Massachusetts state sovereignty
- H.1688/S.959: An Act to Prevent the Imposition of Mandatory Minimum Sentences Based on Juvenile Adjudications
- H.1821/S.1045: An Act to reduce mass incarceration
- H.3956: An Act creating an independent correctional oversight office to facilitate the recommendations of the Special Legislative Commission on Structural Racism in Correctional Facilities of the Commonwealth
- H.1461: An Act relative to juvenile fees, fines, and restitution
Thank you for all your work in organizing this hearing.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
We’ve Seen the Success of Universal School Meals. Let’s Make Them Permanent.
Monday, July 17, 2023
Chair Lewis, Chair Garlick, and Members of the Joint Committee on Education:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group committed to fighting for an equitable, just, democratic, and sustainable Commonwealth.
We urge you to give a favorable report to H.603 and S.261: An Act relative to universal school meals.
Over 1 in 5 households with children in Massachusetts are struggling to put food on the table. School meals take the pressure off family budgets and allow families to put food on the table day-to-day.
Ensuring that students receive proper nutrition would reduce health care costs, improve student attendance, improve socio-emotional health, and improve student performance. It’s simple: if basic needs are not met, higher-level functions are more difficult. You can’t do well on a test if your number one though is the growl in your stomach.
We have seen the success of universal school meals already, and we are grateful for past extensions of universal school meals by the Legislature in recognition of the success. It’s time to make universal school meals permanent.
California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont have heeded the data and done so already. Let’s join them.
Please give a favorable report to these bills and urge the Budget Conference Committee to include permanent universal school meals in the FY 2024 budget currently being negotiated.
Thank you for your work on this.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts