Testimony

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

decarceration no cost calls

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:

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

education hunger

How A Zero Carbon Renovation Fund Can Accelerate Our Transition to a Green Economy

Monday, July 17, 2023

Chair Barrett and Members of the Senate Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy:

We urge you to give a favorable report to An Act establishing a zero carbon renovation fund (H.3232), filed by Rep. Andy Vargas.

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, and the same for the dystopian impacts of raging wildfires in Canada.

Fortunately, we know what we need to do to mitigate climate change. According to the recent Massachusetts Clean Heat Commission Final Report, achieving our state’s climate goals will require retrofitting an additional 500,000 residential homes and roughly 300 million square feet of commercial buildings to utilize energy-efficient electric heating by 2030, with a pace of 20,000-25,000 home installations a year ahead of 2025, ramping up to 80,000 a year in the latter half of the decade, and over 100,000 residential homes per year thereafter. If we want to meet our goals, we need to start accelerating and scaling our actions.

This bill would allocate $300 million for a Zero Carbon Renovation Fund (ZCRF), administered by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, to jumpstart the market for zero carbon renovations. Such renovations would include (1) maximizing energy efficiency through building envelope upgrades, (2) electrification of building systems, (3) maximizing usage of on-site renewable energy, wherever possible, and (4) use of building retrofit materials that are low embodied carbon.

Importantly, this bill understands that our sustainability transition must be an equitable one, and that some of the oldest housing stock is that where low-income communities and communities of color live. Accordingly, the ZCRF would prioritize affordable housing, public housing, low- and moderate-income homes, schools, BIPOC- and women-owned businesses, and buildings located in Environmental Justice communities.

We’ve seen positive steps from Gov. Healey about investing in green retrofits, but we must scale up that work.

The Legislature has made an ongoing commitment to passing climate legislation. Last session, you took important steps to expand the wind energy industry and to decarbonize transportation, among other steps. Decarbonizing buildings must be at the center of new climate legislation, as buildings make up a large share of our carbon emissions.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

climate

“We cannot correct the inequities that we cannot see.”

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Dear Chairman Collins, Chairman Cabral, and Members of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group working to advance progressive policy here in the Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.3003: An Act ensuring equitable representation in the Commonwealth, filed by Rep. Tackey Chan and Sen. Jamie Eldridge.

The diversity in our Commonwealth is a source of our strength, and we are continuing to get more diverse. Our state programs, policies, and investments need to understand that diversity in its entirety, and that cannot happen without accurate data. The demographic groups in the Commonwealth are not monoliths, and without disaggregating the data, we risk erasing persistent social, economic, or educational inequalities.

All ethnic subgroups have different histories, background, needs, and challenges. Without accurate data broken down by detailed sub-ethnic groups, critical needs of some communities in areas such as language, economic status, education, and health could be left unmet. Indeed, they already are. We cannot correct the inequities that we cannot see, and we cannot see them without comprehensive data.

Government agencies that currently collect voluntary demographic data based on race or ethnicity of residents should include voluntary subgroup options for Asian, Pacific Islander, Latino, Black and African American, and White. This would highlight and uplift data representing communities including but not limited to Vietnamese, Cambodian, Bangladeshi, Nepalese, Haitian, Cape Verdean, Ethiopian, Somalian, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Dominicans, and Colombians. We must also recognize the diversity within the Native American, Middle Eastern, and North African communities in Massachusetts, which currently have limited recognition by the Census Bureau.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

equity

“Prisons as they are currently structured do not make us safer–they make us less safe.”

By Caroline Bays, a member of the PM Board, PM Issues Committee, and Progressive Watertown

Thank you, Mr Chairman and all of 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.

I urge you to help us look for solutions that will benefit everyone–the incarcerated people and the general public.

decarceration

Massachusetts Doesn’t Need Another Women’s Prison. Not Now, Not Ever.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Chair Collins, Chair Cabral, and Members of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight:

We urge you to give a favorable report to An Act Establishing a Jail and Prison Construction Moratorium (H. 1795 / S.1979).

Let me be clear: there is no such thing as a humane prison. As a famous adage goes, every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does. Our prison system is not designed for rehabilitation, and it is not designed for justice. It is designed for dehumanization and punishment, and no amount of branding or around-the-edges reforms can change that fact. Our prisons and jails are good at creating cycles of trauma; they are not good at creating public safety or community well-being and stability.

With this in mind, 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, which raises the question: Why expand a system that costs $235,000 per person and only causes further harm?

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. Instead, investments in housing, health care, economic opportunity, and other social supports have been shown to be the true foundation of public safety for all. Think of how much $235,000 per person can do in creating opportunity and building up communities.

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. It provides time for the Commonwealth to do the work of listening to the most impacted communities and to center, rather than sideline, their voices in policymaking.

We were very grateful last year when this committee and this Legislature passed the Prison Moratorium in last year’s session. Unfortunately, due to former Governor Charlie Baker’s veto, it 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.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

decarceration

The Location Shield Act Is Necessary to Protect Basic Privacy Rights

June 26, 2023

Chair Cronin, Chair Chan, and Members of the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure:

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.357/S.148:An Act Protecting Reproductive Health Access, LGBTQ Lives, Religious Liberty, and Freedom of Movement by Banning the Sale of Cell Phone Location Information (“the Location Shield Act”), sponsored by Representative Kate Lipper-Garabedian and Senator Cynthia S. Creem.

The dissemination, marketization, and use of technology routinely occurs faster than our ability to appropriately govern it. We can see that clearly with the case of cell phone location data. Location data, a subset of the personal data collected via cell phones, reveals information about individuals’ interests, associations, and activities—a treasure trove for corporations looking to surveil and micro-target customer behavior. We have no laws to regulate or prohibit companies from abusing or profiting from such deeply sensitive information.

A just, equitable, and democratic society depends on the preservation of a sphere of personal autonomy. We cannot have freedom of religion if people’s attendance—or lack thereof—at houses of worship is being tracked. We cannot have reproductive freedom if information about people’s trips to abortion clinics is being tracked and sold via their phone. We cannot have true freedom for the LGBTQ community if information about people’s intimate relationships is being tracked and sold. If survivors of domestic violence are not able to visit a shelter without such information being tracked and sold, or individuals in recovery are not able to seek out a substance use clinic without that information being tracked or sold, then the foundations for well-being are being eroded.

The Location Shield Act provides commonsense protections to give ordinary people robust location data privacy. These rules strike the right balance by allowing the use of data for providing useful technologies like mapping services and weather forecasts while outlawing the abusive sale of our personal device location information. By implementing these commonsense regulations, we can ensure Massachusetts residents and visitors can make use of the latest technologies without compromising their fundamental rights.

As no regulatory framework yet exists, Massachusetts has a real opportunity to be a leader, protecting the cherished privacy rights of residents of the Commonwealth while continuing our state’s track record of advancing forward-thinking policy that expands to other states and to the country as a whole.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

civil rights

Evictions Are Rapidly Rising. The Legislature Needs to Act.

Monday, June 26, 2023

Chair Edwards, Chair Arciero, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing:

We urge you to give a favorable report to S.856 and H.1312: The Upstream RAFT Act, sponsored by Sen. Brendan Crighton and Rep. Marjorie Decker. This bill would improve access to the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition program (RAFT), restore COVID-era protections, and codify the RAFT program into state statute.

We often hear rhetoric about the housing crisis in Massachusetts. According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, it would take more than 90 hours working at minimum wage to afford a modest 1-bedroom rental home in Massachusetts at Fair Market Rent. With the cost of housing so high, housing insecurity abounds. According to data from the Eviction Lab, the number of evictions in Boston jumped significantly over the past year and is now higher than pre-COVID levels, disproportionately affecting Black and Brown families.

Addressing our housing crisis requires a vast array of policy reforms, but at the most basic level, we must take swift action in the near term to curb the growth of displacement. The RAFT program is a lifeline for low-income families, providing emergency, short-term financial assistance for low-income tenants who are at risk of eviction—regardless of immigration status. During the pandemic, this emergency assistance saved many families from homelessness.

But the program has also failed to reach its full potential because of barriers to access, and the Upstream RAFT bill seeks to address them. This bill eliminates the requirement of a “notice to quit” so that tenants can access assistance before a housing emergency becomes an eviction. Many tenants mistake a “notice to quit” for an eviction, losing out not only on their home but also on the supports the state can provide them.

It eliminates the arbitrary $10,000 annual cap on assistance and adopts a 12-month limit instead: tenants are not the ones to blame for rising rents, and they should not be punished for it.

It further reduces obstacles by providing workarounds to enable tenants with uncooperative landlords to receive assistance. No tenant should have to depend on their landlord to receive essential assistance for housing security.

And lastly, the bill would codify the RAFT program into statute in order to add long-term stability to a vital program.

We urge you to act swiftly and advance S.856 and H.312 to improve housing stability in the Commonwealth.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

housing

Universities and Hospitals Should Pay Their Fair Share. PILOT Reform Would Help.

Thursday, July 23, 2023

Chair Moran, Chair Cusack, and Members of the Joint Committee on Revenue:

We urge a favorable report for H.2963 and S.1836: An Act relative to payments in lieu of taxation by organizations exempt from the property tax (Rep. Uyterhoeven & Sen. Gomez).

Massachusetts is lucky to be home to many world-class hospitals and universities. But these large institutions, despite often operating indistinguishably from for-profit institutions, do not have to pay taxes. Given their large footprint, that is a fiscal drain for many communities across the Commonwealth, especially as communities are looking to find much-needed funds for investments in schools, housing, and infrastructure.

This bill would address this discrepancy by requiring large hospitals and universities to pay 25% of commercial property taxes to municipalities, based on the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement in Boston. Under this bill, municipalities could opt in to requiring a mandatory PILOT rather than having to engage in drawn-out negotiations or chasing down institutions one by one.

Why 25%? This number reflects the costs posed by such large institutions to municipal services like police, fire departments, and departments of public works. It is still a good deal for the institutions, who are still paying far less in property taxes than an individual would have to pay. And, by applying only to institutions with property worth over $15 million, the bill would avoid risking any adverse impact on smaller institutions.

We need to be empowering municipalities to take action to address the many crises before us, but they need the funds to do so. Our cities and towns are severely limited in how they can raise funds, as municipal budgets are disproportionately based on property taxes—and we are stuck living in the misguided Reagan-era holdover of a “Prop 2 ½” regime. If our cities and towns have wealthy institutional neighbors, they shouldn’t be forced to be stuck in struggling fiscal straits.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

revenue

If Cities and Towns Want to Deepen Democracy, We Should Let Them.

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Chairman Keenan, Chairman Ryan, and Members of the Joint Committee on Election Laws:

At a time when democracy is under attack in many states, municipalities across Massachusetts are instead seeking to strengthen democracy by expanding both who can participate in our elections and how reflective of the electorate the outcomes are. We ask you to allow them to take the lead by giving a favorable report to several enabling bills:

H.725: An Act ensuring municipal power over whether elections are reformed
S.438: An Act ensuring municipal participation of the widest eligible range
H.706/S.415: An Act extending voting rights in municipal elections to noncitizen voters of the Commonwealth
H.711/S.433: An Act providing a local option for ranked choice voting in municipal elections

Enabling Municipalities to Expand the Local Electorate: S.438, H.706, S.415

Cities and towns across the Commonwealth have also sought to expand representation in local elections, by extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds or legal non-citizens. The case for both is clear.

With the voting age at 18, many experience their first time voting when they are away at college, often voting by absentee back home if at all. 16 and 17-year-olds, by contrast, know their local polling locations well: they are the elementary schools, the middle schools, the high schools, the town halls, the libraries. They feel the impact of a school committee election directly. And they can get a powerful experience of democracy in action, which is the best civic education.

Similarly, voting and civic engagement are ways of integrating new community members and strengthening the whole community. Non-citizen parent involvement in school affairs (through school committee elections) can increase students’ academic performance, and democracy works best when all communities are reflected in governance.

Moreover, both teen voting and all-resident voting embody the basic principle of no taxation with representation.

Ranked Choice Voting Local Option: H.711/S.433

When voters get to the ballot box, they can face complicated choices. Our first-past-the-post system forces ordinary voters to weigh whether they can vote for their preferred candidate or whether doing so would lead to a “spoiler effect” that gives a candidate they like less a clearer path to victory. This same dynamic can lead candidates and their supporters to try to force similar candidates out of a race due to a fear of “vote splitting.”

Within the current system, the ultimate winner may command less than a majority support, a contradiction of a basic tenet of democracy and a far too common occurrence in Massachusetts elections. Ranked Choice Voting would eliminate these problems by enabling voters to rank the order of their preferences on the ballot and ensuring that whoever wins does so with majority support.

Although the ballot initiative to implement Ranked Choice Voting for state and county elections did not pass, the measure did pass in 78 municipalities in varying parts of the Commonwealth. If such municipalities wish to adopt Ranked Choice Voting for local elections, they should not have to face undue hurdles to doing so.

The number of cities and towns passing home rule petitions on these three issues grows every year, and yet such petitions continue to die in the Legislature. We urge you to stop being a roadblock to democracy and pass these enabling bills.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

election modernization voting rights