Andrew Brinker, “Two decades later, public housing is once again coming to Boston,” Boston Globe, June 13, 2023.
“Until now. Through a new but little-known federal program, some municipalities in Massachusetts are building the first new public housing units since that cap was passed, a moment many in the housing world thought might never come.”
Amy Dain, “Zoning in the Boston suburbs is stacked against families with children,” Boston Globe, June 12, 2023.
“This is why the new MBTA Communities zoning law requires Massachusetts municipalities served by the transit system to reform their zoning to allow multifamily housing “suitable for families with children.” The region has perhaps not seen local zoning reform taking place at this scale since The Boston Globe concluded in 1960 that “suburban Boston is zoned to the eyeballs.””
Jarone Lee, Angie Liou, Raymond Liu, and Audrey Nguyen, “High rents are bad for your health,” CommonWealth, June 6, 2023.
“High rental prices lead to adverse health effects. When rent becomes a source of financial strain, other universal needs like healthcare become secondary. Money allocated to rent cannot be used for crucial medical treatment. Once rents surpass families’ ability to pay, they risk eviction and homelessness, which is associated with poor birth outcomes, higher rates of suicide and mental health hospitalizations, and higher rates of all-cause mortality.”
Ellen Fleming, “Bill could help fund affordable housing in Massachusetts,” WWLP, June 6, 2023.
“The idea here is this is just to empower and enable municipalities to do what they think is best, so a lot of flexibility in this bill. The baseline really is those that are profiting the most off of this crisis should be able to contribute just a little bit to solving it.”
Jennifer Smith, “State moves to bring sex education out of the ‘90s,” CommonWealth, June 6, 2023.
“Planned Parenthood reviewed all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and ranked their sexual health curriculum and their level of abortion protections. Massachusetts is somewhat of an outlier among states that are “protective” or “very protective” of abortion care, Hart said, because the state standards for sex ed do not require education to be medically accurate, cover birth control options, include LGBTQ+ identities, or affirm abortion access.”
Erin Tiernan, “Massachusetts Senate tax relief plan earns progressive stamp of approval — to conservative chagrin,” MASSterList, June 9, 2023.
“Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, praised the Senate for “rejecting the flawed trickle-down economics that believes that tax cuts for the super-rich and large corporations, rather than investments in our state’s commonwealth, are what make our state ‘competitive.’””
Jonathan Cohn, “Letter: Mass. lawmakers have two bosses, heed one (hint: it’s not the voters),” Boston Globe, June 8, 2023.
“With Massachusetts having the least competitive elections in the country, it’s no surprise which “boss” speaks loudest to legislators, but we all lose out from the lack of urgency around the many crises our state faces, from the growing costs of child care to the affordable housing crisis to a transit system in desperate need of care.”
Bahar Amkan Imboden, Rich Levy, and Ian Rhodewalt, “Congratulations Mass. grads, but watch out for that $400m in debt,” CommonWealth, June 3, 2023.
“This spring, the graduating class of 2023 from our Massachusetts public institutions alone, which comprises both community college graduates and individuals receiving bachelor’s degrees from public higher education institutions, collectively carries a staggering debt of approximately $400 million.”
“Letters: Can MCAS be improved? Curbed? Learned from? All of the above?,” Boston Globe, June 3, 2023.
“As a parent in Lawrence, I’ve seen how state takeover disrupts students’ education with a revolving door of administrators and educators. I’ve seen how students’ learning experiences are limited by a narrow focus on test prep. But because there’s no role for local democracy in the state takeover system, there’s no way for parents to make our voices heard on these issues.”
Katie Lannan, “Supporters of sex ed bill say it’s time for Massachusetts to act,” WGBH, May 30, 2023.
“Young people across the country witness their rights and access to care and education eroding before their eyes,” Hart said. “Passing the Healthy Youth Act is one way we can step up right now to ensure that our youth today, tomorrow and in the future have the access and the means to make the best decisions for their own health and safety.”
Doug Arnett and Laura Crimaldi, “‘Are you guys going to shoot me?’ Police encounters with mentally ill people increasingly turn deadly.,” Boston Globe, June 3, 2023.
“A Globe analysis ofpolice confrontations since 2016 shows that the majority of those shot by police in Massachusetts — 51 out of 88 — were people in the throes of a mental health crisis or who had been diagnosed with mental illness. That rate has risen significantly in the years since a 2016 Spotlight Team report, “The desperate and the dead,” on police shootings of people with mental illness.”
Yvonne Abraham, “Let’s make representatives more representative of us,” Boston Globe, May 31, 2023.
“That prohibition helps keep some excellent candidates from seeking public office. And it’s embarrassing, especially in a state like Massachusetts, where we like to think of ourselves as progressive. On this particular point, we are behind Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, Montana, and some 20 other states, all of which allow candidates to claim child care costs as campaign expenditures.”
Addario Miranda, “It’s hard to learn when you’re hungry. ‘I’m living proof’,” WBUR, May 23, 2023.
“Currently, 1 in 5 households with children in our state report that they have difficulty affording food, with BIPOC families being affected the most. If Massachusetts fails to make the pandemic-era program permanent, it means 400,000 students in the commonwealth could lose access to school meals.”
Sen. Pat Jehlen, “Letter: Cries to keep the state competitive overlook data on just who’s leaving,” Boston Globe, May 30, 2023.
“Our housing crisis is largely because we have gained so much population. Competition for housing has driven up housing prices. That’s one of the main reasons cited for the loss of low-income essential workers, as multiple Globe articles have reported.”
Lisa Guisbond, “Time to end the state’s ‘test and punish’ accountability system,” CommonWealth, May 24, 2023.
“But our current MCAS-driven assessment and accountability system, instead of promoting such an education, has become a barrier to opportunity for too many students. A new bill called the Thrive Act would take down some of these barriers.”
Sen. Lydia Edwards, Sen. Adam Gomez, and Sen Liz Miranda, “Time to enact new rules for use of facial recognition software,” CommonWealth, May 24, 2023.
“After all, as senators of color, we represent communities that stand to gain the most from these recommendations becoming law. Our communities deserve safety, both from violence and from wrongful targeting by police.”
Jonathan Hecht, “Letter: House leaders made a mockery of the process in ramming through tax package,” Boston Globe, May 26, 2023.
“That tax cut’s inclusion in the tax package shows how House leaders’ complete control of the legislative process gives powerful people a back channel to advance their interests with none of the public scrutiny and participation that democracy demands.”
Editorial Board, “An unfinished piece of criminal justice reform business: Raising the age for juvenile offenders,” Boston Globe, May 25, 2023.
“Raising the age for juvenile defendants is one of those bits of unfinished business from a trailblazing piece of legislation now five years into its implementation. Today, given the state of scientific research on developing brains, the case is even stronger to keep young adults out of a prison system ill-equipped to provide the education and the rehabilitation they need. Today it’s time to try something different, something better.”
Editorial Board, “It’s time to restore legislative democracy on Beacon Hill,” Boston Globe, May 22, 2023.
“Yes, but it requires both voters and lawmakers to demand more. Legislative bodies, after all, set their own formal rules and establish or accede to their own norms. At present, both rules and norms surrender too much power to the leaders of the legislative chambers. But what’s been given could and should be taken back — if lawmakers make that, and not internal turf battles, their goal.”
Kara Miller, “Public Colleges Should Be Truly Public Again,” Boston Globe, May 18, 2023.
“We have been steadily “shifting the cost burden to students and their families,” argues Tom Harnisch, vice president for government relations at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. “There’s a real intergenerational equity issue here that I don’t think gets talked about nearly enough.””
Editorial Board, “Give in-state college tuition to undocumented immigrants,” Boston Globe, May 20, 2023.
“There are 23 states that offer in-state tuition to immigrants without legal status who graduated from their state’s high schools, according to the National Immigration Law Center. Some are liberal-leaning like California and New York, but others vote conservative, like Kansas, Texas, and Utah. Seventeen states offer state financial aid to students without legal status.”
