We’re proud to announce our legislative agenda for the 2023-2024 legislative session. You can contact your legislators about these bills here. And check out additional bills that we have endorsed at progressivemass.com/agenda.
Our Shared Prosperity Agenda
Protecting the Fair Share Victory
We had a big win last November with the Fair Share Amendment, and for the Fair Share Amendment to deliver on its full potential, we need to prevent tax evasion and ensure any proposed tax reform package is progressive.
- Statutory Protections for FSA Revenue: SD.1166 (Lewis) / HD.2236 (O’Day): An Act to protect the intent of the Fair Share Amendment, which would prevent Fair Share revenue from being diverted to tax giveaways or reserves, so it is available for spending on transportation and education as voters intended
- Preventing FSA Tax Evasion: SD.1167 (Lewis) / HD.2310 (O’Day): An Act preventing high-income tax avoidance, which would prevent tax avoidance of the Fair Share Amendment by requiring, as many other states do, couples who file jointly at the federal level to file jointly at the state level as well
- Fiscally Responsible Estate Tax Reform: SD.1114 (Cyr) & SD.888 (Jehlen) / HD.1465 (Uyterhoeven): An Act relative to estate tax reform, which would preserve most of the revenue-generation, inequality-reduction, and fairness benefits of the estate tax, while eliminating the current cliff effect
- A Targeted Charitable Deduction: SD.1596 (Eldridge) / HD.3073 (Uyterhoeven): An Act to reform the charitable deduction, which would make the charitable deduction more targeted by limiting it to individuals who are not already getting such a deduction on their federal taxes
- Corporate Tax Disclosure: SD.1038 (Miranda) / HD.751 (Capano): An Act to require public disclosures by publicly-traded corporate taxpayers, which would make publicly accessible reports that are already filed annually by publicly-traded corporations, detailing their sales, profits, taxable income, and taxes paid
- Taxing offshored “GILTI” income: SD.1541 (Rausch) / HD.388 (Barber / Uyterhoeven): An Act to close corporate tax loopholes and create progressive revenue, which would tax, as other states and the federal government do, a portion of the profits that multinational corporations who do business in MA shift to offshore tax havens
- Increasing the Corporate Tax Rate: SD.508 (DiDomenico) / HD.2758 (Keefe): An Act relative to restoring corporate tax rates, which would restore the tax on corporate profits to 9.5%, where it was before 2009, from the existing 8.0% rate
- Tiered Corporate Minimum Tax: SD.677 (Gomez) / HD.418 (Connolly): An Act establishing a tiered corporate minimum tax, which would ensure that larger corporations pay a minimum corporate tax bill in proportion to the size of their business in MA, while small businesses continue paying the current corporate minimum tax of just $456 per year
Ensuring Livable Wages for All
We won a $15 minimum wage, but that has already been eroded due to inflation, and too many people are forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
- Living Wage: SD.2032 (Lewis): An Act relative to raise the minimum wage closer to a living wage in the Commonwealth / HD.3965 (Nguyen / Donahue): An Act relative to the minimum wage, which would raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour over four years and indexes it to inflation to better align the minimum age with a living wage
A High-Quality Education for All
Everyone deserves access to a high-quality education, from pre-K to higher ed, and our state has the resources to make that happen.
- Common Start: SD.667 (Lewis/Moran) / HD.2794 (Gordon/Madaro): An Act providing affordable and accessible high-quality early education and care to promote child development and well-being and support the economy in the Commonwealth, which would establish a framework for delivering increased access to affordable, high-quality early education and child care with greater investment in providers, better pay for workers, and a cap on costs for families
- Thrive Act: SD.2067 (Comerford/Miranda/Gomez) / HD. 3162 (Hawkins/Montaño): An act empowering students and schools to thrive, which would create a better system of assessment, support, accountability, and improvement that considers the whole child, and focuses on giving students and educators the tools and resources they need to succeed and thrive, replacing the harmful and failed state takeover policy
- CHERISH Act: SD.2092 (Comerford) / HD.2755 (Garballey/Duffy): An Act committing to higher education the resources to insure a strong and healthy public higher education system, which would create a framework for adequate funding levels for public higher education, including increased student support and better pay and benefits for faculty and staff; implement a debt-free college plan; and create a plan for green and healthy buildings on campus
Housing for All
Massachusetts offers a great quality of life, but only if you can afford to live here. We need to embrace a diverse set of tools to address our state’s housing crisis.
- Real Estate Transfer Fee: SD.1982 (Comerford) / HD.2857 (Connolly): An Act granting a local option for a real estate transfer fee to fund affordable housing, which would enable cities and towns to assess a fee of 0.5-2% on residential and commercial real estate transactions, with the funds allocated to affordable housing trust funds
- HERO Bill: SD.1226 (Eldridge) / HD.2510 (Montaño): An Act providing for climate change adaptation infrastructure and affordable housing investments in the commonwealth, which would increase the deeds excise tax on home sales to provide a funding stream for the Global Warming Solutions Fund, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and the Housing Preservation and Stabilization Fund
- Zoning Reform: SD.2006 (Crighton) / HD.3252 (Vargas/Honan): An Act to promote yes in my back yard, which would set a statewide housing production goal, allow multi-family housing to be built near public transportation, make it easier for municipalities to pass inclusionary zoning ordinances, allow accessory dwelling units to be built as-of-right, and promote the use of vacant commercial properties and empty state-owned properties for housing
Our Racial and Social Justice Agenda
We need to move past a punitive model of mass incarceration and toward rehabilitation and community stability; recognize the full diversity and potential of our immigrant populations; and ground education in inclusion and respect.
- No Cost Calls: SD.1441 (Creem): An Act to keep families connected / HD.822 (Tyler): An Act relative to telephone service for inmates in all correctional and other penal institutions in the Commonwealth, which would prevent prisons and jails from charging individuals who are incarcerated for phone calls to loved ones
- Prison Moratorium: SD.661 (Comerford) / HD.799 (Tyler): An Act establishing a jail and prison construction moratorium, which would enact a five-year pause on new prison and jail construction in order to provide time to develop more effective, community-based approaches to public safety
- Raising the Age: SD.428 (Crighton) / HD.3510 (O’Day / Cruz): An Act to promote public safety and better outcomes for young adults, which would raise the age of criminal majority to 21, allowing youth to have better access to treatment and educational services and thereby reducing recidivism
- Language Access & Inclusion: SD.1066 (DiDomenico) / HD.3616 (Madaro/González): An Act relative to language access and inclusion, which would build the capacity of key public-facing state agencies to meet the language access needs of an increasingly diverse population by standardizing and enforcing language access protocols and practices
- Healthy Youth Act: SD.2199 (DiDomenico) / HD.3874 (O’Day / Howard): An Act relative to healthy youth, which would require school districts that provide sex education to ensure that it is comprehensive, age-appropriate, and LGBTQ-inclusive, with an emphasis on consent
Our Sustainable Infrastructure and Environmental Protection Agenda
Massachusetts has ambitious climate goals, but we won’t meet them without aggressive steps to transition to renewable energy and invest in a green and just economy.
- Polluter Pays: SD.2366 (Eldridge) / HD.3460 (Owens): An Act establishing a climate change superfund and promoting polluter responsibility, which would require fossil-fuel producers to fund the state’s climate adaptation programs based on past emissions, a proposal that would extend the long-standing “polluter pays” principle for toxic waste cleanups to addressing climate change
- Zero-Carbon Renovation Fund: SD.500 (Gomez) / HD.776 (Vargas): An Act establishing a zero carbon renovation fund, which would create a fund for green and healthy home retrofits, with a prioritization of affordable housing, low-to-moderate-income homes, gateway cities, and environmental justice communities
- Gas Moratorium: SD.1925 (Gomez) / HD.3794 (Williams / A. Ramos): An Act to establishing a moratorium on new gas system expansion, which would pause the approval for any new or expanded gas infrastructure through 2026
Our Good Government and Strong Democracy Agenda
Our democracy is strongest when all are able to participate, and we need to remove the barriers that remain.
- Voting Rights Restoration: SD.1037 & SD.1464 (Miranda) / HD.3153 & HD.3188 (Uyterhoeven): An Act relative to voting rights restoration & Proposal for a legislative amendment to the Constitution relative to voting rights, which would ensure that incarceration no longer leads to a loss of voting rights at any stage
- Modern Open Meeting Access for All: SD.2017 (Lewis) /HD.3261 (Garlick): An Act to modernize participation in public meetings, which would require that all public bodies have options for hybrid participation and create a trust fund and competitive grants to help municipalities with the technology needed to do so
- Public Records & Transparency: SD.131 (Eldridge): An Act to provide sunlight to state government, which would promote transparency in state government by removing the Governor’s exemption from public records law and requiring committee votes and legislative testimony (with appropriate redactions) to be public
