PM in the News: What’s the Matter with Mass?

Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn was quoted in a recent article in The New Republic on the state of the Massachusetts Democratic Party:

Jonathan Cohn, an organizer with Progressive Mass and dedicated chronicler of the state party, tells The New Republic that in order to understand why it’s so difficult for progressives to build power in the Bay State, one must first come to grips with Massachusetts’s underlying political ideology. “People think Massachusetts isn’t a terrain of conflict or struggle because they conceptualize conflict only through nationalized fights of Democrats versus Republicans, and we don’t have those kinds of fights because we have a nonexistent Republican Party and plenty of Democrats in our legislative supermajority whose voting records align with moderate Republicans,” he says.

…“You don’t have big donors or outside progressive groups mobilizing electorally here, because everyone’s under the impression that we’re all just living happily in this liberal utopia,” Cohn says.

“Then you also have Charlie Baker, who nobody is willing to attack outright,” he says. “Whether for his vetoes, or for his regressive stance on basic social welfare policies, everybody in the state is terrified of his approval rating, and so it keeps growing even as he continues to attack progressive policies and voices.”

…..

“If you are a wealthy, educated, socially liberal person, you align with the Democratic Party in most places, but Baker is a great asset for your fiscal conservatism,” Cohn says. “This is the kind of person that really defines the voice of The Boston Globe editorial board: They represent the mindset of white, upper-middle-class, inner-ring suburbia—socially liberal but into the idea that a friendly Republican governor is a check on a runaway Democratic legislative branch.”

Let’s Talk about the House

With the retirement of Speaker Bob DeLeo imminent, news reports have asserted that House Majority Leader Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) already has the votes lined up to be Speaker–something that has been an open secret for years.

If you’ve been worried about the conservative and authoritarian drift of the MA House under Speaker Bob DeLeo, you should be even more worried about what’s to come under a Speaker Ron Mariano, who is more conservative than DeLeo and no less top-down in his approach to legislating.

Legislators who have not yet pledged their support should be asking hard questions about whether Ron Mariano plans to ensure a vote on the Fair Share Amendment next year (given his past opposition to it), whether he plans to diversify the all-white and almost-all-male House Leadership team, and whether he will ensure that important climate and housing legislation gets passed before this year’s session runs out.

With the economic depression we’re facing as a Commonwealth, progressive legislators need to work together to make concrete demands on Leadership for both bold policy and open process, or we’ll just end up seeing more of the same.

CommonWealth: A New Rules Fight

CommonWealth’s Shira Schoenberg wrote about Speaker Robert DeLeo’s short-lived effort to take advantage of the pandemic to make a more top-down House:

Several progressive activists also voiced their concerns about the proposal, even as they generally praised the decision to move to remote voting. Jonathan Cohn, issues chair of Progressive Massachusetts, a group that frequently calls for more transparency at the State House, said requiring the approval of 16 members for a roll call vote is already a higher threshold than what most other states require. “Raising it to 40 is just a way of saying we don’t want these to happen, period,” Cohn said.

Boston Globe: A Legislature as Slow as Ever

The Boston Globe‘s Matt Stout and Victoria McGrane wrote about the glacial pace of lawmaking in Beacon Hill during the pandemic:

That glacial law-making pace has long defined Beacon Hill, said Jonathan Cohn of the group Progressive Massachusetts. “But it’s especially striking when you have a moment of crisis that requires bold action . . . and it’s just slow moving.”

CommonWealth: A Secretive Committee Process

PM Issues Committee chairman Jonathan Cohn was quoted in Shira Schoenberg’s new CommonWealth piece on the MA House’s secretive committee process:

Jonathan Cohn, head of the issues committee for the liberal organizing group Progressive Massachusetts, voiced dismay at the lack of transparency and said he has also had mixed experiences – able to get vote totals from some committees, but not from others.

“The problem with the system as it exists is that legislators are able to kill bills giving everyone clean hands afterwards,” Cohn said. “It’s people’s jobs to take votes. They should be willing to defend those votes to their constituents.”

According to Cohn’s research, 26 states make committee votes public on a legislative website.

CommonWealth: “Beware of Rodrigues’s ‘boring middle’”

PM Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn penned an editorial in CommonWealth about the new Senate Ways & Means chair:

OVER THE PAST few legislative sessions, progressives have looked to the Massachusetts Senate as a beacon of progressive policymaking. Across a range of issues, the Senate has been willing to pass bold and expansive bills that end up watered down—or dead on arrival—in the more conservative, top-down House.

However, Senate President Karen Spilka’s choice of Sen. Michael Rodrigues to chair the powerful Senate Ways & Means Committee should give progressives everywhere pause. Although the Westport Democrat describes himself as part of the “boring middle,” much of Rodrigues’s record locates him squarely on the right.

CommonWealth: A New Year’s Resolution

PM Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn and Act on Mass co-founder Matt Miller penned an editorial for CommonWealth calling on progressive state reps to stand for more roll call votes:

THERE WAS SOMETHING different about the start of this legislative session in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. It wasn’t the composition: Yes, Democrats did manage to flip two seats, but a slightly more overwhelming super-majority isn’t much of a sea change.

It was that Democrats were actually willing to stand up and demand a recorded vote on something.

On January 30, a handful of Democrats committed to demand recorded votes on a series of transparency amendments from Rep. Jon Hecht of Watertown. The content of the amendments would have been noncontroversial to the average voter—giving representatives more time to read bills and amendments, publishing the testimony that interest groups submit on bills, and posting the roll call votes taken behind closed doors in committees online. Simple, right?

Representatives spoke both in favor and against each amendment, and they took a roll call vote. Although the amendments unfortunately went down, the public process is how most people imagine that democracy works: Legislators debate vigorously and then go on record for what they believe in.

But that has become exceedingly rare.

“Sexual Harassment Occurs in the State House every single day.”

The #MeToo movement brought national attention to how pervasive sexual assault and sexual harassment are across institutions and industries, but anyone who ever worked or advocated in the Massachusetts State House already knew.

As State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa (D-Northampton) said in a recent article, “Sexual harassment occurs in the State House every single day.” 

And that needs to change. 

Massachusetts residents deserve a truly representational government, with legislative members and staff representing the full diversity of the Commonwealth. For that to happen, everyone must feel safe and respected at work.

Just as the government should be a model employer, the State House should be a model workplace, setting an example in terms of both rules and norms. 

A first step? Passing An Act promoting equality and respect in the legislature (S.1898 / H.3572), a bill from Rep. Sabadosa and Sen. Becca Rausch which would create an independent commission to investigate and report on complaints of workplace and sexual harassment in the Massachusetts Legislature.

Find your legislator’s email here, and let them know that it’s time to start taking workplace harassment seriously. 

Sabadosa and Rausch also filed a resolution in support of their bill at the Massachusetts Democratic Party convention. If you’re headed to Springfield, make sure to vote yes. 

A toxic culture won’t change on its own, but you can help change it.