MA legislators just voted again to disenfranchise people in prison. And the vote wasn’t even public.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MAY 3, 2019 Joint statement from Act on Mass, Progressive Massachusetts, and the Emancipation Initiative

Mass. legislature rejects voting rights for the incarcerated

As the national discourse around the question of restoring voting rights for those incarcerated heated up, the Massachusetts legislature also quietly took up the issue.  The Joint Committee on Election Laws voted on Thursday April 25th to reject a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights for the incarcerated.

Incarcerated people in Massachusetts weren’t always disenfranchised, and the 1974 Supreme Judicial Court case Evers v. Davoren ruled that citizens incarcerated in Massachusetts must be given equal access to absentee ballots to vote.  It wasn’t until 2001 that Massachusetts disenfranchised those incarcerated for felonies, after the Massachusetts legislature initiated a process to amend the State Constitution to take away their voting rights while in prison. The process required two votes of the legislature before it could advance to a ballot question. A Republican filed the original bill, but Democrats were more than happy to go along with it judging by the overwhelming vote counts in favor: the first vote in 1998 was 155-34, and the second vote in 2000 was 144-45.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley pointed out that it wasn’t until prisoners at MCI Norfolk started to organize a political action committee in 1997 to organize for better conditions through electoral pressure, that our State government leapt into action to disenfranchise them.  “People who are incarcerated are closest to the problem and therefore closest to the solution. In order to have meaningful criminal justice reform in this state, we must ensure that those most impacted have a seat at the table. Returning the right to vote to people who are incarcerated on felony convictions is that first foundational step,” said Rachel Corey, an organizer with the Emancipation Initiative. 

Certain elected officials have publicly stated they voted against this action, including Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa of Northampton and Senator Jamie Eldridge of Acton.  But no roll call vote for the 17-person committee was available at time of this release. Act On Mass has reached out to every committee member inquiring how they voted and will provide updates as they learn more. 

“The committee doubled down on the legislature’s decision to disenfranchise the incarcerated last week. And we don’t know how our elected officials voted, or even how close the vote was.  Democracy can’t function if voters don’t know how their representatives vote, and advocates can’t even make progress on lobbying the members of the committee if they don’t know who agrees with them and who disagrees with them,” said Matthew Miller, co-founder of Act on Mass, a group that advocates for progressive policies and transparency on Beacon Hill.

The legislature considered a proposal earlier this year to change its rules so that all committee votes are published online, but the proposal did not make it into the joint rules of the legislature.

“We are very disappointed that the Joint Election Laws Committee chose not to take this important step in strengthening our democracy and the hold of mass incarceration on our policymaking. In last year’s criminal justice reform bill, the Legislature expressed an interest in focusing on rehabilitation. Allowing prisoners to participate in elections would strengthen their ties to the community, increase their sense of social responsibility, and facilitate their reintegration upon release,” said Jonathan Cohn, Chair of the Issues Committee at Progressive Massachusetts. “Let’s be clear. Given the inequities in our criminal justice system, this is part and parcel of our country’s shameful history of trying to disenfranchise minority voters.” ########################

Act on Mass has contacted every member of the Joint Committee on Election Laws to ask them to share their vote on this issue. As of this writing, the following legislators have responded:

  • Senator Barry Finegold (voted AGAINST amendment to re-enfranchise the incarcerated)
  • Senator Jamie Eldridge (voted FOR amendment)
  • Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz (voted FOR amendment)
  • Representative Russell Holmes (voted FOR amendment)
  • Representative Lindsay Sábados (voted FOR amendment)
  • Senator Ryan Fattman (voted AGAINST) amendmen

We are awaiting a response from:

  • Senator Brendan Crighton (Lynn)
  • Senator Edward Kennedy (Lowell)
  • Representative John Lawn (Watertown)
  • Representative Bill Driscoll (Milton)
  • Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier (Pittsfield)
  • Representative Alan Silvia (Fall River)
  • Representative Steven Ultrino (Malden)
  • Representative Dan Carey (Easthampton)
  • Representative Kathleen LaNatra (Kingston)
  • Representative Nicholas Boldyga (Southwick)
  • Representative Marc Lombardo (Billerica)

The Appeal: Felony Disenfranchisement across States

“Debate on Felony Disenfranchisement Is Already Here in State Legislatures Around the Country” — Daniel Nichanian, The Appeal, 5/2/2019

The committee vote was not public. Only four of its 17 members answered my multiple requests for comment about how they voted.

All those who replied told me that they voted to advance the reform. They are state Representatives Russell Holmes and Lindsay Sabadosa, and state Senators Sonia Chang-Díaz and James Eldridge. All four are Democrats, but so are 14 of the committee’s 17 members. “It’s very easy for prisoners to lose hope and their connection to society, and restoring the right to vote would provide an enhanced capacity to stay connected,” Elridge told me. State organizers have taken issue with the secrecy of this process. “When legislators vote behind closed doors to continue to a racist history of disenfranchisement, with no public record of how they voted for their constituents, that’s a fundamental failure of democracy,” Jonathan Cohn, an organizer with Progressive Mass, an advocacy group that supported the proposal, told me in a written message. He added that the lack of public votes is “a systemic problem for activists in Massachusetts because bills can be killed with everyone having ‘clean hands.’

Time to End a Shameful History of Disenfranchisement

The following testimony was submitted to the Joint Election Laws Committee.

*************************************************************

Chairman Finegold, Chairman Lawn, and Members of the Joint Election Laws Committee,

As an organization committed to strengthening our democracy and promoting racial and social justice in our Commonwealth, Progressive Massachusetts strongly supports S.12, a proposal for a legislative amendment to the Constitution relative to voting rights and urges swift action.

In recent years, states around the US have started to realize that the decades-long phenomenon of mass incarceration was a moral, economic, and public safety failure. It destroyed communities, strained budgets, and made us no safer.

The omnibus criminal justice reform legislation passed last session to widespread public support shows that the MA House and Senate understand this. But there is more work to do.

The right to vote is a cornerstone of democracy. However, our neighbors in Maine and Vermont are the only states in the US to grant incarcerated individuals this right.

Massachusetts once did. However, in the late 1990s, Governor Paul Cellucci and other state politicians pushed to restrict this right, putting forth a constitutional amendment to prevent those convicted of a felony from voting while incarcerated.

Let us be clear. Given the inequities in our criminal justice system, this is part and parcel of our country’s shameful history of trying to disenfranchise minority voters. Although our state is only 7% Black, our prison population is 26% Black, and although our state is only 10% Latinx, our prison population is 24%. [1]

Moreover, the Supreme Court and US Congress have affirmed a variety of constitutional rights for prisoners. They have rights of religious freedom and a right to hold and express political opinions. As Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren once said, “Citizenship is not a right that expires upon misbehavior.”

Studies have repeatedly shown that maintaining a connection to the outside world is conducive to rehabilitation and reducing recidivism. [2] Allowing prisoners to participate in elections will strengthen their ties to the community, increase their sense of social responsibility, and facilitate their reintegration upon release.

We urge the committee to give this bill a favorable report.

[1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/MA.html

[2] See, e.g., https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237298166_Inmate_Social_Ties_and_the_Transition_to_Society_Does_Visitation_Reduce_Recidivism.

Taking Stock of the 190th Legislative Session

In January of 2017, Progressive Massachusetts unveiled our legislative agenda for the 190th legislative session — 17 items for 2017 (and 2018). As we near the end of the year — and the start of the next legislative session, it’s the perfect time to take stock of how the various bills fared.

Clear Victories

Reproductive Rights

The ACCESS bill, which updates MA’s contraceptive coverage equity law to require insurance carriers to provide all contraceptive methods without a copay, passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature and was signed by the Governor.

Democracy

Massachusetts became the 13th state to adopt Automatic Voter Registration. In this reform pioneered by Oregon in 2015, eligible voters who interface with select government agencies (here, the RMV or MassHealth) are automatically registered to vote unless they decline. With more than 700,000 eligible citizens in MA unregistered, AVR will increase the accuracy, security, and comprehensiveness of voter rolls.

The bill also enrolls Massachusetts in Electronic Registration Information Center, a coalition of states founded by the Pew Research Center that enable states to synchronize their voter rolls. ERIC has increased the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the voter rolls in participating states.

[Note: The original bill included smaller social services government agencies as well. The final bill allows for their later inclusion but focuses on the two largest sources of possible new registrants.]

Steps Forward

Criminal Justice Reform

The comprehensive criminal justice reform bill passed by the Legislature in April incorporated some elements from our priority bills (Read our write-up here):

  • Eliminating most mandatory minimums for retail drug selling and drug paraphernalia and limiting mandatory minimums in school zones to cases involving guns or minors. [Note: PM and advocates had sought the elimination of all mandatory minimums. The bill, however, left in place mandatory minimums for Class A drugs (like heroin), expanded this definition to include opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, and created a new mandatory minimum for assaulting a police officer, an overused charge wielded as a threat against protesters.]
  • Raising the felony-larceny threshold from $250 to $1,200 [Note: PM and other advocates had sought $1,500.]
  • Reducing fines and fees [Note: PM and other advocates wanted probation and parole fees fully eliminated.]
  • Establishing a process for expunging records, especially for juveniles convicted of minor offenses

There is still work to be done–from raising the age of criminal majority to severely curtailing (or outright abolishing) solitary confinement. That said, the bill, despite its shortcomings, was a step in the right direction.

Fight for $15

At the start of the session, we supported legislation to raise the minimum wage from $11 to to $15 by 2021, raise the tipped minimum wage from $3.75 to $15.75 by 2025, and require the minimum wage to increase with inflation starting in 2022.

The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition’s ballot initiative was slightly more modest in its ambition, extending the full phase-in date one year (due to a later start) and raising the minimum wage for tipped employees to only $9 (60% of the minimum wage) by 2022.

What passed in the ultimate “Grand Bargain,” an effort of the Legislature and the Governor to avoid three ballot initiatives ($15 minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, sales tax reduction) was more modest still. It raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2023, raised the tipped minimum wage to only $6.75, and dropped indexing. Unfortunately, the Legislature included a further concession to the business lobby, agreeing to phase-out time-and-a-half on Sundays and holidays. Although the bill is a net win for workers in Massachusetts, it’s possible that, due to the phase-out of time-and-a-half, some workers will be left worse off.

Fight for 15 Original Bill vs Ballot Initiative vs Final Grand Bargain Text

Paid Family and Medical Leave

The version of paid family and medical leave passed in the aforementioned “Grand Bargain” was less robust than the original legislation and the ballot initiative text, but still more robust than the programs that exist in other states.

PFML Senate Bill vs Ballot Initiative vs Final Grand Bargain Text

Senate Victory, House Opposition

Several of our priority bills succeeded, or made partial progress, in the Senate, only to flounder in the House amidst fierce opposition from the conservative House leadership.

Fully Funding Our Schools

Massachusetts’s 25-year-old education funding formula is short-changing our schools $1-2 billion per year due to outdated assumptions about the costs of health care, special education, ELL (English Language Learners) education, and closing racial and economic achievement gaps.

The 2015 Foundation Budget Review Commission recommended a path forward for fixing it. The Senate unanimously adopted a bill to implement them. The House, however, insisted on leaving English Language Learners, Black and Brown students, and poor students (not mutually exclusive categories) behind.

Protecting Our Immigrant Friends and Neighbors

Despite Massachusetts’s liberal reputation, our Legislature has been historically hostile to strengthening protections for our immigrant community.

The Senate included four provisions from the Safe Communities Act, a bill that our members fought strongly for, in its FY 2019 budget: (1) a prohibition on police inquiries about immigration status, a prohibition on certain collaboration agreements between local law enforcement and ICE, (3) a guarantee of basic due process protections, and (4) a prohibition on participation in a Muslim registry. The amendment was a win-win for both rights and safety, but House Leadership opposed its inclusion in the final budget.

Bold Action on Climate Change

Many elements from our priority environmental legislation were incorporated in the Senate’s impressive omnibus bill:

  • Building on the Global Warming Solutions Act by setting intermediate emissions targets for 2030 and 2040
  • Establishing a 3% annual increase in the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to accelerate our commitment to renewable energy
  • Prohibiting a “pipeline tax” on energy consumers
  • Instructing the governor’s office to develop carbon pricing for the transportation sector by the end of 2020, for commercial buildings and industrial processes by 2021, and for residential buildings by the end of 2022 (not as strong as a revenue-positive carbon pricing scheme, but still in the right direction)

However, the House proved a roadblock yet again. The ultimate compromise energy legislation included only a 2% increase from 2020 to 2030, after which it would fall back to the current 1%. This would take us to only 56% renewable energy by 2050 instead of 100%.

Loss…But a Battle Not Over

Revenue & Reinvestment

Progressive Mass members played a major role in the signature collection for the Fair Share amendment (or “millionaires tax”), which would have created a 4% surtax on income above $1 million (inflation-adjusted) to fund education and transportation investment.

As a citizen-originated ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment, the Fair Share amendment had to receive the support of at least 25% of the Legislature in two constitutional conventions. It secured well more than double this amount, but the Supreme Judicial Court struck it from the ballot this June.

Inaction

Medicare for All

Although the Senate took modest steps in the direction of single payer, passing legislation to create a public option (a MassHealth buy-in) and require a study of whether a single payer system would save money relative to the current system, the House took no such action.

Housing Production

Although the Senate passed a comprehensive zoning reform bill to increase housing production in the suburbs last session, no such action was taken in either house this session.

Debt/tuition-free Higher Education

The cost of higher education has grown a lot in Massachusetts, and the Legislature continues to punt.

In Conclusion: We won some, we lost some, and we’ll keep on fighting.

Alphabet Soup Activism: FBRC, ERPO, SCA, and AVR

Saturday’s convention was exciting, as we saw all three of our endorsed candidates–Jay Gonzalez, Quentin Palfrey, and Josh Zakim–win the party’s endorsement.

But the convention also reminded us of all the work we still have cut out for ourselves this legislative session. The speakers highlighted how Massachusetts needs to do more to set a good example for other states and to fight back against Trump.

And that can’t wait.

Here are a few things that you can do this week.

Funding Our Schools

Two weeks ago, the State Senate unanimously passing the Foundation Budget Modernization Bill, which would update the school funding formula and help provide high-quality education for every child across Massachusetts.

It’s now time for the House to act and pass the bill (S.2525: An Act to Modernizing the Foundation Budget for the 21st Century). More than 120 members of the House have expressed support. It just needs a vote.

Can you call your representative and ask them to fully fund our public schools?

Three years ago, the Foundation Budget Review Commission found that the state was shortchanging public education by $1-2 billion each year because of an outdated funding formula. We can’t let another school year pass without action.

Standing Up for Gun Safety

Two weeks ago, the House passed Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) legislation (H.4539) authored by Rep. Marjorie Decker, which creates a kind of court order that family members and law enforcement can request to temporarily restrict a person’s access to guns because they pose a significant danger to themselves or others.

When family members are empowered to act, they can prevent warning signs from turning into a mass shooting or gun suicide. A recent study found that Connecticut’s suicide rate fell by almost 14% after local authorities started enforcing the law.

The bill now goes to the Senate, which will be voting this Thursday morning.

Can you call your senator today in support of common sense gun safety legislation?

Standing Up to Trump’s Hate

Do you want Massachusetts to make clear that we don’t stand for the xenophobic policies and rhetoric coming out of the Trump white House?

Last month, the State Senate passed four key provisions of the Safe Communities Act in the budget:

  1. No Police Inquiries about Immigration Status
  2. Stop Collaborating with ICE
  3. Provide Basic Due Process Protections
  4. Refusal to participate in any discriminatory registry

This is a great step forward, but we can’t claim victory just yet.

Make sure that our legislators hear, loud and clear, that these provisions need to stay in the budget. Can you call your state representative and state senator to urge the inclusion of these essential protections?

Making Every Voice Heard in Our Elections

Did you know that almost 700,000 eligible voters in Massachusetts aren’t registered? Well, that’s a problem.

Fortunately, Automatic Voter Registration is part of the solution. It’s a simple and important reform designed to increase political participation and strengthen voting rights by shifting our voter registration system from an opt-in to an opt-out one, making elections more free, fair, and accessible for all.

Can you email your representative today in support of AVR?

Thank you for all you do!

3 Ways to Resist Trump’s Agenda Here in Massachusetts

We’re running out of time in the legislature. We’ve got 4 action items for Pres Day!:

  1. Register for Lobby Day
  2. Make calls this week for Safe Communities
  3. Push to increase voter participation

Today’s President’s Day, and if you’re like me, the person in the White House right now is the last person I want to be celebrating.

This holiday invites another important thought: Is Massachusetts doing enough to resist Trump’s reactionary agenda? (Spoiler: NO).

Despite a ballyhooed “anti Trump commission” announced one year ago, there has been exceedingly little passed by the Legislature that would reaffirm Massachusetts values, build a bulwark against the increasingly frightening excesses of the Trump Administration, let alone, chart a strong progressive path forward. Forget about Massachusetts leading the resistance. We are hardly keeping up.

We can’t rely on Legislators to discover the courage to rise to the challenge.

WE have to push them.

In honor of President’s Day, here are four things you can do to push back against Trump’s agenda. As time marches on, the risk of resignation is real. Resist. 

(1) – (2) – (3) – (4) – TOP

(1) Push for a Progressive Agenda: Sign up for our Lobby Day

Our legislators have power, the hour is growing late, and they need to use it. Join us April 4 Wednesday, March 14th, to tell them just that.

Never been to a lobby day? They’re informative and important. You get to….

  • Hear from progressive state legislators on the bills that advance the cause!
  • Learn the important issues and the latest updates on our legislative agenda!
  • Learn, practice, and share ‘how to lobby effectively’ wisdom!
  • Build progressive alliances with new friends from across the state!

The speaking program and information session starts at 9:15 AM in Room 437, followed by in-person meetings with legislators.

Register for Lobby Day now, and we’ll see you on April 4 Mar. 14!

 (1) – (2) – (3) – (4) – TOP 

(2) Stand up for Community Safety, Immigrants’ Rights: Pass the Safe Communities Act. Full Stop.

Of all the legislative actions before the MA Legislature, Safe Communities Act is the one that most directly looks at the extremely worrying practices of the Trump administrations, and puts up a firewall between Massachusetts and Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant deportation agenda.

Our local law enforcement should not be doing the terrorizing work of federal ICE agents. People in our communities should not fear that their local police—who are supposed to be keeping us safe—are collaborating, without any due process, with the feds. That is just unfair.

Both Illinois (ILLINOIS!!) and California have already passed similar “Trust” / safe communities legislation. Massachusetts is dragging it feet, and it’s time to say ENOUGH:TAKE ACTION.

There are lots of behind-the-curtain machinations with the bill… But the objective remains, absolutely, resolutely, the same:

  • Pass the Safe Communities Act, with no compromises to its common-sense, deeply American principles of justice, due process, and community safety. 

…and the path to achieving those goals is simple:

  • Persistent, relentless–and if necessary, escalating–pressure on our legislators and their leadership. (They have superpowers: they can change the structural system. Don’t let them tell you they are powerless to use it.) 

This is a message that is absolutely urgent, and PM is working hard on the ground with grassroots groups all across MA to ramp up the political pressure.

We’re prepared to stand with our immigrant family and neighbors, our brothers and sisters of color, our Massachusetts community of many faiths.

And we need to tell Legislature that they should too.

Help us make a big legislative push this week. And we’re checking the temperature next week to assess…do we need to push even harder? Make 5 calls to leadership on Beacon Hill this week – and even better – organize to get one friend a day to call, too, today through Friday (sign up here!)

 

(3) Fight for Voting Rights

Thankfully, Trump’s sham election commission has been disbanded. 2016 made it absolutely clear: we need to be playing more than just defense when it comes to voting rights. Our democracy simply isn’t very strong when 700,000 Massachusetts residents who are eligible to vote are unregistered, their voices unheard.

Ten other states and DC that have embraced Automatic Voter Registration, a simple reform that increases the accuracy and security of voter rolls and brings more people into the democratic process. Legislation (H.2091 / S.373) is pending in Massachusetts, and was reported out of committee less than two weeks ago. It’s time to bring it to the floor.

AVR quite simply expands the voting universe of registered voters who actually are able to vote. When you push past all the excuses, there’s one central question that should be asked: What do legislators stand to gain by keeping the voter rolls, and voting participation, lower?

Email your Representative TODAY in support of AVR!

CommonWealth: Make National Voter Registration Day worth celebrating

“Make National Voter Registration Day worth celebrating” — Jonathan Cohn, CommonWealth (9/26/2017)

TODAY IS National Voter Registration Day. It also happens to be the day of Boston’s preliminary election.

But there’s one way that Boston residents won’t be able to celebrate today’s holiday: registering at the polls.

That’s because Massachusetts remains an outlier in New England in not embracing same day registration. Maine has allowed people to register at the polls since the 1970s; New Hampshire, since the 1990s; Vermont and Connecticut joined in more recently. Even Rhode Island has a form of same day registration—albeit just for presidential elections. If our fellow New England states can manage same day registration, so can we.

Read the full article here.

SHNS: Automatic voter registration now in place in 10 states

“Automatic voter registration now in place in 10 states” — Katie Lannan, State House News Service (8/29/2017)

“The new law will add roughly one million new eligible voters to the voter rolls,” said the statement, signed by Pam Wilmot of Common Cause Massachusetts, Meryl Kessler of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, Beth Huang of Mass Voter Table, Janet Domenitz of MASSPIRG, Cheryl Clyburn Crawford of MassVote and Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Massachusetts. “Similar laws in other states have been proven to increase turnout and make elections more secure by modernizing the voter registration process. It is a common sense and long overdue reform.”

Why are Democrats Pushing Voter Fraud Myths in Massachusetts?

Yesterday was the 52nd anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. And it was an important reminder that we still have work to do.

Two weeks ago, in a major win for democracy, the Suffolk Superior Court ruled that Massachusetts’s 20-day voter registration deadline is unconstitutional, noting that it arbitrarily and unnecessarily excludes thousands from the democratic process.

Unfortunately, not everyone is cheering the decision. Secretary of State Bill Galvin is planning to appeal the ruling, suggesting that it would create “chaos” for town and city clerks if people could register closer to an election, despite the fact that we are in the 21st century. But it gets worse. While Galvin is parading around Massachusetts and getting good press for supposedly opposing the Trump agenda by (rightfully) refusing to provide voter information to the Trump-created “Election Integrity” Commission, he has also been peddling the same dangerous voter fraud myths that Trump and Republicans have been pushing on the national level and in states seeking to roll back voting rights.

We can’t allow that here. Massachusetts is the only state in New England without some form of Election Day Registration (EDR). It has worked for our neighbors, and it would work here. And it’s one of the most reliable ways to increase turnout.

Call/Email Secretary Galvin (617-727-9180; cis@sec.state.ma.us) now to demand that he drop his appeal, and that he stop spreading lies about Election Day Registration.

But there’s more that you can do to fight for voting rights.

We have the opportunity this session to pass two key bills that will strengthen our democracy:

H.2091/S.373 (Automatic Voter Registration) would bring our elections into the 21st century by automatically registering citizens who interact with government agencies (“opt-out” instead of “opt-in”).

H.2093/S.371 (Election Day Registration) would make sure no eligible citizen is prevented from voting on Election Day.

Massachusetts often lags behind our peers when it comes to voting rights, and these bills can help change that. Our democracy is strongest when everyone is able to participate.

Call your legislators now to demand that they co-sponsor these essential bills and lobby their colleagues and Leadership to do so as well.

Let’s not just play catch-up–let’s start serving as a model for other states.