We meet again friend,
Our regular scooptress Erin is on a birthday vacation (good for her!), which means I get to do all the complaining about Beacon Hill this week (good for me, bad for my therapist!). Well, not all of the complaining; the opinion pages have been sprinkled with criticisms of the democratic dysfunction on Beacon Hill lately:
- Letter to the Editor, The Eagle Tribune: “Recently, I used an unexpected moment with House Speaker Mariano to ask for more transparency. His rude response, “We have plenty of transparency, you just don’t know where to look,” blamed me but his words proved my point; I don’t know where to look because the Legislature doesn’t report basic legislative activity to the public.”
- Op-Ed by Auditor Diana Dizoglio, Boston Globe: “That our audit [of the legislature] is being met with resistance from Beacon Hill is not an example of how expansionist my vision is — it’s just demonstrative of how opaque the Legislature has become.”
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Now what I can uniquely contribute — as the decidedly Gen Z staffer to Erin’s milleniality — I will be taking editorial liberties to achieve my mission of the most emoji-d Scoop to date. So, without further ado…
🧠🤠🫱🎙️💬🐴 giddyup!
State House Scoop
Healey vetoes early ed funding, youth suicide prevention, sends no-cost calls back to the legislature
Well friend, it is with much dejection that I can finally announce to you, 40 days into the fiscal year, that we are the antepenultimate state in the union to have enacted a budget. Yeehaw, I guess 🤠❓
In signing the budget, Healey doled out few vetoes and amendments, largely accepting the bill as reported by the conference committee. But among those few rejections are critical policies and funding that Healey chose to strike.
The Vetoes:
In total, Healey vetoed over $272 million in spending, more than half of which was for MassHealth Fee for Service Payments (cuts to MassHealth are a whole different beast, which we’ll save for another Scoop). She further slashed from the budget:
- $1 million in Head Start State Supplemental Grants, a program that serves families earning under the Federal Poverty Line ($27,750 for a family of 4). Head Start provides families with childcare and early education, emergency housing support, and mental health counseling, all for free;
- $35 million in salary rate funding for center-based early educators in early ed programs. Head Start educators currently earn $39,520 annually, hardly a livable wage in MA. With low wages, early educator retention has been difficult, and high turnover is contributing to the rising costs and inaccessibility of child care in the state;
- $1 million in funds earmarked for Hey Sam, a youth suicide-prevention textline with a 100% success rate at de-escalating conversations among people expressing a high risk of suicide without involving emergency services. Healey’s team described the funding as “duplicative” of other money directed towards suicide prevention. I can’t believe I have to ask this question, but is there any such thing as “duplicative” efforts to prevent suicide, especially when it comes to young people, whose mental health crisis continues to grow worse? Apparently, to the Healey administration, the answer is yes.
The Amendments:
Although she didn’t outright veto it, Governor Healey sent the provision for free phone calls for incarcerated folks back to the legislature with an amendment, proposing to launch the policy on Dec. 1st of this year, claiming “we needed a little bit more time to be able to get it done.” This amendment would also excuse the state from making retroactive reimbursements to people already paying exorbitant prices to make phone calls, which was the proposal from the conference report.
Because of her amendment, the ball is back in the General Court’s court. With no timeline for the legislature to review the governor’s amendments, this policy is back in limbo indefinitely.
However, the choice between funding too much youth suicide prevention, or giving incarcerated people free phone calls is an artificial one, a political one. Instead of cutting these important services, we could — say it with me *turning the mic to you🎤* — not make permanent tax cuts for the rich! Can I get a yippee-ki-yay!!! 🤠
Slimming the budget is a deliberate policy choice, and the fact that Healey’s messaging continues to emphasize the need to pass her tax cuts for the rich is very telling of where her politics lie. So, once again, dear reader, I am asking you to 🥁🥁🥁
TELL YOUR LEGISLATORS: REJECT TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH >>
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Missed a Scoop or two? You can find a full archive of all past Saturday Scoops on our blog.
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An update on the Legislative Audit
We’re still awaiting word from Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office about whether they will greenlight litigation in Auditor DiZoglio’s lawsuit against the legislature. In the meantime, though, DiZoglio has cooked up Plan C: putting the issue on the ballot.
"Taxpayers deserve an audit that is able to be done without resistance from their elected officials. The Legislature has been audited at least 113 times throughout history, demonstrating clear precedent," DiZoglio said in an interview. "[...] Since top legislators seem to be confused about the language of the law, we are asking the people of Massachusetts to help make it crystal clear."
Well, fellow people of Massachusetts, we’ve made the public mandate for increased transparency crystal clear before (remember when 84% of us voted in favor of making committee votes public last year?). Should Campbell deem this ballot question constitutionally valid, which she must decide by September 6th, it seems like we may well get the chance to shine again. 💎✨
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Take Action
Tell your Legislators to cosponsor the Sunlight Agenda!
If you haven't already, email your lawmakers to ask them to cosponsor our Sunlight Agenda. Already did? Amazing. Now, send the email form (this link) to three friends who also support transparency and accountability on Beacon Hill. The more noise we make, the harder it will be for legislators to ignore us:
Submit public comment for new sex ed standards
Help us urge the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to approve the new draft comprehensive health and physical education framework. The Healthy Youth Act Coalition has put together a toolkit to help you craft your public comment — think of this like testimony you’d submit at a legislative hearing.
We know the opposition is going to be loud — we need everyone who has ever cared about getting better sex and relationship education in our schools to be louder. With your help, we can get a much-needed update to our state’s woefully outdated sex and relationship education standards.
SUBMIT COMMENT FOR NEW HEALTH FRAMEWORK >>
You thought I was letting you off without a not-so-fun fact? You’re mistaken.
According to an Op-Ed in Commonwealth published this week, in the three and a half years since Tom Brady left the Pats, his name appeared in 1,677 stories in the Globe. That’s compared to Ron Mariano’s name appearing in 313, and Karen Spilka’s name in just 279, despite the fact that they are some of the most powerful decision-makers in the state. Though the piece funnels its focus on the Globe, these numbers indicate what is likely an industry-wide trend in the battle for attention. In a rapidly changing media market, the decline of local news coverage has been linked to worse government outcomes. In Massachusetts, this is to the State House’s advantage, as they do the people’s business out of sight of the press and public.
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Wow, that got depressing for a minute... 🫠 But despite all this going on, we should still be proud of all the good that’s in this budget as a result of your lobbying and activism. Give yourself a pat on the back friend, and let’s get ready to do it again.
So long, farewell, until we complain again,
Brenna Ransden (she/her) 😋🍦
Organizing Director, Act on Mass