Good morning,
Despite the limited amount of daylight these days, I’m still basking in the glow of our Transparency Bash this past Sunday!
Thank you, thank you to all the folks that attended - it was so wonderful to meet so many of you in person and to hear your feedback and questions on our work. Also, we were able to get within a few hundred dollars of our fundraising goal! A big thank you is due as well to all the folks that have supported our fundraiser so far– your contributions help us enormously and we are so appreciative.
In fact, we were so blown away by the support that we've decided to raise our goal to $7000 by the end of the year. These funds will go a long way to making sure we can keep delivering the analysis in our Saturday Scoops while launching our Sunlight Act and stipend reform campaigns. If you're able to pitch in, we've got just 16 days left in the fundraiser and need all the help we can get!
Thank you! Now for the Scoop.
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State House Scoop
Progressives call upon state leaders to move swiftly in preparation for Trump admin
Act on Mass was proud to join progressive allies this week in calling upon Governor Healey, Senate President Karen Spilka, and House Speaker Ron Mariano to take immediate action to protect Massachusetts residents from federal policies we can expect to see during the Trump administration. You can read our joint letters here and here.
Among all 50 states, only 2 states (VT and MD) voted against Trump by higher margins than Massachusetts in 2024. Democratic supermajorities were re-elected easily in both chambers of our legislature. In fact, with a Democratic governor in office, we boast a Democratic trifecta. Voters handed our state leaders a mandate: by wide margins, once again, they demanded meaningful alternatives to conservative rule.
With the outcome at the federal level much different than what the majority of MA voters wanted, you would expect our state leaders to seize this mandate to defend their citizens at all costs and present a meaningful progressive alternative. Yet, this sense of urgency has yet to pierce the Golden Dome.
Unlike other progressive states like California, where a special session of the legislature was called to pass additional protections before the new legislative session, our state leaders have shown reluctance to take proactive steps. The Safe Communities Act, originally introduced in 2017 to protect MA residents from the first (!) Trump administration, remains dead in House Ways and Means.
This is all despite the fact that legislators are still engaged in informal sessions. They’re willing to bend the rules to make up for their own procrastination, but not to take proactive measures to protect our most vulnerable in the time we have before Trump takes power. We’re calling this out and demanding that they come back to session now.
Speaking of procrastination, our letter also calls attention to what has become the legislature’s standard operating procedure in recent years: little to no bills being passed in the first year of session. 2023 saw the least productive start to a legislative session in over 40 years. That year, Massachusetts went on to be the least effective legislature in the country, with only 21 bills passed total.
Lack of action during the first year of session results in bottlenecks at the end of session in July of the second year, which played out clearly this year. By the way– testimony from insiders suggests that these delays are not merely the result of poor planning, but actually yet another tool leadership uses to enforce power. Even once a bill is favored to pass, delaying a vote on it until the very end of the session allows the speaker to maintain leverage over supporters of said bill and ensure their conformity for other votes.
Imagine: you’re a rank-and-file rep, your favorite bill is inches from the finish line, you need something (anything!) to deliver to your constituents to give them reason to re-elect you, and the sun just rose on July 31st. You are: walking on eggshells, sending flowers to the Speaker’s office, renting a skywriter to paint “Please, Ron, please” across the skies of the Massachusetts Bay. You are not: voting against any other of the speaker’s bills, even if your conscience or constituents demand it. You are: right where leadership wants you.
In our letters to House and Senate leadership, we made it clear that this standard operating procedure will be too late to respond. Progressive ally Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Mass put it best: “we can’t wait until July of 2026 to be preparing our state for what’ll be happening.” Massachusetts’ progressive values are at stake. We cannot wait for insider politics and power games. We need action now.
If you’d like to lend your voice to this effort, scroll down to our “Take Action” section where you can find a link to send an email to your legislator, the Speaker and Senate president, and Governor Healey!
Boston tax proposal dead without a vote
With now two weeks left until the start of formal sessions for the 194th Legislature, this Monday saw the end of a home rule petition championed by Mayor Wu and Boston residents. After months of back and forth between Boston officials, Boston business interests, and House and Senate leaders, the bill was declared “dead” in the Senate this week.
As a reminder, this bill concerns a home rule petition for Boston’s property tax system. As we’ve discussed in previous Scoops, our state laws require municipalities to seek permission from the state legislature on a number of issues that are reserved by-right in other states– from liquor licenses to tax policy. The legislature is famously slow or unwilling to move on most home rule petitions. This particular home rule petition sought to temporarily raise commercial tax rates to prevent automatic dramatic tax hikes for homeowners in Boston.
Despite Mayor Wu reaching a compromise with business leaders in October and the bill passing the House a few weeks ago, it is now dead in the Senate. If you’ll recall last week’s Scoop, we detailed the role played by Senator Nick Collins in blocking the bill– right after receiving a windfall of donations from Boston real estate and business entities.
Alright, so who voted it down? After so many months of controversy, was it a tight vote? Did support track regionally– Boston senators going down swinging against senators from the ritzy suburbs where Boston’s business scions live and vote? Did homeowner testimony figure in the– surely– fiery debates?
Ha, ha, ha. Sorry– for a second there I let myself imagine we lived in a functioning democracy.
The bill was not killed by being voted down, but by Senate President Spilka announcing that, in fact, it would never come for a vote in the Senate. After months of advocacy and testimony, voters on both sides of the issue are deprived of even the courtesy of a final vote. Our questions will go unanswered.
Many senators must be breathing a sigh of relief– spared from making a tough decision that might put them in hot water with their big corporate donors. They can tell concerned constituents “privately, I supported it” or “privately, I was against it” depending who they’re talking to, having entirely avoided the unpleasant affair of having to take a final stance publicly.
Meanwhile, Boston homeowners will see a large tax hike next year– and have no idea who to thank for it.
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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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Take Action
Call on state leaders to take action before Trump 2.0!
Lend your voice to the movement of progressives calling on state leaders to take immediate, proactive steps to protect MA residents– especially our most vulnerable neighbors– from the policies set to emerge at the federal level come January 20.
Click here to personalize an email to Governor Healey:
TELL GOV. HEALEY: TAKE ACTION NOW>>
Click here to personalize an email to legislative leaders:
TELL STATE HOUSE LEADERS: IT CAN'T WAIT>>
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Thanks for reading! Until next time.
In solidarity,
Scotia
Scotia Hille (she/her)
Executive Director, Act on Mass