Good evening, 

Coming to you with some good news for your Saturday: thanks to all the support we received, we surpassed our fundraising goal for the spring! From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all those who supported our work. Special shoutout to those who came out to Concord and made it a great party. Your contributions will allow us to keep up our mission of holding the folks in power accountable in Massachusetts, delivering analysis of the goings-on on Beacon Hill in your inbox each week, and advocating for reform in our broken legislature. 

 With that in mind... we took some time on Sunday to officially introduce some of our upcoming initiatives. I am thrilled to introduce the Good Government Agenda,  our legislative platform this year. With the added pressure on our state democracy this year from federal policies, we are advocating for three key bills, which target the lack of transparency in our legislature and the concentration of power in leadership. You can read more about them on our website here. 

Finally, I am excited to announce that we're planning a big grassroots push this summer. We've noticed that talking to folks in person seems to be the most effective way to communicate what's in stake in our state democracy. So, we have set the goal this summer of tabling for transparency in every Senate district in the state, to talk to Bay Staters of all stripes about what matters to them in state government and why reform is needed to get us there. We're calling it "Transparency on Tour." 

 This means that, by hook or by crook, Act on Mass staff, volunteers, and allies will be coming to a community near you to talk about good government issues. Here's where you come in: we want to invite you to join us, and we also need your help to find the right locations in your district! Is there a town fair, activist fair, or farmers market in your community this summer? Even a busy grocery store parking lot where we might spark some good conversation? We want to know! 

HELP US HIT ALL 40 DISTRICTS THIS SUMMER>>

I'm looking forward to this opportunity to meet many of you in this summer and visit many of the communities whose advocacy inspires me to keep pushing for change in our state. We're hoping to use this Tour to gain background about the issues impacting Bay Staters and build support for our advocacy around the Good Government Agenda. 

 Lastly, keep your eyes peeled for Syd's Sprinkles this week– Sydney worked hard on a blog post about energy efficiency that provides a lot of info. And now, the Scoop!

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State House Scoop

House Democrats unwilling to stand up for transgender rights, pass watered-down Republican amendment targeting trans children in unrecorded vote

This week, MA House Democrats shocked their constituencies by refusing to vote down a Republican-introduced amendment which would codify Trump anti-trans policies into Massachusetts law. 

Friend, I don’t even know what to say on this one. Although I am used to our legislature failing to live up to its Democratic supermajority status, hiding behind closed doors, delaying popular progressive legislation, and disappointing its constituents, I don’t know if I’ve ever encountered a case where the outcome was so cruel, baffling, and unnecessary, at a moment where solidarity with targeted groups is more important than ever. 

Let’s roll it back. Yesterday, our representatives in the House voted on a supplementary budget (paywall), which mostly allocated funds from the Fair Share Amendment for education and transportation programs. Legislators also filed a total of 142 amendments to the bill, most of which concerned earmark spending for particular districts or programs. Most of these amendments were consolidated into larger amendments and passed. 

As we’ve discussed before, in our dysfunctional and slow-moving legislative system, representatives often now rely on adding policy amendments to budget bills in order to pass laws*.*Republican Representative John Gaskey, who is one of 24 Republican members of our 160-seat House, took advantage of this to file a policy amendment entitled “Fairness in sports.” The amendment reads as follows: 

 “No public school shall allow a male student athlete to participate on a girls’ sports team nor shall a public school allow a female athlete to participate on a boys sports team. Any school found not in compliance shall forfeit all games where an athlete of the opposite sex participated.” It also specifies that anyone attempting a legal challenge to this law would be responsible for their own legal fees. 

Rep. Gaskey explained that the amendment would “bring Massachusetts in line with the federal government.” Although it does not mention transgender youth, the obvious target of this amendment is the small number of transgender children that participate in sports programs in public schools in Massachusetts, who have been the target of recent executive actions by the Trump administration. 

State leaders in Maine, our New England peer and fellow blue trifecta state, made national headlines by refusing to “comply in advance” with the Trump administration’s attempts to restrict the lives of transgender children or their peers. Leaders and advocates in Maine pointed to Maine state laws that protect transgender children, regardless of changes in federal policies. 

I could be forgiven for expecting – or hoping – that our state legislators in Massachusetts might show similar courage. And, unlike Maine, Massachusetts has a Democratic supermajority in both chambers. 

Instead, the response of our legislature to this explicitly Trump-aligned amendment was baffling. Rather than easily voting the amendment down, a Democratic representative filed a “further amendment” to clarify that the language in the Republican amendment would only go into effect once a department had studied and released a report on the potential impacts of the law change. Then, they passed both provisions. On a voice vote. No record was taken of the vote. 

Let that sink in. Our representatives approved that the words of a Trump-inspired, Republican anti-trans amendment be entered into Massachusetts state law. While some have argued that the added “study order” provision was a “standard procedure” way of killing the amendment, the much more obvious response was inexplicably ignored: to vote down the amendment! Was the “No” button broken?! 

In fact, progressive Representative Mike Connolly explains that the procedural method was taken because of a lack of time “to coordinate messaging with advocates and coordinate strategy with swing district Reps” because “the final tally — and the implications of that tally — are unknown.” Translation: this move was taken to protect anti-trans Democrats from taking a stance that their constituents might disagree with, on either side of this issue. 

Let’s remember: Speaker Ron Mariano is all-powerful enough to muster the consenting votes of at least 85% of his Democratic caucus on every vote taken during last year’s session, including on controversial measures like a tax cut for the wealthy. To claim that holding a vote might have resulted in an “unknown” tally reveals only one thing: Democratic leadership is willing to rally the caucus to gut immigrant access to shelters, but not to defend transgender children. And there are plenty of cowardly Democrats who are happy to keep hiding behind them to avoid standing up for anything.

I want to zero in, too, on the amendment itself. To begin with, it’s badly written. Its implications are too broad and would apply to cisgender children who play on sports teams of the opposite sex when no option is available, such as female football kickers that currently play at high schools around the state. Its on-the-ground enforcement would seem to require a disturbing amount of oversight by adults into the sex organs of teenagers. And ultimately, the amendment is cruel. Although the state has many mechanisms for shaping policy in public schools, including control over funding, this policy chooses to rely on forcing sports teams to forfeit their games. The only people this punishes are the children involved. It risks making transgender students – who already face bullying at higher rates than peers – the target of blame by their teammates. This poorly designed and cruel policy should have been rejected at-face. Instead, the best our Democratic super-majority legislature could do was water it down and pass it on an unrecorded vote.  

A reporter on anti-trans legislation around the country reports that this amendment is the first transgender sports ban to pass a legislative chamber in a blue state. And it’s happening now– 3.5 months into a federal administration that has made life much more unsafe for transgender Americans, some of whom are fleeing to states like Massachusetts for protection. Our legislature has sat on its heels for months, refusing to act with urgency to pass policies to protect our residents. Yet a Republican amendment gets a quick passage via voice vote. It boggles the mind. 

It is also, unfortunately, an example of the policy outcomes that emerge when our leaders set a pattern of stonewalling policy that passes through the traditional democratic process and passing everything through policy riders, resting on approval by leadership. The public should be allowed input and oversight into decisions like this. This broken system serves nobody but the conservative agenda. 

The supplemental budget will now move to the Senate for passage. I urge you to contact your Senator to ensure that this amendment is not included in their version of the bill. I urge you, also, to contact your Representative and ask them for their explanation of why the rights of transgender youth were not worth the fight. Let them know that you expect them to stand up when Trump policies get introduced on the MA House floor. Avoiding votes and refusing to take a stand is cowardly at best and cruel at worst.  

TELL YOUR LEGISLATOR: PROTECT TRANS KIDS>> 

Additional reading

Some interesting reporting that caught our eye this week! 

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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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Syd's Sprinkles

Syd’s Sprinkles: Massachusetts Education Funding Cuts

What is Mass Save? 

Through the Green Communities Act’s legislative foundations, Mass Save was established. Mass Save is the trademark name for an efficient energy model created by multiple Program Administrators, i.e. the electric and gas administrators of efficient energy programs across the state. Each Program Administrator is required to create individual and joint plans for gas and electric energy efficiency programs every three years, which are then submitted for approval by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU). With the rising push for Massachusetts to meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals by 2050, the scope of Mass Save’s mandate has increased. 

Rather than coming from the municipalities themselves, Mass Save is a model created and implemented by its Program Administrators, including National Grid, Eversource, Berkshire Gas, Liberty, Cape Light Compact, and Unitil. 

The latest Mass Save is the Massachusetts 2025-2027 Energy Efficiency and Decarbonization Plan. 

This $5 billion plan, which had $1.9 billion specifically reserved for “equity-related investment,” was ultimately cut down to $4.5 billion by the EEAC, given concerns that have been increasing over high energy costs for Mass Save customers. These costs are matched by the ambitious nature of the 2025-2027 plan, which includes a number of goals to increase energy efficiency within the state.

With that being said, the funds for this program comes primarily from the Green Communities Act’s System Benefit Charge (SBC) and the Energy Efficiency Reconciliation Factor (EERF), which are surcharges on ratepayers’ bills, with about 11% of the funds coming from Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative auction proceeds. While customers ultimately gain back much of what they pay through incentives, rebates, and other benefits, they are burdened with paying the initially high costs.

READ THE FULL BLOG>>

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Take Action

"MA Fights Back Organizing Fair": April 17th, 6:30 PM - Dorchester 

With the crisis at the federal level and the inaction of our state leaders, folks may be frustrated and looking for opportunities to get involved. Some of Act on Mass' allies are hosting an organizing fair this week to help you answer that very question! Come to hear from groups on the ground and find out how to get plugged in. 

SIGN UP FOR "MA FIGHTS BACK" FAIR>>

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That's the Scoop this week! You won't hear from us until the end of April– we're taking a couple weeks off to work on other projects and sneak in some R&R. Keep an eye out for the budget next week– and we'll be back with our Scoop analysis before you know it. 

In solidarity,

Scotia

Scotia Hille (she/her)

Executive Director, Act on Mass