Please plan to participate in the Virtual Lobby Lunch in support of the VOTES Act Tuesday, May 11, noon to 1:30 p.m.  Register for this important event here: VOTES Act Virtual Lobby Lunch. You will be sent a Zoom link before the event.

The VOTES Act, H.805/S.459, will make permanent the election reforms, including expanded voting by mail, that were enacted on a temporary basis for last fall's elections. It will also bring same day voter registration to Massachusetts.  Click here for more details on the bill.

We are urging the Joint Committee on Election Laws to hold a hearing soon on this bill, so it can be brought to the floor and voted on this summer. We want to pass these voting reforms in time for this fall's municipal elections.

Your presence at this virtual lobby day will make it clear to legislators that they need to move on this bill. Register at VOTES Act Virtual Lobby Lunch today. 

The Special Joint Committee on Redistricting has started holding hearings to collect public input for drawing maps for Congressional, state legislator, and Governor Council districts. The hearings are being organized by Congressional districts. The virtual hearings for Congressional District 5 (Tuesday, May 4 at 5 pm) and Congressional District 2 (Monday, May 24, at 5:30 pm) have been scheduled. The livestream of this hearing can be accessed under the Hearings & Events section of the legislative website. While the hearings are being held by Congressional District, the Committee wants to hear from the public regarding redistricting for the state level districts in addition to the Congressional districts. In particular, the Committee wants to hear about specific insights about your local community such as highlighting racial, ethnic, or language groups, school districts, transportation hubs, commercial districts, watersheds, and other communities of interest that should be considered in redistricting.  

Oral testimony is limited to 3 minutes. We encourage you to publicize hearings in your community, listen to the hearings, or provide either written or oral testimony. Hearings will be posted here.  

For more information on redistricting please see our toolkit.

Join League members at the MIRA Coalition's 25th annual Immigrants' Day at the State House, on Tuesday, May 4 from 11 am to 12:30 pm via Zoom. Please register here today. 

We will be advocating for LWVMA priority bills, H.2418/S.1579 the Safe Communities Act and H.3456/S.2289 the Driving Families Forward act.

The speaking program runs from 11 to 11:40 am, followed at 11:45 am by Regional Roundtables hosted jointly by our members and key legislators, for an informal exchange on shared issues, concerns, and opportunities.

This bill establishes a viable, functioning, and equitable community/local public health system. H.2329/S.1386, An act Relative to Accelerating Improvements in the Local and Regional Public Health System to Address Disparities in the Delivery of Public Health Services (SAPHE 2.0) mandates a public health system with processes to insure the laws and rules already in place in the Commonwealth are actually followed.

Please call/email your state representative and state senator asking they join their colleagues who have already signed on as sponsors to this bill. (More information here, see SAPHE 2.0).  

The time has come. All people in the Commonwealth do not have equitable health care coverage. Please contact your state representative and state senator today. Ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor of H.1267/S.766 An Act establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts and work to bring the bill to the floor quickly. The discussion of the bill has to begin now to allow passage in the 192nd legislative session! Let’s do this!

Registration is now open for LWVMA's 2021 Convention "Expanding the Table: Making Democracy Work for Everyone," which is taking place on Zoom on Saturday, June 26, from 8:30 AM to 2:00 PM (including a 1-hour lunch break). We are working to make this virtual Convention informative and interactive—please stay tuned for the details which will be posted on our Convention web page. We are asking everyone who wants to attend to register here. We will follow-up with each League as we get closer to the date to determine who your Convention voting delegates will be. There will be no charge to attend Convention, but LWVMA will gratefully accept donations from local Leagues.

On April 26, LWVUS joined 150+ national and local groups in support of the Administration’s important 2035 clean energy goal embodied in the infrastructure bill pending in Congress. Supporting organizations are calling for inclusion of a Federal Clean Energy Standard as a key strategy for getting us to that critical goal. Leagues across Massachusetts can voice their support for this critical 2035 clean energy goal and clean energy standard by contacting their congressional representatives in the Senate and House and sharing the letter.

Key talking points to include:

We invited Massachusetts high school students to create 30-second videos demonstrating what they learned about our democracy in 2020. Winning videos were selected from a group of 125 entries from across the Commonwealth. Judges scored each video on criteria including clarity of message, memorability, presentation, and creativity. The winners will receive awards of $500 (first place); $250 (second place); and $100 (third place).

First Place: “Democracy Will Persist” by Caitlin Duffy, The Academy at Penguin Hall

Second Place: “United is Power” by Maya Baudrand, Stoneleigh Burnham School

Third Place: “Stand Up” by Julia Valanzola, The Academy at Penguin Hall

Additionally, LWVMA wishes to recognize Wellesley High School with our Catalyst Award for their extraordinary participation in the “Democracy Challenge” contest.

Nancy Bettinger and Lucy Costa are the LWVMA Legislative Specialists focusing on criminal justice. We are available to present to local Leagues on legislative priorities and to offer educational programs on criminal justice issues. We also are developing an email list of individual members who would like to receive more frequent updates regarding criminal justice bills and events. To get in touch, please email us here. We look forward to connecting with you.

LWVMA has sent letters to the House Committee on Rules and to the Joint Rules Conference Committee recommending changes to increase transparency and efficiency in the legislative process.

Speaker Mariano directed the House Committee on Rules to submit changes to the rules governing the House by July 1. We asked the Rules Committee to make all committee votes and all testimony on bills before committees public, to allow 72 hours for legislators to read a bill before a vote is taken, and to record and make public all votes taken on bills in formal House sessions. 

The Joint Rules Conference Committee is debating rules that will apply to the legislature’s joint committees, which hold hearings on all bills, modify bills that are filed, and report final versions of bills to the floor for a vote. We asked for an advance schedule of hearings and at least one week’s notice 

before hearings are held. We asked that all joint committee votes and submitted testimony be made public. And we asked that bills with broad support as evidenced by the number of co-sponsors be reported out of joint committees for floor votes. 

Our recommendations were based on input from League members, action we have taken on this issue in the past, and recommendations of other advocacy organizations. You can read the House Committee on Rules letter here and the Joint Rules Conference Committee letter here.

Hearings are now being scheduled. You can join the legislative specialists in advocating for League-supported bills in multiple ways. Specialists monitor where the bill is in the legislative process and you will see requests in the Action Newsletter asking you to:

Other things you can do to help move important bills forward:

As we reported last month about the 2019-20 legislative session, only 5% of bills filed were actually passed, and about 1% of bills filed and passed are substantive bills. The League has many successes last session, with the help of League members acting as advocates with some bills requiring years of advocacy. 

Learn more about advocacy:

Close to 6,000 bills were given “real” numbers and assigned to committee on April 13. Check the LWVMA website to see bills the LWVMA is supporting this legislative session posted under League Supported Legislation 2021-2022. As our legislative specialists on the Legislation Action Committee (LAC) continue to review bills, additions to the list should be expected. 

How to Contact Your Legislator: You can find phone numbers, email addresses and office addresses on the legislature’s webpage for your Senator and Representative. Go to www.malegislature.gov and click on the Legislators tab. If you don’t know who your legislators are, click here.

The LWVMA Action Newsletter is distributed to all LWVMA members. Anyone can request the Action Newsletter by clicking here. Please review this Newsletter for articles of interest to your League and include them in your local Bulletin.