Make your voice heard Thursday June 3 at 11 a.m. via Zoom with the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence during the Day of Action. Stand together to say to our state legislators: Not one more life lost to gun violence. Hear from survivors, learn about legislative priorities, and advocate to end gun violence in Massachusetts. Rep. Liz Miranda, Sen. Cindy Creem, and Juanita Batchelor of MORE (Mother, Overlooked, Reaching Out, Empowerment) in Springfield will share their experiences. Register here.

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 upcoming virtual hearings:

The livestream of these hearings 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 community such as 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.  

See the People Powered Fair Maps Toolkit for more information.

We need equitable health care coverage for all persons in the Commonwealth. H.1267/S.766 An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts, is now before the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing. 

Please make the call. Send the emails. Help get this bill out of committee. Let us finally have the discussion!

This bill, H.2271/S.1517, An Act Promoting Community Immunity, supports student health by providing a consistent immunization policy across Massachusetts schools, daycare centers, and summer camps. By improving data collection, gaps in vaccination rates can be identified to allow for targeted intervention. The public data will allow parents to make informed decisions as to where to send their child to school, daycare, and summer camp. (Note: This bill deals with a streamlined, mandatory reporting process for laws already in place. Don’t confuse this bill with others being introduced to change immunization requirements in the state.)

Action 1: Please contact the Joint Committee on Public Health (committee chairs: Senator Comerford here and Representative Decker here) asking that a hearing be scheduled as soon as possible. 

Action 2: It will be useful to have parents of immunocompromised children testify at the Joint Committee Hearing telling legislators how import this data is when making choices for their children. If you, a family member, or friend have a story you are willing to tell, please let legislative health specialists Val and Janice know here.

The Massachusetts Against Solitary Confinement Coalition (MASC) is sponsoring a Zoom briefing for legislators on June 22 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. entitled Women’s Forum: The Impact of Solitary Confinement. This event is being co-sponsored by LWVMA. The panel will recount the damage done by solitary confinement in Massachusetts and encourage support for two solitary confinement bills, one of which is a priority for LWVMA (S.1578/H.2504). Panelists include the sponsoring legislators (Senator Jamie Eldridge and Representative Liz Miranda) and representatives from ACLU, MASC and Prisoners’ Legal Services. Please encourage your legislators to register to attend using the link here.

We had a successful lobby day May 3 for the VOTES Act, H.805/S.459, with lots of League participants, followed by a joint committee hearing May 19. You can watch the hearing here and read the Associated Press story with a quote from LWVMA here.

If you have not yet done so, please email your state Senator and Representative and ask them to contact the Joint Committee on Election Laws and leadership to report the VOTES Act out of committee in its entirety and soon. The bill will make permanent the election reforms, including expanded voting by mail and expanded in-person early voting, that were enacted on a temporary basis for last fall's elections. Please emphasize that you want same day voter registration included in the legislation the committee reports out. Click here for more details on the bill.

We think the legislature will extend the pandemic election provisions from June 30 until the end of December to cover this fall’s municipal elections. But the legislature needs to pass the VOTES Act in the next few months, so it is in place when those temporary provisions expire.  

Face surveillance legislation (H.135/S.47) needs to move forward NOW not late in this new 2-year session. Please contact your legislators in both House and Senate and request them to both co-sponsor these bills and urge them to move these bills forward. The Joint Committee assignment of this bill is currently being negotiated, so please ask for support and a prompt hearing without reference to a joint committee.

Last session, some pieces of a biometric moratorium were part of the omnibus criminal reform bill which the LWVMA worked hard to pass. But critical elements were left out that limit the police and other state agencies from using face surveillance software without any warrant or probable cause. That legislation is reintroduced in this session. These elements of the proposed legislation were in the omnibus bill, but vetoed by the Governor in support of local police. We need to hold every agency accountable to the law and prevent invasions of privacy that are effectively warrantless searches.  

  

The current law does nothing to stop other government agencies—like schools—from acquiring and using invasive apps like ClearviewAI, which “scrapes” images from everywhere on the web, including Facebook, resulting in over 1 billion searchable images. No government employee should be able to deploy such a dangerous and invasive technology on an unsuspecting public. The current law also lacks enforcement mechanisms, to make sure police follow the current law—a critical matter, given that police in Massachusetts have been using Clearview’s technology in secret. This is made more dangerous by the fact that the tools are terribly inaccurate, especially for people of color and for women.

LWVMA welcomes Representative Liz Miranda (D-5th Suffolk) as our keynote speaker for the 2021 Convention. Rep. Miranda is a member of the Massachusetts Legislature’s Black and Latino Caucus and was a key ally in the omnibus police reform bill that was passed into law on December 31, 2020.

Rep. Miranda is a dynamic example of a legislator whose work amplifies this year’s Convention theme, Expanding the Table: Making Democracy Work for Everyone. You don’t want to miss her remarks. Register here for Convention! Pre-Convention materials can be found here. Local League gifts to LWVMA will be gratefully accepted! Please click here for the donation form.

Since Convention is virtual this year, we hope each League will create a one-minute video highlighting a local League initiative (or several initiatives). We would especially welcome knowing about any diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives undertaken by your League. Local League Showcase videos can be submitted using the directions here. Questions about the Local League Showcase? Contact Alexa Williamson here.

See you on June 26!

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 out its first-ever membership-wide demographics and diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) survey. We are hoping that every League member in Massachusetts will complete and submit the survey by June 9.

Why are we doing this? Because diversity, equity and inclusion are central pillars of LWVMA’s mission and strategic plan, we need to understand more about the composition of our membership and the progress we have made, thus far, toward our DEI goals and objectives. We will be sure to share the results once they are compiled.

Your participation in this survey is greatly appreciated – thank you for submitting your responses by June 9! 

Watch “The Race to Zero Emissions: MA Next Generation Climate Law and Clean Energy & Climate Plan" here. The May 24 program was hosted by LWVMA Environmental Action and Advocacy Committee and features John Rogers from the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Matt Rusteika from the Acadia Center speaking about the goals of the new climate law, strategies to achieve those goals, the critical role of the regional electrical grid, and our role as advocates.

Help Pass the For the People Act

We're close to passing once-in-a-generation legislation to protect the freedom to vote. The For the People Act (S.1) would:

President Biden was elected to office to improve our democracy -- and that's why LWVUS is calling on him to continue speaking out in favor of S.1 and to urge the Senate to pass it by any means necessary!

Sign the petition today to let him know you feel the same way! Together, we can strengthen our democracy.

Check the LWVMA website to see which bills the LWVMA is supporting or opposing this legislative session and LWVMA testimony posted under League Supported Legislation 2021-2022. As our legislative specialists 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.