Save the date! Plan to participate in a virtual lobby day to support the VOTES Act, which will make permanent election reforms put in place last fall. The virtual lobby day will be Tuesday, May 11, noon to 1:30 p.m. Register here to join!

While most bills do not get voted on in the House and Senate until the second year of the legislative session, the VOTES Act, HD.1536/SD.1002, that will make last fall’s election reforms including mail voting permanent, needs action now. That emergency legislation on mail voting has already been temporarily extended to June 30 to cover the spring town elections. The legislature should pass the VOTES Act this summer to cover this fall’s municipal elections and all future elections.

Please email your Senator and Representative and ask them to urge the Senate and House leadership and the chairs of the Joint Committee on Election Laws to move this voting reform bill quickly so these important changes can be implemented by the fall elections.

The bill includes expanded in-person early voting and expanded access to voting by mail. Voters can have mail ballots sent to them permanently (until they cancel) without further application. It provides for drop boxes, an online portal for mail ballot application and prepaid postage for applications and ballots. It also continues practices at election officials’ offices that make the process more efficient, including processing mailed ballots ahead of Election Day. And it would bring same day voter registration to Massachusetts. 

All state legislative and congressional districts in Massachusetts are being re-drawn now and will be in place for the next decade. Our goal is to ensure a fair and transparent process that guarantees equity for all voices in the Commonwealth. In the webinar held March 31, we outline the basics of redistricting, why it matters, and concrete action steps you and your Leagues can take to make democracy work for all. View People Powered Fair Maps: Redistricting in Massachusetts here.

You can help the statewide redistricting process by finding out the plans your city or town has for reprecincting and if your town or city government has been contacted by the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office on the reprecincting timing this year. The state process requires the precincts are drawn and approved by June 15 of the year the Census is released. Precincts are to be established before the Congressional and state districts are drawn. However, the Census data will not be available until well after June 15, leading to significant disruptions in the reprecincting and redistricting process. Please check with your town or city’s mayor, city council, manager, Select Board, or election officials for this information. Send any information you gather to Judy Zaunbrecher.

We are nearly ready to begin the judging portion of the 2021 student video contest—the deadline for students to submit their video entries is Friday, April 2. Judging is scheduled to begin on April 5 and must conclude on April 23. Winners of the contest will be announced by April 30. If you are interested in judging this year's video contest, please contact Taylor Grenga.  

LWV is promoting the People Powered Fair Maps Day of Action on April 29 to raise awareness and promote action on redistricting. All Leagues are encouraged to participate. LWVMA will be holding a Day of Action focused on the Massachusetts redistricting process and providing background and actions you can take to be involved in the state redistricting process. Look for details later this month.

We welcome any local Leagues who would like to co-sponsor this event with us. You can find existing resources for your Day of Action on this page. 

You can register your April 29 Day of Action here. 

Many thanks to Beacon BLOC members Mark Martinez and Tara Wilson for the wonderful presentation, Demystifying the State Budget. We appreciate Beacon BLOC and the Young Professionals Network of the Urban League of Eastern MA for preparing the presentation.

View the Demystifying the State Budget recording here. 

(Note: You can also watch an earlier LWVMA webinar with BeaconBLOC entitled How does the Massachusetts legislature work? here.)

Guns, Safety, and the Edge of Adulthood April 7

LWVMA is a member of the MA Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, which is focusing on actions that will address the root causes of violence and create anti-racist system change. You are invited to attend the next Coalition Town Hall, Guns, Safety and the Edge of Adulthood, on Wednesday, April 7th at 11:00 AM. Register here. The Center for Court Innovation has released an in-depth and critical report on why youth pick up guns. A panel will discuss what the recommendations mean for youth violence intervention programs in MA. 

This legislation will make voting easier and more accessible and modernize future elections. The House has just passed the For the People Act again - it is now time for the Senate do the same. The For the People Act addresses some of the most pressing issues facing our democracy by: 

Thank Senators Warren and Markey and your Representative in Congress for their support by googling “email (name)” to get their contact form.

Thanks to League members’ consistent support and advocacy under the leadership of LWVMA climate specialist Launa Zimmaro, the Next Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy is now a law marking a major milestone for our Commonwealth.  

The Next Generation Roadmap is the first major climate legislation to pass since 2008 with the enactment of the Global Warming Solutions Act. But even more significantly, this law has been developed to work in concert with the Baker Administration’s Decarbonization Roadmap and Interim 2030 Clean Energy and Climate Plan for a “whole of government approach” to address the threat of climate change. It is ambitious and broad in scope and scale, with clear targets for achieving reductions in emissions to ensure we achieve net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner. Click here for an excellent summary of the law. 

This law and the Decarbonization Roadmap set the highest standards in the nation for addressing climate change as the urgent matter it is. It is also a demonstration of bi-cameral, bi-partisan cooperation and determination, with significant contributions from many members of the House and the Senate and growing public support over the year and a half it has taken to pass this law.

Read LWV Massachusetts statement “LWVMA Stands with AAPI Communities Across the Country” here. 

Read LWVUS statement “LWVUS and LWVGA Condemn Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders” here.

Utilize LWVMA resources on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion here.

The legislative specialists on the Legislation Action Committee (LAC) are reviewing the more than 7,000 bills that have been filed for this session of the legislature, often working with partner organizations in their areas. If you are interested in a particular bill, we encourage you to let the LAC know, with details about the bill and why you think LWVMA should support it; contact LAC Chair Kathy Leonardson. Note that our specialists try to focus on broader policy bills, and they need to limit the number of bills they follow based on the time they have available for this volunteer job. But we welcome suggestions and are happy to review them. We expect to begin posting the bills that LWVMA is supporting this session on our website in April, as soon as the bills are assigned to joint committees and given “real” numbers instead of the filing or “docket” number indicated by HD or SD. That process is taking longer this year because the filing deadline was moved from January to Feb. 19.

Local Leagues and League members are encouraged to support the bills that LWVMA has decided to back. To assure that the League “speaks with one voice” and does not offer conflicting messages to legislators, those are the only bills that local Leagues and by members in their League role can advocate for. Individuals are, of course, free to take any actions they want as individuals.

The exception is a bill that deals only with an issue specific to a city or town, for example, if a town wants to allow teens to vote in town elections. If a local League wants to work on that kind of bill, the LAC has a policy on how to do that and can offer help. Please contact Kathy Leonardson for details.

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.