Newsletter: Legislative highs and lows | Jewish community candidate forums | cable access interview | BTU, SEIU State Council endorsements

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There are less than three weeks to go until the 12th Middlesex State Representative election! Do you have a plan to vote by Tuesday September 3rd, the day after Labor Day?

Today’s newsletter includes more endorsement news, a brief summary of the outcome of the formal 2023-2024 legislative session, and discussion of two recent forums from segments of the organized Jewish community.

Additionally, I encourage everyone in both Newton & Brookline to watch the Brookline Interactive Group interview I recorded last month with Brookline State Rep. Tommy Vitolo, where we did a deep dive on policy issues facing the State House. It was a great conversation, and I think you’ll learn a lot about me and how I approach the challenges ahead.


New organizational endorsements: BTU, SEIU State Council

I’m also pleased to announce two new organizational endorsements: the Boston Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union Massachusetts State Council. The BTU represents about 10,000 educators and other Boston Public Schools employees, many of whom live in our district. In the Greater Boston region, all legislators need to work together to provide quality public educational facilities & academics for every child. There can be no siloing across municipal borders. The SEIU State Council represents 120,000 members in home care, childcare, substance use and mental health services, nursing homes, hospitals, building service jobs, and public service work. Their priorities include raising the minimum wage & direct care pay and stabilizing rents. (1199 SEIU and SEIU Local 509 had also previously endorsed individually.)

Organized labor and the organized progressive public policy advocacy lobby on Beacon Hill have overwhelmingly chosen to throw their full support behind me in this State Representative campaign, not only for a clear depth and breadth of policy knowledge but also a willingness to do the difficult and interpersonally challenging work of shaking things loose in an increasingly “stuck” legislature, drawing on my years of political strategy experience and track record of sticking to my values under pressure.

 

Housing bill signed, but legislative session a disappointment on many issues

Our full-time, professional legislature ended its formal session for the current two-year last week. The good news was that the Affordable Homes Act (also known as the Housing Bond Bill) was passed and signed. (It was wonderful to have Governor Healey and her team come to Newton to sign the legislation, and I attended the ceremony.)

Although the legislators ended up leaving out many of the important policy proposals from advocates and the Healey-Driscoll Administration, the Affordable Homes Act is another important step in the right direction on one of the biggest challenges underlying many of the struggles facing Massachusetts residents and businesses. It will be critical now to have legislators making sure the authorized bond money is actually deployed. There will be even more work to be done on state housing policy for stability and supply in the next legislative term to build on this step.

The bad news is that the session ended with literally no climate or energy billbeing passed out of the State Legislature to the Governor’s desk, let alone any other environmental policy action. 

They also failed to pass the Mass Leads Act (the economic development bill I covered a couple newsletters ago in depth), which also contained a big climate technology innovation component, although they are trying to reach an agreement for a special session to take it up. This failure after months of not getting a deal done sent a strong signal of structural dysfunction and uncertainty to companies around the country and around the world that Massachusetts is becoming a riskier place to locate a business.

Another key area of concern with gridlock was the maternal health and reproductive freedom agenda, which most voters in our state clearly support and perhaps even already assume is in place. They are holding an informal session this week to take a voice vote on a package of legislation in this arena, after procrastinating for the rest of the term and missing the formal session deadline by two weeks on what should have been a slam-dunk proposal. 

I am the only candidate in this race endorsed by a major pro-choice organization, Reproductive Equity Now (formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice MA), and they have ramped up their efforts to elect me, noting to members in an additional statement, after the session ended, the following:

“We are proud to endorse Bill Humphrey, a two-time Reproductive Equity Now Town & City Champion, for State Representative. Bill has been a relentless advocate for universal childcare, increasing access to maternal health care, comprehensive sex ed, and more on the Newton City Council, and we know he will continue his long history of prioritizing reproductive equity in the State House. We look forward to working with Bill to improve access to abortion care, protect the privacy of patients and providers, and ensure Massachusetts continues to lead on reproductive freedom in a post-Roe world.”

These topics mentioned in their statements are all areas with specific policy proposals that have stalled even here in Massachusetts, where we often think of ourselves as doing better than other states.

I was quoted in a GBH News article on the apparent legislative collapse at the end of the formal session: “Passing no bills for a year and a half and then saying you ran out of time to pass bills at the last second is an astonishing way of governing.”

I discuss this in more depth in my campaign website’s platform plank on Legislative Accountability:

Legislative work that should be happening every day over a term increasingly occurs in a chaotic, last-minute scramble in the final weeks of a session where huge bills pass with little review and often missing critical pieces that had been considered essential. 

Lack of delegation of authority to the relevant committees and their expertise leads to a bottleneck of inaction and drafting errors in lawmaking, even on completely uncontroversial proposals with overwhelming support. Hundreds of bills each term are voted out of committee each term and expire without a vote in the full House of Representatives because the clock runs out and they seem to be lost in the shuffle.


Business as usual is not working anymore, and it’s time for a change.

 

Candidate forums from the JCRC & Agudath Israel

The 12th Middlesex House district has a significant Jewish population with a wide range of affiliations and internal observance or heritage distinctions. As the only candidate in the race who happens to not be Jewish, I’ve been fortunate to have so many Jewish voters, constituents, and supporters sharing their stories, experiences, and perspectives with me as I make this journey to the State House – and I’m grateful that we have had not one but two different organizations sponsor candidate forums specifically on Jewish community issues and concerns at the state legislative level this year.

Two weeks ago, the Massachusetts chapter of Agudath Israel, representing the modern Orthodox community on policy advocacy, held a forum over Zoom at the suggestion of some active Brookline community members in the district. Topics covered were: how to combat antisemitism (including at public schools and universities), whether the state legislature ought to make policy in relation to Israel, nonprofit security grant funding, and secular state benefits for schoolchildren at private Jewish day schools.

Last week the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (in conjunction with six other Jewish community organizations) also sponsored a forum at Temple Emanuel. Topics at that event included, among others, combating antisemitism, improving upon the recent housing legislation, expanding reproductive freedom, and protecting immigrants.

Just like our candidate forum earlier this year from the Chinese American Association of Newton, it was a great opportunity for me as an outsider to listen and learn more, to better integrate additional concrete policy proposals from different constituencies into my campaign slogan of “A Commonwealth for everyone.” I also met earlier this year with members of our local Muslim and Arab communities, who wanted to share what they’re experiencing.

The strongest and safest society is one where we build bridges and relationships of solidarity and mutual understanding across our communal differences instead of only speaking within. No one is alone if we speak – and listen – to one another.
 

I hope to earn your vote by Tuesday September 3rd, the day after Labor Day, to be your Democratic nominee for our next State Representative.

Learn more at billhumphrey.org – and please volunteer or donate if you are able.