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LWVMA Webinar Series on the Status and Future Plans for Offshore Wind

Massachusetts and other New England states are planning on offshore wind as a major factor in meeting renewable energy generation and emissions reduction goals as we transition off fossil fuels.  Join LWVMA as they take a deep dive into the Northeast’s offshore wind industry and learn about the value of critical offshore wind projects and threats to their timely deployment. Each session has a separate Zoom registration. Sign up for one, two, or all three! See full descriptions and registration links for each session on the  LWVMA website. This series is co-hosted by LWVMA and New England for Offshore Wind (NE4OSW).

What’s Up with Offshore Wind? Current Status – Future Plans – Getting It Done

Webinars are 4:00-5:00pm Eastern Time
Webinar I, September 14, 2023: Collaboration and Ambition: Where Offshore Wind Stands Now
Webinar II, November 16, 2023: Opportunities and Obstacles: Costs and Benefits of Offshore Wind
Webinar III, January 18, 2024: Conflicts and Solutions: Overcoming Offshore Wind Opposition

Contact Your State Representatives Regarding HD4220, An Act Modernizing Firearm Laws

Please contact your State Representative in support of An Act to Modernize Firearm Laws, HD4220.

We are not immune to gun violence in Massachusetts.  While the Commonwealth has the lowest rate of gun deaths nationwide, according to the Gun Violence Archive, 387 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in Massachusetts in 2023.  In the first 18 days of July alone, eight people have been killed and 18 injured by firearms across the Commonwealth, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

The opposition to this bill is organized, loud and fierce. It is critical that legislators, even though they are pro-gun control, can count the number of constituents on the other side.  Each of us needs to contact our state representative and state senator in support of this bill.

On Monday, July 17, Representative Michael Day of Stoneham, Chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, briefed LWVMA members on this new omnibus bill. View the recording here.

Read the LWVMA summary and press release here.

If you have access to the Boston Globe, check out their July 10 editorial on this bill: Why Massachusetts can’t wait for Congress to enact stronger gun safety laws (bostonglobe.com)

Read more →

Monday, July 17 at 7pm: Zoom Informational Meeting on Proposed Gun Control Laws

Aren’t we safe from gun violence in Massachusetts? While the Commonwealth has the lowest rate of gun deaths nationwide, we are not immune. According to the Gun Violence Archive, 387 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in Massachusetts in 2023. It will take all of us to stem the rising tide of gun violence that claims the lives 130 Americans every day.

Representative Michael Day of Stoneham, Chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, will brief us on his brand new omnibus bill, An Act to Modernize Firearm Laws, HD4220, on Monday, July 17 at 7:00 PM via Zoom.  Chair Day filed the 141 page bill–the most sweeping legislation since the gun reform bill of 2014. Conducting an 11 stop firearms listening tour throughout the Commonwealth, Rep. Day was charged with writing the bill following the US Supreme Court’s decision in the Bruen concealed carry case.

Register here.

Read the LWVMA summary and press release here.

If you have access to the Boston Globe, check out their July 10 editorial on this bill: Why Massachusetts can’t wait for Congress to enact stronger gun safety laws (bostonglobe.com)

LWVMA Supports YES on Ballot Question 4

A YES vote keeps the Work and Family Mobility Act as law in Massachusetts.

Question 4, which will be on the November 8 ballot, asks whether to keep the Work and Family Mobility Act as law in Massachusetts. LWVMA and LWVN is supporting Yes on 4.

The Work and Family Mobility Act ensures that all qualified state residents, regardless of immigration status, can apply for a standard Massachusetts driver’s license starting on July 1, 2023. The law was enacted on June 9, 2022. Massachusetts became the 17th state to pass such a law, joining our neighbors New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont. LWVMA supported this bill during the 2019-20 session and is an active member of the coalition, Yes on 4 For Safer Roads.

The League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and the Transportation for Massachusetts (T4MA) coalition presented “Safer Roads for a Stronger Commonwealth,” an online panel discussion about Question 4.  At this forum, civic, business, transportation and public safety experts talked about what this law will do – and will not do – for Massachusetts. Watch the recording here. 

View and download the Yes on 4 for Safer Roads flyer.

LWVN Signs on To Petition Supporting Funding for Early Education and Child Care

On June 12, 2022, LWVN signed on to the Common Start Coalitions’ Petition calling on state legislators from both the House and Senate to maximize funding in this year’s state budget for early education and child care contemplated in An Act to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Care, H.4795/S.2883. If the State Legislature passes this bill and the Governor signs, it will greatly improve the Commonwealth’s early education and child care system, ensuring high-quality early education and child care that is affordable and accessible for all families.

Read more information on the Common Start Coalition.

See President Marcia Johnson’s memo to the LWVN Board notifying it of this action and the reasons for taking it.

LWVMA Supports Funding for Early Education and Child Care

LWVMA is also supporting funding for early education and child care in this year’s state budget and providing affordable and accessible high quality early education and childcare in Massachusetts is a LWVMA priority bill that was featured at Day on the Hill. See League testimony here and fact sheet here.

Take Action Now

Please contact your legislators to ask them to encourage the Legislature’s budget conference committee to include the new early education and child care funding from both the House AND Senate budgets in their final conference budget. If the priorities of both chambers make it into the final budget, it would represent a substantial step toward implementing our full vision of a high-quality early education and childcare system that is affordable and accessible for all families.

Please call or email your state Senator and Representative; leave a voice message. Find your legislator’s contact information here.

Here is a suggested script:

I’m a member of the League of Women Voters of ________ and a constituent. I am contacting you about the Common Start early education and childcare funding provisions that are part of the House and Senate budget bills now in the budget conference committee. I am asking you to urge the Legislature’s budget conference committee to include the new early education and child care funding from both the House AND Senate budgets in their final conference budget, to advance the vision of a high-quality early education and childcare system that is affordable and accessible for all families in Massachusetts.

Thank you!

(Your name and your street address)

State Council/National Convention

State Council Set for June 11

The 2022 LWVMA Council will be held on Saturday, June 11 from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m.  

Ellen Clegg, former Editorial Page Editor of The Boston Globe, and Northeastern University Professor Dan Kennedy, are the keynote speakers. Their remarks will focus on the collapse of community journalism and its causes. We will learn, too, of the alternative paths that entrepreneurial journalists are creating to keep providing news and information citizens need to govern themselves in a democracy.

There’s no limit to the number of members who can register; the leadership of LWVN will designate its voting delegates. There is no cost to attend as delegate or as an observer.

This event will be held on zoom.  Register here.

For questions about the State Council, please contact the LWVMA Office at (857) 452-1715.

National Convention Set for June 23-26

LWVUS has published the first call for its 55th Annual Convention June 23 – 26, 2022.  This event will beheld in-person.  More information can be found here.

If you are a member of LWVN and would like to attend either the State Council or the National Convention, please Contact Us so that we can know who will be attending.