It’s been almost twenty years since we last updated our voter registration process, and so much has changed since then. These days, the news doesn’t stop, communication is instant, and search engines provide information at the click of a button. The state government has made great strides in keeping up with this trend, and residents can now renew their drivers’ licenses or access many state services online, saving taxpayers both time and money as RMV lines shrink and paperwork becomes electronic. Registering to vote should be just as easy, and technology allows us to do so while maintaining security, saving money, and increasing accessibility.
This session I’m proud to have sponosored An Act to Modernize Voter Registration, which would make it easier for eligible citizens to register to vote and ensure the accuracy of our voter lists by allowing citizens to register to vote online, ensuring that our voting lists stay up to date when voters move, allowing 16 and 17 year old citizens to pre-register to vote, and allowing eligible citizens to register and vote on Election Day.
In the last presidential election, more than 10,000 Massachusetts residents were denied the right to vote because they had not registered at least twenty days before the election. There’s no good reason for these citizens to have been blocked from participating – except for our outdated voter registration laws.
Same-day voter registration has worked successfully for three decades in Maine, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and for almost two decades in New Hampshire, Idaho and Wyoming. In the past few years, same-day registration has also spread to Iowa, Montana and Wisconsin. There’s no reason it couldn’t work just as well here in Massachusetts.
Allowing online voter registration will also help increase voter turnout and engagement – particularly among young people. Citizens between the ages of 18 and 30 have some of the lowest voter registration rates – and 95% of them are frequently online. Allowing online registration and same-day registration will help foster a new generation of citizens actively engaged in our democracy.
It can also help save money. The average cost to register a voter in the United States is about $4, but in Canada, which allows for electronic registration, the cost is about $0.35. Arizona, one of several states that offers online voter registration, saves more than 90% per voter registered online. With the budget constraints currently facing the Commonwealth, every dollar saved in voter registration costs will help preserve vital programs.
Each year, about one in ten people in Massachusetts will move to another residence, where they will need to reregister to vote. This process could be made easier and more efficient by enacting “Permanent Registration,” which would let our Central Voter Registry get updated the same way businesses update their mailing lists, using data from the US Postal Service and the Registry of Motor Vehicles to make sure people are registered where they actually live – saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual costs.
Finally, we should enact “Pre-Registration,” which would allow young adults who will be eighteen by Election Day to register as early as age seventeen. Doing so would encourage civic participation among our youth and help students prepare for Election Day by making sure they’re registered before Election Day and before some of them head off to college.
Voting is one of our most important rights and duties of citizenship, and it’s vital that our voter registration process is both accessible and effective. By enacting these reforms, we will modernize our voting system and empower more citizens to participate while protecting and advancing the hallmark of our democratic system.
March 12, 2012
Framingham wants to remain the primary headquarters for TJX Cos., which has reached a tentative tax-break deal to relocate 1,600 employees to Marlboro.
“The town is engaged in ongoing discussions with TJX senior management and the property owners, Campanelli Brothers, to maintain their major campus at their current 770 Cochituate Road, Framingham site,” Valerie Mulvey, Framingham’s interim town manager, said in a statement. “We believe TJX will recognize the significant value of being in a world-class location in Framingham along with our other major corporate headquarters, including Bose, Staples, Genzyme and Cumberland Gulf Group.”
Under a proposed 20-year agreement that would give TJX a big break on property taxes, the off-price retailer would move 1,600 employees from offices at 500 Old Connecticut Path in Framingham and Westboro to two buildings it plans to buy at 300 and 400 Puritan Way in Marlboro.
Marlboro Mayor Arthur Vigeant, who drafted the preliminary agreement with TJX, said there was no “ultimatum” from TJX that its move would be contingent on the tax breaks. The concessions were warranted, he said, to fill the more than 700,000 square feet of office space being vacated by Fidelity Investments.
“I want to have a competitive tax rate so that we could encourage them to come over here,” Vigeant said, noting the influx of workers would spend money in the city’s restaurants, convenience stores and gas stations.
Vigeant characterized the TJX jobs as “1,600 jobs for my residents.” When it was pointed out that the jobs were merely being relocated from other towns, he said, “they’re not helping me in Marlboro.”
TJX, headed by Carol Meyrowitz, has said it may move all or a portion of its Framingham headquarters.
That kind of one-upmanship between communities is one reason why tax-increment financing, or TIF, deals are problematic, said Deirdre Cummings, legislative director for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group.
“The last thing we want to be doing is pitting one community against another,” she said. “Everybody feels like they just have to throw money at them just to compete, and the taxpayer loses in that scenario. There is absolutely no data and process by which we can evaluate whether or not these TIFs are successful in creating and maintaining jobs.”
The Marlboro City Council should take a close look at the proposed agreement, said state Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton), a skeptic of tax breaks for corporations, particularly when they involve a company just moving from one community to another.
“We provide over $20 billion in tax breaks, and many of them go to large corporations, which are actually now more profitable than ever,” he said. “There’s a touch of irony here, because Fidelity was the recipient of very large tax breaks and yet, over the last 10 years, they have effectively moved most of their workforce out of state.”
March 9, 2012 By Paul Crocetti
A local legislator is at the forefront of a movement that is fighting back against the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling.
State Sen. Jamie Eldridge, D-Acton, who represents Marlborough, is the co-lead sponsor on a resolution that asks the U.S. Congress to send to the states a constitutional amendment that would limit the right of free speech to citizens, not corporations.In Eldridge’s words, such an amendment would correct the decision reached in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 ruling that allows for-profit corporations to spend unlimited amounts of their general treasury funds to influence elections at all levels of government.
And he’s got some support.
A standing room only crowd last week crammed a hearing on the bill by the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
“I think it’s an extremely important issue,” Eldridge said.
The state senator is appropriately concerned that the Supreme Court decision will drown out the voices of “ordinary people.”
“It’s fair to say you’ve already seen that in the Republican primaries,” Eldridge said, noting that candidates Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum all have Super PACs, the political fundraising groups created in the wake of Citizens United.For example, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has given millions of dollars to Gingrich’s Super PAC.
Dean Cavaretta, Eldridge’s likely opponent in this election cycle’s state senate race, agrees with the senator to a point.
“There is too much money in politics, and I’ve been very clear on the need to reform campaign finance laws on all sides,” including abolishing Super PACs, said Cavaretta, a Stow Republican.
But Cavaretta said he would rather the focus at this time be more on the economy and education.
Some Republicans think the resolution does not go far enough, and it should include limits on union spending.
Some unions are corporations, Eldridge said, and this effort would apply to those unions. Some unions, in which members vote on issues, are not corporations.
“The problem with corporate power is it’s not the companies themselves, it’s the ability of the CEO to make decisions in the short-term interest of the corporation,” Eldridge said.
Eldridge’s legislation, S.772, “A Resolution Restoring Free Speech,” would have the Massachusetts Legislature go on the record and request Congress send to the states a constitutional amendment that would essentially overturn Citizens United, effectively allowing state legislatures and Congress to regulate corporate political spending.
March 1, 2012
It took no time at all for the dire predictions about the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision to be realized in full during what are still the early stages of the long presidential campaign season. We urge Berkshire legislators to join a fledgling effort on Beacon Hill asking Congress to overturn the Supreme Court decision.
The Court’s 5-4 decision unleashed contributions from corporations and the extremely wealthy on campaigns with no restrictions and no way to enforce the regulation that supposedly prevents donors from working together with their favored candidates. Here is all anyone needs to know about the impact of the court ruling last year. According to an Associated Press review of campaign finance reports, more than half of the $60 million collected by the so-called superPACS that were created as a byproduct of the court decision came from just 24 people. Twenty-four Americans whose wealth gives them the ability to distort campaigns through the funding of political ads that are often virulently negative and loose with the facts.
Massachusetts legislators and activists rallied at the Statehouse Tuesday to lobby for passage of a resolution urging Congress to repeal Citizens United. This is part of a growing national effort to address a campaign system that threatens our democracy by undermining the First Amendment rights of average Americans who don’t possess overwhelmingwealth. Free speech isn’t free if it must be bought, and our election system is in peril if only the candidates financed by wealthy supporters are able to survive it.
A Montana law banning corporations from making independent campaign expenditures offered hope earlier this month when the Montana Supreme Court overturned a challenge by ruling that … “the impact of unlimited corporate donations creates a dominating impact on the political process and inevitably minimizes the impact of individual citizens.” Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, both a federal district judge and the U.S. Supreme Court itself have issued injunctions preventing Montana from enforcing the law.
This will be a long, uphill battle given that many in Congress are content with a system that allows wealthy individuals and corporations to line their campaign accounts. But as resolution co-sponsor state Senator James Eldridge, an Acton Democrat, said Tuesday, “The problem is real and we owe it to the citizens of the commonwealth to do what we can as a Legislature to stop this.” We hope our county delegation will back this important effort.
Chelmsford — A legal battle over public records requests in Chelmsford has highlighted statewide problems with the Public Records Act, a law legislators have been trying to improve for a year.
Chelmsford selectman candidate Roland Van Liew requested copies of no-bid contracts from the town. When he felt the town hadn’t complied with his request, he sued.
Meanwhile, a Boston-based woman named Alexandra Edelstein has asked for records of all the town’s purchases off the state bidding list, which the town estimates will take several hundred hours and more than $17,000 to collect.
At least four different bills have been filed at the State House to help citizens and municipalities avoid these kinds of situations, but none have left committee review. State Rep. Cory Atkins, co-sponsoring a few of these bills along with fellow Chelmsford state Rep. Jim Arciero and state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, D-Acton, said the Legislature has its hands full.
“In the interim, it’s difficult because everyone is so understaffed because of cuts made to every agency in the commonwealth,” Atkins said.
Reasonable fee
The state’s equivalent of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Massachusetts PRA says most records held by government bodies belong to the public and anyone has the right to look at them.
“People in Massachusetts care very deeply about government,” Eldridge said. “A lot of citizens attend their Town Meetings, Board of Selectmen meetings and School Committee meetings. They put a lot of thought into it. They deserve to have equal access to the documents of their elected officials.”
It’s the government’s job to prepare them for a reasonable fee within a certain period of time, according to the law. But Eldridge questions whether the fees the law sets are reasonable: 20 cents for a photocopied page, 50 cents for a computer printout page and compensation for hours spent on the request.
Further, there are no consequences if a government does not provide the documents. Cases can be taken to court, but the process is lengthy and expensive.
Eldridge, Atkins and Arciero support the solution proposed in S1576, “An Act to Improve Access to Public Records.” The law would limit fees to actual production cost; limit fees for finding and reviewing documents; and reduce copying fees. Additionally, records requestors who go to court would not have to pay legal fees if no valid reason is found for denying the records.
“In my conversations with constituents, many of them have been frustrated with municipal and state government,” Eldridge said. “When they request documents, there’s a long delay or unreasonable costs.”
Asking governments to provide a valid reason for not producing records is a critical step, Eldridge said.
Transparency the key
No such reason is required from citizens – not even those who stress towns’ resources by asking for a large number of documents in a short period of time, or who ask for records whose usefulness is not immediately obvious.
One possibility to address these “gadflies” would be crafting language to distinguish genuine records requests from frivolous ones, according to Gavi Wolfe, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts, in a February presentation. But asking records requestors for a reason might not be worth the risk, Wolfe warned.
“It’s dangerous to give the town a means to appeal a request,” Wolfe said. “It’s in government’s interest to obfuscate.”
State Rep. Tom Golden, who represents Chelmsford, suggested any public records request, even an expensive, time-consuming request or one for apparently inconsequential information, should be honored.
“Whatever can be made public, should be,” Golden said. “If everything is as transparent as it can be, it won’t be that much of an issue to get the information.”
S1575, “An Act to Enhance Access to Electronic Records,” may strip away the records-related issues of time and cost with which municipalities struggle. It calls for governments to routinely post significant information online, provide requested records electronically instead of on paper, and design public databases so people can easily sort through information.
“This would significantly eliminate the cost of public records requests and would address concerns on the part of municipal governments about costs,” said Eldridge, who is co-sponsoring the bill.
Atkins, another co-sponsor, agreed.
“We have to get everything up on computers at some point so voters can just view these records on their own,” Atkins said.
Behind the times
According to Wolfe, a main problem with the PRA is that it has not kept up with technology.
“It doesn’t take advantage of advances in technology or used it as a tool for transparency,” Wolfe said. “Posting commonly requested information online makes it searchable, cheap, efficient and eco-frriendly. It pre-empts the need for public records requests.”
Cohen pointed out Chelmsford has won awards for government transparency and posts more information on their site than most other towns, but he said he would support putting even more information online.
Eldridge said putting more public records online might help restore people’s faith in government at a time when many suspect government officials are hiding something, and could encourage civic engagement.
“Democracy at its core is having all the information in front of you to make an educated decision,” Eldridge said.
BOSTON — Driven by residents’ frustration over extended power failures following Tropical Storm Irene and the October snowstorm, lawmakers are supporting legislation that would push utilities to improve service and communication during storms and their aftermath.
The bill, which has passed the Senate and is now before the House, would require twice-daily public announcements by power companies on estimates of when power will be restored. It will also require that utilities establish a state call center with sufficient staffing to handle increased calls.
The measure would upgrade the rules on the way utilities communicate with customers by requiring telephone and website access.
“I heard from many residents who were frustrated by the utility companies’ responses to the August and October storms,” state Sen. James Eldridge, D-Acton, said after the bill passed unanimously last week. “In some cases, residents went without power for over a week, often unable to get any information from their utility company about when power would be restored.”
Eldridge said receiving twice-daily updates of when power would be back can help people make important decisions.
“Having that information could determine whether that person goes to a shelter or to a hotel,” he said.
State Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, said this bill would go a long way toward improving the utilities’ response time.
“We’ve addressed a lot of concerns and complaints of constituents, like the communication updates,” Moore said. “There’s the provision that says the Department of Public Utilities will levy fines on utilities for poor response time, and it’s important to have these incentives so the utilities get the power up quickly.”
State Sen. Richard Ross, R-Wrentham, said the most consistent issue his office dealt with after the storms was the lack of communication between the utilities and local towns and cities.
“Local officials tried again and again to reach utilities for information on restoration, and when they couldn’t get through, they called my office,” he said. “The liaisons eventually appointed were ill-equipped to facilitate restoration efforts.”
The bill addresses such shortcomings by requiring a liaison in each community when implementing an emergency response plan.
“What good is a liaison if they have no knowledge or experience in restoration?” Ross said. “This requires that each community liaison would get a feeder map of equipment in the communities and give them the information they need to be effective.”
Additionally, utilities will pay an assessment charge of $460,000 to help the state Department of Public Utilities pay for its investigations of the storm responses. The cost of the assessment cannot be passed on to customers.
“We put enforcement tools in this bill for utilities that don’t serve customers how they should,” Eldridge said. “Delays and poor communication are unacceptable in the 21st century.”
The bill now heads to the House.
State Rep. John Fernandes, D-Milford, said he has not been able to review the bill yet but was upset by the utilities’ slow response to the storms. He said it is appropriate to take action and fix this issue for future storms.
“It’s essential to improve the emergency response plans,” Fernandes said. “The reasonable expectations were not met by utilities and need to be corrected. There needs to be a more effective response in the future. The response times stretched way too long.”
BOSTON — State Sen. Jamie Eldridge will be a leader of a new Green Economy Caucus at the State House to promote legislation that will foster job creation and sustainable development, his office said today.
Eldridge, D-Acton, and his co-chairman, state Rep. Frank Smizik, D-Brookline, formed the caucus, which will focus on a number of themes within the broad scope of the green economy: water, energy, clean technology, infrastructure and food.
“Massachusetts is uniquely positioned to be a leader in the transition to a green economy because we have the talent, political will and entrepreneurial spirit necessary to effect change,” said Eldridge, who represents Marlborough, Hudson, Southborough, Westborough and parts of Sudbury and Northborough. “State government needs to find ways to encourage and support these green businesses and give them the best possible chance of thriving. Doing so is going to help us create jobs now while benefiting our environment, our economy and therefore our citizens over the long-term. It really is a win-win-win strategy.”
Eldridge and Smizik are the lead sponsors of “An Act Establishing the Office of Clean Technology,” which would help increase the competitiveness of the state’s clean technologies industry, Eldridge’s office said.
“Massachusetts has long been a hotbed of technological innovation,” Eldridge said. “By working to support and further develop our thriving green economy, we can guarantee our position well into the 21st Century.”
State spending is on track to top $30 billion this year, but an often overlooked area of “spending” is the amount the state is granting to individuals and businesses in the form of tax credits, exemptions and deductions.
Those tax breaks totaled $24.2 billion this year and while the state is not writing a check for them, it can be argued every dollar given in tax credits and deductions is another dollar other taxpayers have to chip into the government pot.
A new state commission created by a budget rider authored by Sen. James Eldridge, D-Acton, is studying those tax expenditures and last week agreed to general principals that the public should be able to determine how much is being spent on tax breaks. In addition, they agreed, the breaks should be periodically reviewed.
A list attached to the state budget breaks down each category and their total costs to the state.
Businesses took $44 million in direct tax credits, which provides a dollar for dollar reduction in their tax bills under the investment tax credit. That credit allows up to a 3 percent credit for depreciation of equipment or property.
Another $80 million went to research tax credits which allow companies to deduct all of the first $25,000 in excise tax and 75 percent of any additional excise tax for business-related research.
A total of $10 million went to moviemakers for film tax credits and $25 million was taken in life science development incentives. Listed as expired last year were the home energy efficiency credit and solar heat credit. Dairy farmers used $1.8 million in credits to make their farms more profitable.
The annual budget listing also shows how much more residents would be paying if not for the sales tax exemptions on food, clothes, medicine and alcoholic beverages.
In all, $1.4 billion in sales were exempt from the sales tax. Of that, $682 million came from exemptions on food purchases, $252 million for clothing and $438 million from sales tax exemptions for medical and dental supplies and devices.
Also there is no sales tax on publications like the one you are reading, as no sales tax is charged to buy newspapers and magazines — saving consumers $36.4 million.
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Steve Brewer, D-Barre, who serves on the commission, said a periodic review would help keep track of what at this point is “a mountain of exemptions in the tax code.” No doubt it may also draw questions about which ones are still serving a purpose, and which are not. “What we are saying is that some may have outlived their usefulness,” Brewer said.
Sen. Michael Knapik, R-Westfield, said since 2008 tax expenditures have been listed in the state budget and closer scrutiny of tax breaks will test some as to their merit and intended policy goal.
“Whether we reduce them or not, that is a different question,” he said. The frequency of re-examination should be limited so businesses dependent on tax breaks don’t get skittish about their viability, Knapik said.
“I’ve been here for 20-plus years and I helped in a bipartisan way with many that were designed to make Massachusetts competitive with our peer states or other nations,” he said. “There are agendas at play that would strike out many of these so that we could simply spend the money on programs. The public deserves an understanding as to what these are, why we did them and why they should continue.”
Politicians are fair game and easy targets.
They push bills to designate an official state cheese and drag their feet on anything controversial. They’re quick to take credit and even quicker to find someone else to blame.
Time and again they prove themselves worthy of scorn and ridicule by representing the interests of everyone except the people they were elected to represent.
At least that’s the way it seems.
But sometimes what seems to be true isn’t the whole story.
Sometimes they’re doing exactly the kind of stuff they should be doing, and not seeking inordinate amounts of publicity for doing so.
On Monday morning, state Rep. Dan Winslow, a Republican from Norfolk, showed up at the Milford unemployment office to draw attention to the state’s deficit in job creation.
He picked a good place to go and a good time to be there.
Staffing at the Milford site has prompted several people to call the newsroom to say they waited all day and never got to see anyone. On Monday morning, there were 20 people in line before the doors opened.
Winslow said he talked to a forklift operator who had been out of work for more than two years and was now living in his car.
Will Winslow’s visit get the forklift operator back to work? Maybe not. Will he be able to fast-track bills to help others in that worker’s shoes? Unlikely.
But by showing up, he at least sent the message he grasps that not all his constituency has been lifted by the state’s shrinking unemployment rate, and blue-collar workers and older workers remain particularly hard-hit.
State Sen. Jamie Eldridge, D-Acton, recently met with a group of constituents, including Marlborough real estate agent Lyn Gorka, who are looking for some sort of legislation to prevent an animal being left to die in an abandoned property, the way yellow Lab Phantom was in a Hudson condo complex last year.
Eldridge didn’t seek publicity for the meeting and didn’t promise quick answers.
Still, “the meeting went really well,’’ said Gorka.
“The meeting was mostly a chance to discuss policy ideas they had, as well as existing pending bills that might help accomplish some of the same goals,’’ Melissa Threadgill, a spokeswoman for Eldridge, said in a recent email. After doing some research, Eldridge’s staff found a bill filed by state Rep. Harold Naughton Jr., D-Clinton, “would require all cities and towns to certify that abandoned properties have been inspected, which would find any pets that had been left behind,’’ she said. “It seems like passing this bill would be the fastest way to see a substantive change in policy. Given the timing and the legislative schedule, any new bill that is introduced wouldn’t see any movement until at least a year from now, and probably much longer.’’
Such a bill comes too late for Phantom, who was last seen alive by neighbors in May and whose remains were found in September, but if it helps any animal escape his fate, I’m all for it. I respect Eldridge’s willingness to support a colleague’s bill rather than making sure his name is attached to legislation that would take far longer to make its way through the State House maze. And I respect the fact his office didn’t seek attention about the meeting.
I also respect U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern and his staff not tooting their own horn on an issue for which they deserve credit.
I recently ran into Lila, an Egyptian native and American citizen who had grave fears about the safety of her Coptic Christian family back in Egypt last April. I wrote about her concerns, but told her a column in a local newspaper would offer little protection for her loved ones in Assiut. She followed the advice to contact legislators, and when I saw her earlier this month, she said she’d just learned her parents had been granted visas, thanks to efforts by McGovern, D-3rd, and his staff.
It’s not the first time I’ve told people to contact their senators and representatives, locally or in Washington, and it won’t be the last.
For all they do to earn scorn, politicians also honestly do, on many occasions, go to the mat for the people they represent.
And once in a while, they deserve a pat on the back for the efforts that rarely make headline news.
Prominent real estate developer Arthur Winn got off with a $100,000 fine in federal court and no prison time for making illegal campaign contributions in an effort to win public money for his now aborted Columbus Center project.
Elsewhere a grand jury is reportedly investigating the pressures brought to bear on Probation Department employees to give to political campaigns in order to advance their careers.
All of which makes a fundraising reform proposal by Sen. James Eldridge (D-Concord) both sensible and timely.
Eldridge’s bill would make it illegal for any legislator (or their political committees) to hold fundraising events during the Legislature’s annual budget deliberations.
“The reality is, inevitably, what happens every budget season, there is a story about how a particular legislator is raising money just before or during budget deliberations,” Eldridge told State House News Service, “and then sometimes something will be seen in the budget that might have benefited that particular person raising money at that event.”
At the very least it gives the perception of impropriety. Eldridge is right; the budget-time fundraiser, especially by those involved in the all-powerful Ways and Means Committees, is as predictable as the seasons.
Eldridge’s bill would not apply to supplemental budgets, which are a nearly year ’round fact of life on Beacon Hill. But his bill would provide a kind of “buffer zone” around budget talks — banning fundraising events one week before, during and one week after each branch takes up the state budget (the House and Senate deliberations are separate).
Any lawmaker found in violation would have to return the contributions and the case would be turned over to that branch’s ethics committee.
In addition to increasing public trust, Eldridge’s bill might have the unintended consequence of speeding up those budget battles on the Hill.
Campaign Constituent
RT @Barry_Finegold: Congrats to @ThereseMurrayMA and @SenDickMoore and their staffs for their incredible work on health care cost contai ... #
