Galvin joins statewide groups in calling for automatic voter registration
Boston — Secretary of State William Galvin Thursday announced his support for automatic voter registration in Massachusetts and urged the Legislature to pass the bill H.4320 as soon as possible this session.
The AVR legislation, introduced by Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem, D-Newton, and the late Rep. Peter Kocot, would establish a system for eligible citizens to automatically register to vote when they interact with a state agency like the Registry of Motor Vehicles or MassHealth. Approximately 680,000 eligible Massachusetts voters are currently not registered.
The bill has popular and growing support in both legislative chambers. It has 84 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and 22 Senate sponsors, and has passed out of the Joint Committee on Election Laws. The legislation is also endorsed by 61 organizations including environmental, civil rights, consumer, community, labor and good-government groups.
In Oregon, the first state to implement AVR, 230,000 voters registered in the first six months and more than 265,000 inaccurate registrations were updated during the same period. About 97,000 new voters participated in the 2016 election because of the reform. California, West Virginia, Alaska, Vermont, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Washington and the District of Columbia have also passed automatic voter registration, all in a bipartisan manner.
A full list of organizations endorsing AVR can be found here.
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Mass Senate passes civics, financial literacy curricula
Boston — Sen. Adam G. Hinds, D-Pittsfield, has announced that the Massachusetts Senate Thursday passed S.2355, An Act to promote and enhance civic engagement. This bill is the result of 18 months of collaboration of a working group of House of Representatives and Senate legislators including Senate President Harriette L. Chandler, D-Worcester; Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester; Sen. Eileen Donoghue, D-Lowell; and Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow.
The legislation enacts a hands-on and experiential approach to fostering civic engagement. The bill incorporates project-based learning components, encourages the instruction of civic competencies and provides extracurricular civic-participation opportunities. The curriculum is made possible by the Civics Project Trust Fund, which will provide funding for professional development and for the further development of curriculum frameworks.
Also on Thursday, the Senate unanimously passed legislation aimed at improving students’ knowledge on saving, investing, insurance, banking, inflation and other financial matters. S.2343, An Act relative to financial literacy in schools, would allow personal financial literacy to be integrated within the existing mathematics, social sciences, technology, business, or other curricula where teachers have the capacity to teach financial literacy for all schools in the Commonwealth. The bill directs the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to create and implement standards and objectives on personal financial literacy for grades K–12, which would include information on loans, borrowing money, interest, credit card debt, online commerce, rights and responsibilities of renting or buying a home, saving, investing and planning for retirement, banking and financial services, balancing a checkbook, state and federal taxes, and charitable giving. The Financial Literacy Advisory Committee created in the fiscal year 2013 budget will advise and oversee the development of such standards and objectives.
Both bills will now go before the House for consideration.
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Faith leaders to press Baker for climate action
Boston — At the beginning of Holy Week and shortly before Passover, more than 50 faith leaders and supporters representing at least 15 different faith traditions will confront Gov. Charlie Baker Monday, March 26, at the Statehouse about his refusal to meet with them regarding their concerns over climate change. The leaders will hold an interfaith ceremony on the steps of the Statehouse and will head inside to the Baker’s office afterward to ask the governor to end his support for new fossil fuel projects.
A coalition of interfaith leaders wrote a letter to Baker in February requesting a meeting to discuss the values that lead them to oppose construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure in Massachusetts. Receiving no response to the letter, they are returning in order to state their willingness to prepare to lead and inspire a sustained campaign of nonviolent resistance to the ongoing expansion of fossil fuels. After the interfaith ceremony, which will highlight communities that are suffering and resisting, the leaders will deliver their concerns to Baker’s door and renew their request for dialogue. They challenge the governor to separate himself from President Trump and fossil-fuel executives by acting boldly to advance a clean-energy agenda.
