Massachusetts State Senator
“It was disturbing to see in-person voting produce chaos in Wisconsin,” said local State Senator Mike Barrett. “People had to risk getting sick to cast a ballot. For us, in Massachusetts, revamping elections almost overnight has not been without its problems. But we’ve adapted and gotten the job done.”
(6/18/2020) – By the terms of new legislation approved this past Tuesday in the State Senate, every eligible Massachusetts resident will have the option of voting by mail, a history-making first. The bill, which passed unanimously, comes amid widespread safety concerns about in-person voting during the pandemic.
The legislation applies to both the September 1st state primary and the November 3rd general election.
“It was disturbing to see in-person voting produce chaos in Wisconsin,” said local State Senator Mike Barrett. “People had to risk getting sick to cast a ballot. For us, in Massachusetts, revamping elections almost overnight has not been without its problems. But we’ve adapted and gotten the job done.”
The Massachusetts bill contains a number of provisions, including:
The Senate bill must now be reconciled with similar legislation passed by the House of Representatives. Legislators do not expect the differences to be difficult to reconcile.
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Your country, your state, maybe the neighborhood in which you live, are engulfed by three crises at once: climate change, a pandemic, and social unrest triggered by murder and racial injustice. Your mind reels. Your heart breaks.
What to do? What you cannot do is give up. At a demonstration to protest the death of George Floyd, someone held a sign: “We didn’t come this far to only come this far.”
Just so. You get yourself together. You take a deep breath. You look around for things worth doing now.
The State Senate and House has moved to increase statewide, publicly-available data as it relates to the coronavirus. The legislation, which passed with bipartisan support, aims to promote equity and transparency as Massachusetts confronts the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill also establishes a task force to study and recommend policy to address health disparities for underserved and underrepresented communities during the pandemic. After receiving favorable votes in the Senate and House, the bill has advanced to the governor’s desk.
“Dr. Fauci reminds us that to fight the pandemic we have to follow the science,” said State Senator Mike Barrett (D-Lexington). “Science depends on good, rigorous data. In passing this bill, better data to guide decisions is what we’re driving at.”
Under the bill, the state Department of Public Health is required to compile, collect, and issue daily online reports on the number of people tested for COVID-19. Data collection reports will include all positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths along with the gender, race, ethnicity, primary residence, occupation, disability, age, and primary language of each case.
The legislation also requires that daily reports include data and demographic information from municipalities and counties with more than 25 positive cases.
Importantly, the bill contains provisions to ensure more information from elder care facilities. “The situation in elder care facilities is catastrophic,” said Barrett. “We need all the information we can get.”
Sen. Barrett, who has called for more information from state and county correctional facilities, says the bill advances the issue in that respect, too. Under the new legislation, the state’s Department of Public Health must also publish daily updates on the number of COVID-19 positive cases and mortalities among individuals who are incarcerated. The department will also be required to publish on its website, for each state and county correctional facility, the total number of residents per correctional facility; and the number of residents within each facility who are housed in a cell either alone or with another person.
In addition to requiring greater data collection, the bill requires the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to describe the actions it is taking to address disparities identified through the data collected.
In response to increasing concerns about the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and disproportionately impacted populations, the legislation also establishes a task force to study and make policy recommendations for how to address these health disparities. The task force is required to issue an interim report by June 30, 2020, with a final report due August 1, 2020.
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“A year ago, the survival of the Field Station was in doubt,” said state Sen. Mike Barrett in a statement. “The nonprofit tenants, all involved with heathy eating, sustainable local agriculture, and what you might call food justice, faced eviction. But the Greater Waltham community rallied. Residents demanded that the farm be preserved and the tenants be protected.
“Thanks to the Mayor, the City Council, and the tenants for working together, we took a giant stride forward,” he added.
Rep. John Lawn, Barrett, and Rep. Thomas Stanley will be guides for the legislation to move through the state House and Senate.
“What remains, importantly, is passage of some enabling legislation,” Barrett said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Rep. Lawn to get that final piece done.”
Lexington officials continue to prepare for a virtual version of the Annual Town Meeting, which was supposed to take place in late March. Malloy now anticipates the virtual session to take place in early June. Presentations will be posted online for viewing by Town Meeting members beforehand, in an effort to make the process as efficient as possible. The town has been working with Senator Mike Barrett and Representative Michelle Ciccolo to push a bill forward in the House of Representatives that would authorize remote participation at town meetings.
The Select Board approved a Special Town Meeting to take place on June 1. The meeting would only have one warrant item, which would provide the authority for the Select Board to confirm the validity of any action that would take place at the subsequent Annual Town Meeting. This would only be necessary if the bill spearheaded by Rep. Ciccolo does not pass in time.
A group of concerned legislators — 15 state senators and 23 state representatives — have sent a joint letter to Gov. Charlie Baker, urging him, as part of the state’s response to the COVID-19 Health Crisis, to step up the screening and release of inmates from Massachusetts penal institutions.
The letter-writing effort, initiated by State Sen. Mike Barrett, D-Lexington, was inspired by an opinion issued earlier this month by the state’s supreme judicial court, five of whose seven current members are Baker appointees.
“Among inmates and correctional officers — we’re concerned about both — the positive cases continue to climb,” said Barrett. “We think it’s quite significant that the court has issued polite but pointed advice on how to speed up the pace of releases.”
Sen. Mike Barrett, a Democrat from Lexington, said he spearheaded the letter-writing effort because he is troubled that government officials have not been adhering to a directive by the Supreme Judicial Court to speed up the process. Earlier this month, the state’s top court released a ruling directing the Department of Correction and the Parole Board to “expedite” releases in a system where social distancing is almost impossible.
“I am annoyed that the spirit of the court decision is being subverted,’’ said Barrett in an interview with WGBH News.
Nobody from Baker’s team could be reached for comment about the letter. But in a press conference on Thursday, Baker said that officials from the state Department of Correction have been working with public health officials since early March to prevent the spread of the virus.
“There’s always going to be room for improvement,’’ he said.
