What House Leadership is Doing on April Vacation Week & CW Mag’s Study
They are poring over the amendments to the House Ways and Means Budget that’s what they’re doing. Thanks to the Globe for this nice picture of Speaker Bob DeLeo and Chairman of HW&M Brian Dempsey doing the poring. A very well researched article in Commonwealth Magazine documents the so called “drop off ” in legislative...
Post – Clinton’s Welfare “Reform” It’s getting worser and worser.
Last week this article on the lack of support for the poor during this recession “My take on it was the states would push people off and not let them back on, and that’s just what they did,’’ said Peter B. Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University who resigned from the Clinton administration to...
A Model Memo to Grassroots Activists
It doesn’t have to be fancy with a constant contact layout or on a letterhead, but it does need to be clear and specific. Please find here in its entirety a memo from from Lew Finfer to his grassroots activists working on youth development, violence prevention and youth jobs. There are 2 main asks to...
First Look – House Ways and Means Budget
This Morning we salute our friends and colleagues at the Mass Budget and Policy Center for the rapid response analysis on the House Ways and Means budget. Find it here. Trust me, its really really good. Faced with a significant budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2013, the House Ways and Means Committee (HWM) proposes to...
The Budget is Coming
And the website where it will be posted around noon tomorrow is below. The Academy will be posting a quick update on some priority issues first thing Thursday morning, and then do a supplement post on Tuesday next that will list proposed amendments. Keep in touch! http://www.malegislature.gov/Budget/
What Would Frances Fox Piven Do?
When she found out that a special Legislative “Commission” had, after much public debate and little or no real data had proposed some punitive, unrealistic, unenforceable new laws to limit the use of EBT cards by welfare recipients? She’d say Please Urge Your Representative NOT to Sign Onto the O’Connell-Holmes Impractical, Costly and Unconstitutional EBT Bill. And...
Talking the Talk with Barney Frank: June 12!
Don’t miss what is certain to be a lively presentation about values-based messaging around delicate issues. Congressman Barney Frank will lead the discussion with his experience then and now talking about GLBT issues. From chicken little to the little train that could: Understanding how to develop a sympathetic public persona for your issue using community values...
Do you have Real Clout?
There’s no secret for how to win the policy change you’re looking for, just a series of planning and organizing activities that add up to a campaign. Start by learning how the policy-making process works: the Real Clout textbook was written to serve as a how-to manual for community activists who, for one reason or another,...
Sen Pat Jehlen on the need for t-a-x-e-s to fix the MBTA
So, Senator Pat Jehlen actually used the word in a State House News Video. In an election year. In the face of solemn promises from Legislative Leaders that there will be no new taxes, not to forstall threatened service cuts and fare increases that seem to be inevitable. So says the Transportation Secretary and the MBTA Acting General...
Lew Finfer in a 3 minute Video on Leadership for new and experienced organizers.
Here is Lew Finfer in a very brief, and very powerful 3 minute presentation on what it means to be a leader. I have shown this to community activists to kick off a discussion about how they might strengthen their own leadership skills. Check it out here.
Which Leaves on this Tree will Fall This Spring?
De Leo’s budget chief, Rep. Brian Dempsey (D-Haverhill), told the News Service that a budget released in April by the House Ways and Means Committee will be balanced primarily with program cuts. The other day, our legislative leaders in the House, namely Speaker De Leo and Chair of Ways and Means Brian Dempsey both acknowledged...
Not just the Disabled are Worried about the MBTA’s Ride — Reading about Interest Rate Swaps
” It’s gray, it’s white, it’s balding, and it’s coming.’’ says Christopher Hart of the Boston’s Institute for Human Centered Design about future users of the MBTA’s Ride. Today Eric Moskowitz wrote in the Globe this morning about a current Ride user profiling Penny Shaw… BRAINTREE – Penny Shaw, a former teacher with a doctorate in French...
