Jordan Berg Powers, Jonathan Cohn, and Anna Callahan record live at the Boston Common. In this episode we cover a lot of the topics we've covered before, including why state politics matters and is a national strategy, what is wrong with our State House currently, and how it impacts us from a policy perspective.
This is the audio version of Incorruptible Massachusetts season 4 episode 14.
You’re listening to Incorruptible Massachusetts. Our goal is to help people understand state politics: investigate why it’s so broken, imagine what we could have here in MA if we fixed it, and report on how you can get involved.
To stay informed:
* Subscribe to our YouTube channel
* Subscribe to the podcast
* Sign up to get updates at https://www.incorruptiblemass.org
Jordan Berg Powers, Jonathan Cohn, and Anna Callahan record live at the Boston Common. In this episode we cover a lot of the topics we've covered before, including why state politics matters and is a national strategy, what is wrong with our State House currently, and how it impacts us from a policy perspective.
This is the audio version of Incorruptible Massachusetts season 4 episode 14.
You’re listening to Incorruptible Massachusetts. Our goal is to help people understand state politics: investigate why it’s so broken, imagine what we could have here in MA if we fixed it, and report on how you can get involved.
To stay informed:
* Subscribe to our YouTube channel
* Subscribe to the podcast
* Sign up to get updates at https://www.incorruptiblemass.org
Producer 0:00
[This transcript was produced by a computer program then partially hand edited. It has inaccuracies. The audio is the authoritative version of this podcast. Last edits were made on 7/30/2021 by CFH and FL.]
Anna Callahan 0:00
So, hey, this is Incorruptible Massachusetts, where we talk about why our State House is so broken, what we can have here in Massachusetts if we fixed it, and how you can get involved. Welcome to our live broadcast!
Jordan Berg Powers 0:14
It's really weird to see you all in 3D.
Everyone 0:16
[All laugh]
Anna Callahan 0:16
It is super strange, but it's beautiful, man.
Jonathan Cohn 0:20
Yeah, that's good weather for this!
Anna Callahan 0:22
Incredible, just the best. So yeah, today, I think why don't we just start at the beginning?
Jordan Berg Powers 0:30
Yeah, yeah. Let's start from scratch. Well, so my name is Jordan Berg Powers. I use he/him and I have 11 years experience in progressive politics in Massachusetts.
Jonathan Cohn 0:40
Jonathan Cohn, have been doing stuff on electoral and legislative campaigns here since 2013. We're almost exactly at the eight year anniversary of my moving here.
Anna Callahan 0:48
Amazing. Anna Callahan, she/her, live in Medford and super excited to fix our state politics.
Jordan Berg Powers 0:55
Yeah. Our politics in Massachusetts are broken and weird.
Anna Callahan 1:01
Broken and weird. You know, the thing that got me super excited about state politics is this idea that all these things we fight for at the national level, we can have those for seven million people!
Jordan Berg Powers 1:14
Yeah.
Anna Callahan 1:15
I talked to somebody the other day. And I said, "Yeah, you know, we want a slate of candidates that is going to support Medicare for All." And he said, "Well, that's at the national level, they're not gonna be voting on that at the state level." I said they have a bill, it's been here for forty years, they are, of course, gonna vote on that at the state level.
Jordan Berg Powers 1:30
Yeah. And, you know, there's so many things like Medicare For All, like we could fix and model what it could look like for the rest of the states. And you know, other states, other conservatives, they model their terrible ideas in the states that they control. And yet here in Massachusetts, we're fighting to do basic things that we are supposed to be doing right? It shouldn't be such a struggle for us to lead on climate, we are literally on the water. You figure a state on the water would want to lead on climate, especially when it's progressive. But it is like pulling hairs.
Jonathan Cohn 2:03
And I think that general point reminds me of something we discussed in a prior episode, where on the national level, there's going to be always an intense debate to get to a majority, where all the rights you get Democrats to have the simple majorities that they do in the House and Senate and how difficult it can be to make sure that you line up the votes to be just over 50%. But here we have over 90% Democratic Senate and over 80% Democratic House and both of those give you more than like the two thirds supermajority to override a veto with votes to spare. We shouldn't be thinking in the same way of how can we temper our ambitions to pass something. We should be thinking of what can we do to meet the moment.
Jordan Berg Powers 2:49
Yeah, there's something really funny about having our legislature spend so much time thinking about Charlie Baker who is superfluous, currently, to our state government. There is literally nothing he can stop if the Democrats in the legislature want to do it. They could lose votes and still easily do whatever it is that they wanted to do, and yet they hide behind him all the time.
Anna Callahan 3:14
Yeah. And then the other thing that I think about is how little people know about state politics, that people are just totally unaware that we could be passing all of these things for seven million people, all the things we fight for, at the national level. We fought against family separation to keep families together. There was this huge battle and yet we do that here in Massachusetts! We aren't passing the bills here in Massachusetts that would make that a reality, that would allow us to live our values here in Massachusetts.
Jordan Berg Powers 3:47
Yeah. And even if you take what's out there right now on voting reform and the desire for voting rights across the country, this is a reminder that while we focus on the John Lewis act, and the For the People Act would improve voting in Georgia and Texas, it would improve voting in Massachusetts! We are behind. Our voting is as hard, I would argue, as it is in much of the places that Massachusetts voters look down on.
Jonathan Cohn 4:19
What was especially funny with that, that I often think about when seeing talk about what's happening in red or even Republican-controlled purple states is you'll see things where the Republicans gain full control and they start rolling back voting reforms to still being better than what Massachusetts has.
Everyone 4:38
[all laugh]
Jonathan Cohn 4:38
I remember thinking about that when Wisconsin was cracking down on Election Day registration (which they have!) and they were making it harder, but we still don't have that! They're making it harder, which is bad and they shouldn't do-- it's still better than what we have?!!
Jordan Berg Powers 4:55
They're taking away 24 hour voting in Texas! They *have* 24 hour voting in Texas! They have *drive up voting*! It's like a pain to even find parking to go vote a lot of the times in cities and they have drive-thru [voting] and they're like "they're taking it away, on Sundays!" I was like, I wish we had these things!
Anna Callahan 5:14
Well, this all plays into this idea that the only things that matter, the only elections that matter are in swing states, because the only thing that matters is national elections, and only swing states can control national elections, and therefore we shouldn't focus on Massachusetts. Now I think that that's completely wrong. We've talked to the folks who are pushing for Medicare For All, both at the national level, as well as here at the state level. And I thought if any state in the country passed a Medicare For All-style bill, that it would be dominoes everywhere. And they said, 'No, that's not true.' There are only three states that they think it is a guarantee, that if those states pass a single-payer, Medicare For All-style in their own state, it will be dominoes, and that will be the end of our for profit healthcare system. And those three states are California, New York and Massachusetts. If we passed it here, that would be a national strategy for getting that bill passed. And yet people think that we shouldn't focus on Massachusetts.
Jordan Berg Powers 6:20
Yeah. And just for people who wonder if local politics is important, I have this article up on my Internet [browser] that QAnon is focusing on school committee races. *They* understand that, bonkers as they are, they believe things like the Earth is flat, and that lizards are controlling us, but they understand that school committee races are important! There was a program to encourage conservative women to run for school committee, and that's how we have Sarah Palin running from what Wasilla, Alaska! Imagine if we thought as granular in Massachusetts about ensuring that we have infrastructure to succeed and to push and to grow our movements from the ground up. There has never been a movement that had something happen on the national scale and was bestowed upon the rest of us. Movements have *always* grown from the ground up. They've always grown from state level local politics all the way up. And we need to remember our own history.
Anna Callahan 7:22
And by the way, if anybody has questions, please raise a hand. We would love to answer your questions.
Jonathan Cohn 7:29
In terms of the role of states that that reminds me of, is that what states do can shape what the terms of the debate are nationally as well. I remember back, it feels like I think almost 10 years ago really at this point, when there was debate about raising the minimum wage to I think the national Democrats pushed like $12 an hour, $11 an hour, maybe it was even just like $10.10-- I forget what it was at the time, and I remember seeing certain democratically controlled states pass exactly what Senate Democrats were pushing. It's like, well, thank you for making [what] the Senate Democrats are pushing look like the far bounds of what they will ever actually consider doing.
Jordan Berg Powers 8:08
Yeah.
Jonathan Cohn 8:08
Whereas like, if you, Maryland, pass what they're pushing but with carve-outs for drive-in theaters, [INAUDIBLE] your democratic supermajority, suddenly, their bill looks stronger than what you pass, rather than saying, Okay, if Democrats nationally are pushing this number, we're doing a few dollars above that. So, one, because it's more unaffordable here, but we're going to go further so that their position looks like a more moderate compromise that they're making, and changing how things are being debated.
Anna Callahan 8:41
So I want us to talk a little bit. So we made a little bit of a case for why state politics matters here in Massachusetts. But I think we need to still understand why are we not able to pass anything here?
Everyone 8:59
[all laugh]
Anna Callahan 9:00
What is wrong with our state? And it's not the governor because we have veto proof super majorities in both houses. It's really not the State Senate at this moment. The bottleneck is the State House
Jordan Berg Powers 9:13
For the most part, yeah. So I think that the story I always tell people about Massachusetts, is I was talking to a fairly conservative state rep. And the person said to me as a laugh, you know, I imagine that there's more freedom in the Chinese Communist Party than there is in the State House. So our Massachusetts State House is so undemocratic, it is so authoritarian, that people can't even imagine-- there's a culture of one person rule-- that they can't even imagine what it would be like to try to pass things and to step outside and to demand things and to push. It's just you get so accultured to the idea that the only way to move things is to be nice to the people in power, and to ask them nicely to do it.
Jonathan Cohn 10:11
And so one thing that this always reminds me of, so back in 2014, when I was volunteering for Don Berwick's gubernatorial campaign, one quote that he would often invoke, and I don't actually remember the guy who originated the quote, 'was that every system is perfectly designed to produce the results that it produces.'
Jordan Berg Powers 10:29
Yeah.
Jonathan Cohn 10:29
And it's always a useful frame of reference-- framework to think about things that if you constantly see failed outcomes or outcomes that you don't want, is to think, "what is the incentive structure in this system that is leading to these outcomes again and again?" And that's something that's very true with the way that the House works, because we have a centralized system, where in the House, considering the person who's the Speaker of the House controls committee assignments, and that means controls your pay directly, and controls your office and controls your parking space and controls how much staff you have, and can control whether or not your bills move, that creates a built in incentive to want to go along, because-- there's a big kind of almost a loss aversion, because if you go against, you presume that you'll lose a lot of stuff that you have or won't be able to gain it. But it leads to a scenario in which people follow a logic that is an understandable incremental logic that never gets far.
Jordan Berg Powers 11:31
Yes, yes. That's well said. Yeah. So for people who don't know, [in] our State House, you get a base pay, and there was a ballot initiative that put the state rep's pay, based on the median incomes in Massachusetts. So the median income, I think, is like $65,000-$66,000. So if you're the rep for here, and you make 65, that's not enough to live on, if you live in a lot of parts of the state that are more expensive. And so your pay, can increase if you're the head or vice chair, so second or first in charge of a committee. And there are-- so to be Speaker, there's 160 state reps, you need 81 votes to be Speaker, there are 81 leadership positions with extra money.
Anna Callahan 12:20
And a lot of extra money, right?
Jordan Berg Powers 12:23
Up to double in some cases.
Anna Callahan 12:25
Right.
Jordan Berg Powers 12:25
So you could lose up to half your income if you go against the Speaker, and the Speaker always has a majority of votes to ensure that he gets-- it's always been he-- gets to stay Speaker.
Anna Callahan 12:41
And not just stay speaker, but it's very clear, as you watch what happens in the State House, there have been state reps, who after they've stepped down have said, "Yes, I was the chair of this committee. And as the chair of this committee, the Speaker told me that if I didn't vote this way, on this bill, or that way on that bill, that I would not be the chair anymore."
Jordan Berg Powers 13:04
Yeah, yeah.
Everyone 13:08
Mmmmm... [all laugh]
Jordan Berg Powers 13:09
Yeah.
Everyone 13:10
I thought they worked for us.
Jordan Berg Powers 13:11
Yeah. They don't work for us. They work for the Speaker.
Jonathan Cohn 13:14
And it's a striking thing as well as when you realize you had people in the building, who actually did say, with better incentives, want to actually push good things forward? I think that's a not insignificant base, but there are a lot of them who just genuinely don't care.
Jordan Berg Powers 13:29
Yes.
Jonathan Cohn 13:32
It's type of person that I do describe as somebody who's just there really to cut ribbons.
Jordan Berg Powers 13:36
Yep, yep. Yeah.
Jonathan Cohn 13:37
And so it helps reinforce that dynamic as well as if you actually, if you don't feel bad if you end up having to vote against something that you've co sponsored, because you didn't even care that you co sponsored it in the first place, it exacerbates that underlying dynamic.
Jordan Berg Powers 13:54
Yep, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use an example, a specific example. I'm going to name check somebody. So like, Representative Kafka stepped down. And in his step down speech, he named two bills. He's been there for like 30 years, he named two bills, one of which was like, a side bill on like some small issue, and I was like, you've been there for 30 years and the thing your most proud of affects like 10 people, like what is this? And like, that's an example of somebody who clearly just wanted a paycheck,
Anna Callahan 14:20
But it's also an example of a general reality that our state house does not pass important legislation.
Jordan Berg Powers 14:27
Yes. Yeah. You know, if you listen to them talk, they'll talk a lot about the things that they've done. And it's not nothing, but it's always at the margins of the big things. And so the response I always give to any legislator who comes and meets with me that's frustrated that I basically say they don't do anything and I say, /Well, you've done a lot, except if you want to get around this state, want a new school building, want to have health care that's affordable and don't want to die in a fiery death from climate change. And you want to be able to live here physically like own a home, except for those issues. You're doing fantastic.
Jonathan Cohn 15:01
[INAUDIBLE}
Jordan Berg Powers 15:05
These are issues that, to be clear, they could fix those problems tomorrow. There is legislation to address all of these issues. They could do it tomorrow, they have a supermajority.
Anna Callahan 15:15
And I also want to bring up this point of leadership. So there's a group of people that is called leadership, right? The speaker. And then there are like the top eight or temn people or so that are in what's called the leadership team. And they do not appear to have any kind of vision, they don't appear to be leading on anything, right? They don't lead, they don't have a vision for what the lives of the people in Massachusetts should be like. They don't have a vision for what policies should get passed. They don't seem to have a vision for even how you can have bills come up in the chamber so that you don't push everything off until literally the night before the session is over and then vote on everything. I'm trying to think of a single thing that they lead on. And essentially, all they do is obstruct, they obstruct and obstruct and obstruct, and they prevent bills that we need from passing.
Jonathan Cohn 16:07
Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic to think about the federal level, because like, I have my definite large share of criticisms of both Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. But like, you get a sense that there are there is legislation that they would like to see passed, that at the start of the session, there is something that, by the end of the session, if it passes, they will think, 'Well, that was a successful time.' And if it doesn't, that didn't work. You don't get that sense here. There's actually like an agenda at the beginning of the session. Like, these are the critical issues that we want to tackle.
Jordan Berg Powers 16:44
Yeah, I mean, I just wanted to say, there are a lot of complaints but there's 435 congresspeople. Nancy Pelosi has a slim majority. If our State House passed comprehensive reforms on our voting systems, attack climate, raised wages, right. These are things that Nancy Pelosi has done, right, we would be so much happier. It's weird that the congressional Democrats can move more progressively and effectively than Massachusetts with the supermajority.
Anna Callahan 17:21
And this speaks to the fact that a ton of our state reps are really,they're d emocrats in name, right.
Jordan Berg Powers 17:30
Yeah. I mean, in theory,
Anna Callahan 17:31
Because, you know, they understand that their district has more Democrats than Republicans in it. And so that's the only way to win. But in terms of the policies that they're willing to pass, and certainly willing to push for.
Anna Callahan 17:42
I mean, who knows, most of the time, it's like, who knows what they believe. They don't run on anything. They react, you know, you're looking at your state rep, and you see the things that they'll promise you like, if you look to election time and see what they say, they'll say, 'we got your money for a park, we passed this thing, but, like secretly, we were fighting it the whole time.' That's the things they run on. They run on the accomplishments of activists pushing them to do things, and a few dollars of pocket change that gets thrown at them so that everybody will be quiet.
Jonathan Cohn 18:20
It speaks as well, to the fact that one thing where Massachusetts definitely stands out is the lack of competition in our elections. You know, this is a few years ago, and maybe it's changed slightly. Ballotpedia had us as having some of the least competitive elections in the United States. It's one thing that's actually quite funny to me, whenever Democrats here talk about, 'we can't possibly do that, because we might lose our seats to Republicans.' Like none of you even faced Republican challengers and they couldn't win in your district. It's like, yes, there are too many people in your district who love Charlie Baker, but it's like, Trump got 30% of the vote in your district.
Jordan Berg Powers 19:01
Yeah, yeah. They have a poor understanding of what it means to be worried. Or to take leadership. I guess I'd also say, you know, I'm a big believer that if you did things for people, they would vote for you.
Jonathan Cohn 19:14
Madness.
Anna Callahan 19:15
But they don't want that. You know, we don't have same day registration. We don't make voting very easy. And you know, it's easier to just not let people vote and have the lowest rate of challenging incumbents of any state house in the country, and then they don't have to do anything. They don't have to pass any bills. They don't have to even you know, claim that they're passing bills, because no one is running against them.
Jordan Berg Powers 19:35
Yeah. And and I think there's an important piece to this that we haven't actually discussed on the podcast, but I think it's an important part of the system, is that your media system is also failing in this part of it. So the part that you're missing is that, you know, our local NPR stations has reporters, but they're not reporters. They're not journalists. They're not looking into the statehouse. They're not trying to find out what happens. They are readers of my and other people's press releases. That's all they do. They read press releases. The Statehouse News is a press release machine. All they do is synthesize people's press releases. They're not digging in. They're not asking tough questions. They're not doing analysis of legislation. One of my, like, biggest pet peeves is you'll see in the State House, they'll say, you know, 'Charlie Baker says that, you know, 45% of something happens.' It's like, that's a knowable thing. You could Google that. Not just quote the dumb thing he said. Maybe you should look it up and see if it's true, right? Like they don't do any of those things. So our news media system is a press release repeater. That is it. That is all they do. And so most people don't know what's happening.
Anna Callahan 20:56
And let's also remind people that it is almost impossible to know what is happening at the State House. Everything happens in closed door meetings, things happen in committees where you can't know their votes, by default, even the votes on the floor are secret from you. And things get changed drastically in these unknown settings. And then suddenly, a bill will come up for a vote. And there's literally like, you know, 48 hours, if you're lucky, 24 hours, sometimes even less to read 1000 page bill and mobilize people around it and come up with amendments. It's impossible to be engaged with our State House.
Jordan Berg Powers 21:33
Yes, I would love to read that story.
Jonathan Cohn 21:37
What it reminds me of in terms of the quality of State House reporting is there are some journalists who do do decent work, but what I remember is back when I was organizing against the Olympic bid in 2015. (And it's weird, we're approaching the like, six year anniversary of the bid's death.) THere was a there was a Globe article about how the, I think it was the House had passed a bill to study the Olympics, whatever number to one. And the article did not say who's the one no. That's the easiest thing to put in. You tell me that there was literally one person who voted against this, and you don't think it's relevant who that one person is.
Jordan Berg Powers 22:23
But they might not know. That's the worst thing about it. Yeah, I mean, I want to be fair, I think it's really difficult. And I think there's an ecosystem of failure. Like when I think about why our state house is the way it is, it's an ecosystem of failure. Across the board. Our legislators don't have vision. They're not pushing. They're not asking tough things, they're not asking for things. The part of Incorruptible Mass is is that there needs to be more pushing from the outside. We need to be mobilized as a Democratic base, as small d democrats to care about our democracy and our local and be better stewards of our democracy. And our media needs to be allies with that and pushing the statehouse to do that. Sll the things you've listed are all things that should appear regularly in articles, 'this bill died, we don't know why,' you know, 'the advocates we're pushing - it got it got filed to nowhere to study', right? 'This is what to study means', right, like just some basic information. We need all of these things together if we're gonna try to turn this around.
Anna Callahan 23:28
So I do want to mention that we are in just a minute or two, we are going to go ahead with our giant puppet and some other you know, folks who are going to join us here. We're gonna do a little political theater on the State House steps. That's gonna be super fun, so please join us for that. Right now we are going to read a few limericks about the State House that came in over Twitter.
Jordan Berg Powers 23:53
I feel like I should not be the one to read them because I'm terrible.
Anna Callahan 23:56
We had three so we'll each do one.
Jordan Berg Powers 23:58
Okay, that sounds good. Jonathan, do you want to do your own or? I'll do hold Hogan accountable because it also speaks to my heart as somebody who would like to get us now get better representation there.
Anna Callahan 24:14
Last chance for questions so let us know.
Jordan Berg Powers 24:16
There once was a state house so bloated, when the interests of the rich are promoted. The people got sick then 22 came quick and out of the state house they were voted.
Anna Callahan 24:32
All right so here's here's one: my bill just went into committee, we all know it's gonna be shitty. We can't see their votes or even the notes, it will never get passed what a pity
Jonathan Cohn 24:48
Oh yeah, here's my own. When a bill is sent to study things start getting muddy. It's not voted down so it sponsor won't frown, it's dead but there's nothing quite bloody.
Jordan Berg Powers 25:02
Do people have any quick questions about the house or your failed representation
Audience Question 25:07
[Inaudible]
Jordan Berg Powers 25:10
Yeah, somebody? Yes. Okay. Yeah. That's a great question. Oh, yeah, I'll repeat it. So the question was, 'as somebody who's thinking about running for the State House, what is something that we would like to see in somebody who is a state rep in our state house. I mean, I have lots of thoughts. Okay.
Anna Callahan 26:07
Well, I'll start with the transparency and the power of the speaker. You know, we will never get out of this terrible quagmire that we are in, if we don't have people who are willing, who understand that giving their power to the speaker, means they don't have power. When you give up your own power, right, when you vote against transparency, right when you vote that the committee vote should be secret, when you vote that we shouldn't have any time to read bills, when you vote for those things. Or when you vote that the speaker should be able to pay more money to the chairs and co chairs, when you vote that the speaker should not have term limits, when you vote to increase the power of the speaker, or when you vote to make our state house less transparent, that you are giving up your power and you are giving up our power. And that we will never get out of this problem if we can't have people who are willing to draw that line. So that to me from a policy perspective is very important.
Jordan Berg Powers 27:12
I'd say for me just having votes. I would like them to vote on things. So most people don't know this, but they don't vote on anything. Nothing ever comes to an actual vote. They regularly just agree to not do anything. Everyone says 'yeah, we're not gonna do anything'. And they all say yes. And so we would like them to take votes on things, which seems funny to say, but that's it. So, you know, we have a few people who they'll say stand for a vote, which means they'll demand votes on important issues. And that's the biggest ask for me to any rep is will you stand for votes? Will you require them so that regular people can know how their elected officials believe on issues?
Anna Callahan 27:59
And if I made - sorry to jump in, I was just gonna jump in on that. Because of the whole amendment podcast, we did a whole episode on amendments. And if you have any bill, we complain a lot about how bills are in committee, and then we can't see how people vote. You don't need 16 people today do roll call any legislator - is that correct? - can take something and make it an amendment. And if you then put that amendment up for a vote, it at least has to get voted on. We may not see it, but you can put up something for an amendment and then try and get 16 people and have that roll call vote. So what happens all the time is people put up amendments, and then they withdraw the amendment. Incredibly frustrating.
Jordan Berg Powers 28:48
Which means that nothing happened.
Jonathan Cohn 28:51
One thing I'll also add in terms of things l'm looking in for for legislators is to avoid the phenomenon that can sometimes get called legisplaining which legislators will respond to you when they've done something bad about how really you just don't understand how it is here.
Jordan Berg Powers 29:07
Oh, yes.
Jonathan Cohn 29:08
And they'll use talking points often given by those above them to try to explain things away, and I say 'if we disagree on something just honestly explain to me why you did the bad thing. The honest reasons why you did it.' Because I have more respect if you just say 'I did it because I didn't want to lose my committee chair than trying to create a bizarre labyrinthine argument to pretend it's a matter of principle.
Jordan Berg Powers 29:35
Yes. Yeah. So one of the things that happens is, I always tell legislators like don't lie to my face. I'm not stupid. Like I just I don't have... Oh my God, I have so little patience for that. Like, just say you did the bad thing because you were scared like it's okay to say.
Jonathan Cohn 29:50
There's no room for growth if you don't acknowledge the structure that you're in.
Jordan Berg Powers 29:55
I will say I just wanted to say a little a little plug for our podcast. It's called the State House is bonkers is my favorite episode that we did. And it's all about the amendment process in Massachusetts. And you should listen to it. It's fantastic. And also, you will really get a sense of how bonkers this all is. I feel like we should talk about it. Where are you?
Anna Callahan 30:17
Well, I want to I do want to say something else about this question, because I feel like we've talked a lot about like, process and procedure. And we have not said anything about policy. Because we cannot let that question go without talking about policy. And so can we have a short discussion of money. Where is money spent lobbying at the statehouse? My big one is the healthcare industry's crap ton of money in the State House. And that is why we cannot get single payer passed here. Right? Single payer would benefit everybody except the billionaires. So there is no reason we should not pass it. And there are a number of other areas where it's really money. It's really money that is preventing us from passing bills.
Jordan Berg Powers 30:59
I mean, I have a long list. I guess I'd say, you know, one of my favorites is a few years ago, they passed a bill that made it harder for solar, which they did, in fact, go back and fix. But the reason they did it is that it was written by National Grid and Eversource. The bill was like, entirely written by them. And I would joke with legislators like congratulations, you bailed out their stockholders, because they have invested in oil and gas pipelines.
Jonathan Cohn 31:28
My favorite quick thing just to talk about that bill. It was an amazing demonstration of State House process where all but three state reps present voted for this bill. I know that it was, I believe it was like Denise Provo and John Hecht voted no and [INAUDIBLE] voted present. And then after they voted, after they voted for this bill, then a number of the reps who voted for it signed on to this letter saying the bill we voted for is actively harmful and we're asking the Senate to pass something better.
Jordan Berg Powers 32:02
Yeah,yeah, that totally happened.
Jonathan Cohn 32:04
And they wanted a gold star for doing that.
Jordan Berg Powers 32:06
They were like, 'look, we signed this letter.' And then so because the bill came out in the morning, it was 351 pages, and they passed it at like three o'clock, and so no one had time to read it. Our state house and our state generally hates education, they don't really, they will all run on education, but we shortchange our children. We don't care about our kids in any demonstrable way. And so that's another one where money, especially around privatization of our public schools, but we think of privatization just as a charter fight. And let me just say that our schools are becoming more and more private, through the testing, which is a huge money pit, that makes no sense. It's a money pit. And they all know the tests don't work, and they still put money into it. That's private parts. There's all these parts of education that are private, and there's so much money out there. And the last one that's very personal to me, is we should treat broadband as utility. And the reason we don't is because Comcast has a stranglehold of our state house, you know, and like, it's just ridiculous. If you're in Western Mass, you have to use Verizon or Comcast or things, we have a public entity that's made to push broadband, because the private sector won't do it to Western Mass. And they're requiring corporations to be the people filling it in and trying to stop municipal broadband from going to these areas that were not served by corporations. Right. And so that piece is just bonkers.
Anna Callahan 33:38
I'm gonna throw in a couple more your T shirt. Tax the rich. We cannot fund these programs, if we don't tax people. And you know what, I love the way Jordan, you phrase it the other day, it was like, we know where all the money is. The money is all in the hands of rich peope especially, under COVID. It was just completely sucking it out of our pocjets and sucked right up into the bank accounts of the uber wealthy. So that is if you want to pay for anything, that's where the money is. That's who you have to tax. And then I also think like workers rights, you know, that's a huge one where there's a lot of money spent. And then the real estate lobby is also big. And so let's not forget, housing policy. So all of these I think are important when you look at what are policies that benefit the 99% and what are policies that benefit the 1%.
Jonathan Cohn 34:28
Yeah, no. And I would just agree, especially with the need to have tax the rich more in the state that it's, it's not even just like the organized interest, but the general kind of the people that you hear from in your district are probably those who skew you're more affluent, the people that that show up to your fundraisers will skew more affluent. So your whole idea of who would even be hit by a modest tax increase is very skewed, so that you'll have so many legislators being like 'we can't possibly raise the capital gains tax. That it'll hit working class people who have lots of money and capital gains.
Jordan Berg Powers 35:05
Yeah, yeah. That's my favorite one. You'll be like it hits the top 20% they're like, but that's everyone I talk to.
Anna Callahan 35:12
Right. Exactly. All right, I'm gonna wrap us up because we're a little behind our original schedule, and we're gonna follow this horrible looking giant puppet, who is representing our speaker leadership. We're going to have a little bit of fun. We're gonna march on up to the State House, we got some signs, we have some some political theater we're gonna do and so please join us. Thanks, everyone.
Jonathan Cohn 35:37
Thanks, everyone.