Incorruptible Mass
Incorruptible Mass
Mythbusting -- 13 myths you might believe about politics.
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Today we cover 13 myths that many people believe about politics. Any of these sound familiar?
- Myth: Massachusetts state government is in good hands.
- Myth: It's better to spend time and money organizing in red or purple states.
- Myth: My state rep votes the way they tell me they are voting.
- Myth: If a candidate says during a campaign they will support certain policies, they will support them after the election.
- Myth: If my state rep officially cosponsors legislation, they will vote for it.
- Myth: If I want national policies passed, I should focus on Congress, not on Massachusetts state politics.
- Myth: Taxachusetts - we have a high tax rate on the wealthy.
- Myth: If my state rep proposes an amendment, they intend for it to be voted on.
- Myth: Lobbying is an effective strategy for changing policy.
- Myth: Voting rights are only a problem in red and purple states, not in Massachusetts.
- Myth: Democracy is in crisis in other states, but not here in Massachusetts.
- Myth: You have democracy in your city in Massachusetts.
- Myth: Massachusetts leads the country in donations to progressive candidates and causes.
Jordan Berg Powers, Jonathan Cohn, and Anna Callahan chat about Massachusetts politics. This is the audio version of the Incorruptible Mass podcast, season 5 episode 5. You can watch the video version on our YouTube channel.
You’re listening to Incorruptible Mass. Our goal is to help people transform state politics: we 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.
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Hello, and welcome to incorruptible mass. Our mission here is to help you transform state politics. We know that together we can make Massachusetts policy reflects the needs of the vast majority of the residents of our beautiful state. And today, we are myth busting, we're gonna go through a dozen things that you might believe, but that we can tell you are not true. We may not go into all the details, we're going to try and keep it nice and quick. Before we do, I'm going to let my two super incredible co hosts introduce themselves. Jordan Berg Powers.
Jordan Berg Powers:My name is Jordan Berg Powers I use he/him and I have too many years experience in the Massachusetts politics.
Anna Callahan:Jonathan.
Jonathan Cohn:Jonathan Cohn, he/him/his, joining from Boston, have been active for what scarily approaching 10 years.
Anna Callahan:Anna Callahan, she/her coming at you from Medford and I have just the right amount of years. No No, I'm looking forward to way more years in Massachusetts politics. We always have a good time here. And we are excited to bust some myths. We hear from a lot of people that they think one thing and it turns out that that ain't the truth. So here we are, we're going to be fast and furious coming up with things that we hear a lot, that we are going to tell you the real truth about the real story. And Jordan, I'm gonna start with you.
Jordan Berg Powers:Yeah, our state is not run well. It's, you know, people have this idea where a democratic state, and certainly we send some really incredible people to Congress, we send some really incredible people to the US House and the US Senate. But our state is not run by the best and brightest minds in the state. And in fact, it's just run by basically three or four people, just a few people have a lot of control. And they are people who can accumulate power, they aren't necessarily the wonkiest of people or people who care deeply about making sort of change that to make your life better. So we have this myth, because there's a lot of good things going on. But we are really resting on the laurels of other good decisions that have been done and the fact that the population of Massachusetts is dynamic and incredible, and pushing forward in lots of incredible ways. But our state is being run into the ground for no good reason.
Anna Callahan:And if you want some more details, you can basically go back to the third episode of this season. If you think our state is doing fine, think again. And you can hear a ton of details about how we're falling behind other states, including deep red states, how we're not passing a lot of the policies that you think we should have here. So please go back and listen to that one, I am going to just quick bring up this idea that I hear so often. The people are like, well, if I'm going to work on a state, I'm not going to work in Massachusetts, I hear this from people in Massachusetts, I hear this from relatives I have who are in other states who are in Missouri who are in, you know, Kansas who are in anywhere else. They're all like, well, you know, I get it why you're working on state politics. But you don't need help in Massachusetts. And I'm here to tell people that working in a blue state, this is how the Republicans win. They work in deep red states, and they get their policies to actually pass. And that's how they motivate their people. And that's how they get national policy passed. It's working for them. If we want the same kind of success, we need to work in deep blue states, just like Massachusetts, get our policies passed. And that's how we're going to do national stuff.
Jonathan Cohn:No, before I hop on another point, I just want to emphasize on that, that we will often hear about deep red states passing terrible policy, and we wait for there like, kind of pay attention to that. But nobody's ever saying like, why are the Republicans like why are the conservative activists focusing on Tennessee?
Anna Callahan:Right. Nobody questions that.
Jonathan Cohn:Of course that they do, where they have power, they push to use it. And so that we have where you do have typical power outside of our tendency to elect Republican governors here in Massachusetts, we have that supermajority we should use it and that that needs work to make them do so, especially because the to another point, so many legislators are not- will tell you that they support things and tell you kind of we'll sign on- kind of sign on to bills, sign onto amendments, and then they have no actual intention of ever voting for the thing. I'm always fascinated and amendments is something that we'll touch on a bit. I'll touch on a little bit later, when people sign on to amendments and then proceed to not vote for the thing that they just signed on to-
Anna Callahan:Before you get to that one. Just one second. I'm going to jump in because We did, we did talk about this, it was episode 40 of season four, we talked about strategy and power, how we can pass policy nationally and why the right is beating us. So this is mythbuster. Number two, go to episode about red or working red or purple states versus blue states go to Episode 40.
Jonathan Cohn:Awesome. And I think it's important for you to when it comes to like following up with your legislators here in Massachusetts, which you need to do to kind of push anything is one, sometimes that they're not going to tell you the exact truth about how they're going to vote, because you can often get cagey responses from them, or they're just trying to like a vague kind of a somewhat invasive answer about what they'll actually do. And after the fact, if they take votes that are contrary to what you believe in, they'll often either not say anything at all, or give packaged responses coming from coming from House or Senate leadership, to massage the truth into being something that sounds palatable. And it's important that if we're going to get better policy for people to actually know when somebody is not being 100% truthful, in their response to you they might not- like this isn't necessarily lying, because there's a range of things between telling the truth and outright lying. But it's, but it's taking advantage of that area in between, to kind of prevent- present alternate reasons for why they're doing what they're doing, as opposed to acknowledging that, like the terrible system that they operate in, and if you're making concessions to that system, I may disagree with you on your strategy, but at least understand where you're coming from, rather than you trying to tell me that like, actually trying to tell me that like grass is yeah, like grass is blue and the sky is green.
Jordan Berg Powers:Yeah, and just to go off on that, I just want to say, you know, myth number four is just that they keep their campaign promises, which I want to be careful about, because I know that people love to say that politicians lie. And I will say that most of them, don't. They in best intentions, they will sort of make all sorts of promises to you and then not follow through. But one of the things that drives me crazy is when people excuse me, one of the things that drives me bonkers, is when people esp- when politicians run for office and then don't have in any way a desire to actually do the thing that they say they're going to do. And too many representatives in Massachusetts fall into this category. For those of you don't know, like, one of the reasons for my desire for a job change is that I got tired of politics, of people running for office, making promises to my face that they have no intention of keeping. And so I think that that's the piece, it's one thing. Look, as Jonathan said, like, sometimes legislative things don't go exactly as you plan or you hope to pass them, but it's not quite the right thing, or it's not exactly right. Or you're trying your best, I think all of us have a lot of patience for that. I'm not one of those people who's a nihilist about our democracy that thinks that just because it's messy, just because it can take time or just because it's not exactly right, that therefore we shouldn't have it. No, no, those are all the intricacies of working with human beings. The part that is awful is you know, when you have people sort of go to your face and say, I support this thing, and then two years later, say I never told you I was going to support that thing. And that happens more in the Massachusetts State Legislature than any place I've ever worked. It just does not happen other places where people sort of are willing to not just tell you what you want to hear, but tell you things that they have no intention of ever taking seriously in any sort of way, but are doing so to win elections. I think of Medicare for all as a perfect example for that. There are so many people who understand that it's popular, who understand that our healthcare system does not make sense and it's terrible. And so they want to make a promise to fix it, but they have no intention of ever fixing it.
Anna Callahan:And I, before we go on because I know we're gonna go on to something super related, before we go on. This is one this whole thing of people believing campaign promises. It boggles my mind because in like high school, college times I was like voted most gullible and I am an incredibly trusting person right? I am that person who just believes that everyone is like well intentioned and well meaning and all this stuff, but I don't believe campaign promises that's obviously baloney right? I don't believe that and I'm just- It boggles my mind when like presidential candidates who obviously Medicare for All is a good one because the last presidential primary everybody was supposedly for Medicare for all like all these people who you know aren't for medic-, you know, they're against it. They're all promising to be for Medicare for All because that's what the public wanted. And I'm just It boggles my mind when people would say, well, there's no difference between this person and that person because they both want the same policies. Just look on their websites. And I'm like, How can you believe this you've got to have the receipts man. Anyway, I will let us go on to number 5.
Jonathan Cohn:I feel like this segues well into myth number five about how co sponsor- co sponsoring is enough or let's-
Anna Callahan:Be clear, myth number five: My state rep co sponsored the bill. Doesn't that mean they're gonna vote for it?
Jonathan Cohn:I've heard that...when it comes to people... One, what's important to recognize about co sponsorship is that it is the most basic possible thing and doesn't mean much beyond that. That it is a good thing to ask people to do. But does it mean that they will vote for it if it comes to the floor? Unfortunately, no. There are cases where the lead sponsor of a bill has proceeded to vote against the text of their bill when it comes to a vote, or when people have co sponsored and noted before, when people have co sponsored amendments, and then voted against the exact amendment, that it is, it is something that may be indicative of the likelihood of somebody doing something that they are more likely to do it, if they co sponsor than if they do not. But it does not mean that they're ultimately going to champion it, it also doesn't even mean that they fully support it, because I've had legislators as well comment that they sign on, they'll say, oh, a lot of my constituents asked me, so I signed on, but I don't actually support it. And it's like, then you're defeating the whole purpose of this even being a thing. It's not, your constituents aren't asking you to put your name on it, just to have your name on it. They're asking you to put your name on it, because they want you to actually support it and advocate for it.
Anna Callahan:They're not defeating the purpose of them getting reelected.
Jonathan Cohn:Right. And that it's, it's something that can often be stress for, for, for about how little so many people who go sponsor bills even care about the bills that they co sponsor. And it's as well beyond that, I think is just that, not only does that not mean that they're going to necessarily vote for the thing that they co sponsored, if it comes to the comes to the floor, but it doesn't mean they're doing anything for it. And it's a reminder that you need to be bothering your legislators, because it's a very the most passive of things for them to do to put their name on something. Sometimes they even lobby against the thing that they co sponsor, that has happened on bills in the past. So your work is not finished and your work may not have even started.
Anna Callahan:Totally, an education bill failed out of a committee where two thirds of the committee members were co sponsors. The transfer fee bill got voted against by nine of the co sponsors. I mean, this happens all the time.
Jonathan Cohn:No, I felt like that's even just as a quick, quick amendment to that. The fact that the person who's chairing a committee is a co sponsor of the bill does not mean that the bill is getting out of the committee. The fact that a majority of the committee co sponsors a bill does not mean the bill is getting out of committee, because ultimately, as we have talked in past episodes, so the committee's are largely just functionaries of those above them, that whether or not House and Senate leadership wants something to pass is a far better way of telling whether it's getting out of committee than the opinions of people on the committee. If the people on the committee oppose you, you're not getting out of that committee. But if they support you, it doesn't mean it's getting out of committee.
Anna Callahan:Great, I've been looking to see if, I thought we did one on co sponsoring, I can't find it. Maybe we should do one on co-sponsoring. But I am going to talk a little bit about national politics versus state politics. Because I hear so often, that I'm too busy working on national policies to work on state policies, state policies aren't important, state policies don't matter. We, you know, I've been doing the more important work of working on national policies. And as we have stated in previous episodes, you know, probably your best bet to getting national policies passed is actually to get them passed in, in a state first, and what state better than one where the electorate agrees on the policy. That's a state like Massachusetts. So, you know, this is an important one, because it's a big reason why people just won't put their money or their time in Massachusetts state politics, and it is strategically not a great decision. Oh, Jordan, Thanks for the reminder, Jordan's jumping in to say that we want to make sure to not to forget our mid roll here, which is where we really thank all of the people who have been incredibly generous. Some have made really large donations to the podcast. Some are making smaller, you know, five bucks a month donations to the podcast. And what that allows us to do is make sure that there's always music incorporated, there's always a graphic incorporated. We're beginning to actually get some advertising up so that we can reach those people who we know are interested in this kind of content who simply haven't found us yet. It also, we're beginning to sort of reach out to other avenues be on other podcasts be on other radio stations and other things. And all of this does cost a little bit of money. There's no progressive organizing without, without any sort of funds. So if you can, go ahead, look in the description, click on the link, it's super easy, give five bucks, give five bucks a month, give us $1,000. You know, if you got it lying around, why not? A buck a month, do what you can. Thank you so much. And we just want to be clear about like who we're designing this podcast for. There are 10,000 people in Massachusetts who have volunteered to progressive electoral organizations. So if you really believe in fighting for social justice, in reducing inequality and health care for all and affordable housing, and reforming our criminal justice system, and if you want to be part of getting these policies and more passed, this is the podcast for you. We talk about why state politics is so broken, what we could have here in Massachusetts, if we fixed it, and how you can get involved. And the most important thing you can do is to forward this podcast, to your friends, to your parents, to your co workers, to anybody to your fellow activist, people that you are working with on, you know, the organizing that you do, please forward this podcast to them. We are hoping to get this into the ears of many more people so that we can transform Massachusetts in order to transform our nation.
Jordan Berg Powers:I'll just say quickly too, that, you know, we're the three of us aren't we don't take a dime from the donations but you know, it goes to help an artist, the people who are designing the visuals for this, the people who are editing it. So this is going to some great folks who are who are committed to making this state a little bit better. And they're doing their part by using their skill sets that we don't have to make the podcast a little bit more enjoyable. And so please do consider donating and giving to this. It's such a good cause. And it's going to such great people on the backend that you don't necessarily see but do some really incredible work.
Anna Callahan:Absolutely. So myth number seven, Jordan.
Jordan Berg Powers:Yeah. Myth number seven. This is one of my
Anna Callahan:Yeah, people believe it because it rhymes. So favorites. Tax-achusetts. Oh, boy do conservatives love to say Massachusetts, tax- Oh, we just tax millionaires we're tax-achusetts. Even despite, or even even after, I guess I'll say, moving from taxing... So for those of you don't know, Massachusetts actually cut taxes for people, mostly rich people, mostly rich people, cut taxes. Since 1977, only two states cut taxes more than Massachusetts, only two states, we have gutted taxation on rich people. And what that means is that the MBTA is crumbling, the our higher-ed. We have, as we stated the other day about why things are failing, are our public education for our higher ed, higher ed, we've cut it more than almost three other states, right? There's a clear corollary between the fact that we have cut taxes for rich people, and we and all of these things are falling apart. But even after or especially with the taxation on millionaires, we're still below the average. People don't know that. We're below the average. Massachusetts average tax rate is 9.7%. Even with sales tax, everything else, this the national average of 9.8, we are below the national average. We're basically in the middle for taxation in a state with all of the wealth. And but I think the thing that's most important to note is that we're still unbalanced. So poorer folks, folks who are at the margins, low income folks, lower middle income folks and middle income folks, we are the lion's share of the taxation in the state. Even with the millionaire's tax, rich people are paying less of their fair share, we have a regressive taxation system. So the majority per income, right the amount of money you have accessible to you to give to the state. We're asking poor people, middle class people to pay a lot. And we're asking rich people to do not that much. And if you think about it, there's all sorts of different ways that these things are hidden. You pay an excise fee on your car, you pay a tax on your car, you pay that's a flat fee to get a driver's license to get your to get your inspection sticker. You know, all of these things are- property taxes, these are all regressive taxes. Sales tax is a regressive tax. These are all ways that the state is taking a little bit of money to do the things we all know and care a lot about. But we're taking that money in a way that's burdening people who have the least to have. And not every state does this, we could burden people who would never notice the difference, would never notice a little bit of extra money. And so right now, there's a push to, again, lower tax, whenever we raise taxes on rich people, immediately those people get in the ears of the people they own. Our elected officials, the people they donate to, to say, well, we need a tax cut. So they're talking about a passive, you know, the passive income, money that does nothing that they didn't earn, that they didn't work for. They want to lower the tax rate on that. They want to make it so that dead people can give people who are still alive their stuff for even less money than they- or no taxation at all. This is a bonkers thing to do. We already we need the money, rich people have gotten more tax cuts, than basically, than 46 other states. They've gotten their money. We need things in the States, but we are not tax-achusetts. It is a myth. Do not believe it. It is old. It is old talking point which wasn't even that true at the time. And you know, we need to bury this once and for all. sad. Oh, so Jonathan, amendments, and I'm going to give a little brief explanation for people who didn't hear last season four's episode nine on amendments. That a lot of times if a if a bill doesn't ever make it out of committee, the way that the person sponsoring that Bill, who wrote the bill, the state legislator who wrote the bill can get it to get voted on is to put it into an amendment on the budget. That's like their last stand, that's their like, they're going to, you know, they're going to put it in. And so a lot of people believe if someone puts it as an amendment, they amend it, the end of the session that they want it to be voted on.
Jonathan Cohn:Yeah, I'd say like, and to formally build into it, so that's that's a myth number like myth number eight, that legislators actually are fighting for the amendments that they file and think that those amendments will get a vote. And just one of many examples, I was looking up past notes that in the health care reform bill that the House had passed back in 2018. That of the 174 amendments that legislators filed 144 or about 83% of them were withdrawn without debate, discussion, the anything at all, that so many of so many of the amendments that legislators will file will be withdrawn, they will not speak on those amendments. That amendment will not see it any further than the website of the legislature. And they aren't actually trying to get that in. Maybe when they file that amendment. At first, they think that they might have a chance if they're if they do some behind the scenes jockeying. But for the most part, the vast majority of the bill is decided already before that that happens. And very few of the amendments are meaningful efforts to pass them as a last ditch effort. Sometimes if you have somebody and you want to get people on record for something, and you have a commitment from a legislator that they also want to get their colleagues on reg on record on something as as like a last as a last attempt, you might actually see a vote, it might not pass, but you might see a vote. But for the for the vast majority of amendments, legislators do not seriously think that they will pass and they're they aren't gonna they aren't going to pass. And so it's something that if you're going to try to file an amendment, whether it's to the budget, or to a bill, you really need to get a get an understanding with a legislator ahead of time of what they're actually planning to do to make that a reality or if they're just planning to pull it at the slightest at the slightest pressure.
Anna Callahan:Yeah. And when you say pull it, let's be clear, for people who maybe didn't listen to that amendment thing.
Jonathan Cohn:Oh yeah, pulling it, that means that like you kind of file the amendment at the beginning, and then you can just simply withdraw it, it disappears, that you're not trying to, you're not seeking a vote on it. You're not trying to get it added in a meaningful way. You've kind of wiped your hands of it. Maybe the bill may be the topic will live to fight another day, but you aren't actively seeking to pass it through that vehicle anymore. And that is the vast majority of Amendments.
Anna Callahan:Right. Just kidding! Didn't actually want to do that amendment, but it's on my resume now.
Jordan Berg Powers:Yeah, it's a weird, it's such a weird process where they say that they did something, right. But what happened is, they asked people to support a thing, but it never got voted on. It never got put into formal thing. It's not recorded in any way. If you don't file it, and you pull it before it comes in. It's not actually anything, so you- people are literally celebrating nothing happening where you did nothing.
Jonathan Cohn:And I would say even you can get a majority of legislators to co sponsor your amendment, that does not mean anything if leadership has not blessed the amendment happening. So then again, that dovetails well with co sponsorship before that. So that's even true with bills, you're gonna have a majority people co sponsoring a bill. And that doesn't mean that when if it's only one person actually deciding that doesn't that doesn't mean it's inherently moving forward.
Anna Callahan:That's right. All right. Now, number nine, that's number nine. Lobbying works. This is something that, you know, I think, especially in the last like, four, five, six years, people just believe that all you got to do is get enough people to lobby there, whoever it is Congress person or you know, state rep or whatever, whatever, that lobby, you just lobby them. Right. And by lobbying, I want to be clear, lobbying means meeting with them at a meeting that they agreed to at a time that works for them. Usually, it's in private, with a few constituents, not with tons of people, like in a polite way where you don't say anything that's going to make them mad, you're trying, you're hoping and trying that they will, because you're being so nice, that they will come on your side. That and there's you know, so many organizations that that is the primary tactic, sorry. Like, maybe there's a strategy behind it. But in my experience, if the billionaire class does not want it, if the powers that be don't already want what this thing is, because obviously, you know, if we're talking about the Tea Party movement, who you know, wanted something that the billionaire class already wanted, then maybe lobbying is going to work, but for things that they don't want, which is most of the things that we are trying to lobby for. If your own if your entire strategy is lobbying, it is not going to succeed. Yep. It's got to be combined with something with teeth, because they literally why should they? Why should they change? Why should they change their mind? There's other teeth that they have to be afraid of. There is this, the other side has sticks, they got real sticks. And if you got no sticks, then, you know just friendly meeting with them for coffee and asking them to do what you want is not gonna not gonna do anything.
Jordan Berg Powers:As proofed by how little they do. One of one of the one of my personal ones that I care a lot about is voting rights. And one of the things that's shameful about Massachusetts is that it's as hard to vote here as it is in some of the states that Massachusetts people look down on. One of the jokes I regularly make when I talk to people about this is that we don't even have the things that we are mad that they took away from Texas. There isn't a place that I'm aware of that does all night voting 24 hours voting. Right, that got taken away. We don't have that. It's only recently that we had Sunday voting. It's actually pretty difficult. Oregon, other states, they send you a ballot in the mail. We have a convoluted process where if you're lucky, depending on what town of the 351 answers to how this process gets implemented, right? Sometimes will send you something in the mail that says like, Do you want an absentee ballot? Some of them don't, some of them do in a timely manner. Some of them don't. Some of them look, you know, it's just a mess. There's 351 systems of voting in Massachusetts, which makes no sense. And we don't send people a ballot, we send you a form to fill out for an absentee ballot. It's needlessly difficult. It's needlessly hard. Our registration date when you register to go vote. It's not dissimilar from some of the states, again, we look down on. You know, it's too early on, you decide, oh, you're starting to pay attention and you start to want to go vote, but it's too late. You can't now vote in this election. Or you're getting priced out and moved around. We had a state rep who got in trouble because she got priced out of where she lived and had to move and voted. Because that happens in in in our state where people can't afford, we're constantly having to move around, do you vote where you used to live three weeks ago, or do you vote where you live now? We don't have same day registration, so you can't do that. The result is that we have the lowest turnout of black voters in the country. We have some of the worst rate we have some of the worst sort of racially segregated election turnouts in the country. And so we are just behind in a lot of ways on what others- on what we could, in terms of voting we could be doing, and it's just too hard to vote here. We should we should we should be ashamed of how little we are, we have caught up to some of the ways in which we've made it easy to vote in other states, right? We're, you know, it is, we should think about the fact that we could only dream of having taken away what Texas had and has had taken
Anna Callahan:And I have to jump in and talk a little bit away. about democracy, because I know how many people are really, really concerned about our democracy, and we should be, but those people think that Massachusetts is fine. And, you know, honestly, Massachusetts is among the worst in terms of having an actual functioning democracy at the state level, in many ways, oh, my God, that should have been number, maybe this will be the, you know, number 12. And we'll make the next one number 13. Like that we have a democracy in Massachusetts, and that we shouldn't be worried about Democ- when we're worried about democracy, we have to worry about these other states. You know, I hate to say it, but guess what, democracy is not only a problem in Republican states, you don't have to stop worrying, because we elect Democrats, we should be worried about our democracy here, with incredibly low turnout. You know, if you look at the turnouts between different districts, you look at the turnout in a wealthy district and the turnout in a low district, we had people running, and I talked to one person, they were like, Yeah, our our win number is like 300. And I was like, That is not possible. Like, if your win number is 300, you're going to lose. But guess what? It really was, because so few people- don't take 300, I don't remember exactly what the number was, but it was wildly low, I think maybe it was actually 1000. Whereas in my district, it's like 5000. And, you know, it was that low, because people don't vote in their district, because it's a poor district. And that is the reality in Massachusetts, so I just really want to talk to those people who are worried about democracy, you should be worried. That's number 12 now, is that we have a great democracy and you shouldn't worry about democracy here.
Jordan Berg Powers:You know, our we have I'll just say, really quickly, sorry, we have a we have a school committee in our largest district that isn't elected, many and has continued to be fought, like, we still can't fight to have it. Just like, you know, people look down on what happened to Detroit. And like the Republicans there took over and basically poisoned black and brown people. Well, guess what? We're doing that with education, you know, southbridge. All of these black and brown communities are being poisoned by sort of, I guess, well meaning white folks in Boston in a building, and their outcomes are not better, but they've lost democratic control. They've lost democratic oversight, and the school and it's not just that they've lost democratic oversight, you know, that's sad, what's happened is that the black and brown children who are left behind in these in these districts in Holyoke, in, in, in, in southbridge and some of these other places, is that the, the quality of the education has become poor, and the only focus becomes the MCAS, you lose art, you lose quality social studies, you lose, while you lose, you know, really good democratic oversight, or governing or anything else. And instead, you focus on the things that aren't actually helpful, that aren't actually things that that, you know, we need, which is like math, a ton of math, right, so that they can pass the MCAS. So you hollow out all of the things we know are really helpful for kids, and you increase the things that are that are actually making our kids like education less, want to engage less, make misery, make schools miserable for these kids. That's a that's a democratic loss of oversight.
Anna Callahan:Yes. And often those the actual people living there who should be democratically making these decisions, the People the the, you know, what you as you call them, well intentioned white people who are taking over, they often have corporate ties to the MCAS, for example. So they are they are not like, well meaning like this is, you know, they're they're not without without their own motivations.
Jordan Berg Powers:Right. That's right.
Jonathan Cohn:One thing I want to quickly point and then segue to another topic, of on your point, talking about like low turnout and state rep districts, I just looked at one district near me and what's wild is my old state rep district, the person who won, won with 905 votes in a primary and then they don't have that seat. like it's 905 of Approximately, like, like roughly like 40,000 people who would have lived in the district and whatever percentage of them are then registered with 905 you get that seat. I mean, that's, that's just very damning about what we what we as a state aren't doing to engage people.
Anna Callahan:Okay, it's our last of well, it was going to be 12 but it's a baker's dozen now because we threw democracy in there, number 13.
Jonathan Cohn:Should you okay? Okay,that
Anna Callahan:Who was doing this one, by the way.
Jordan Berg Powers:No, we have two more.
Anna Callahan:We do. I'm so sorry. Oh, you're totally right. That was number 11. And now new number 12. Jonathan.
Jonathan Cohn:The new number 12 is that you actually have to have full democracy in your own city, here here in Massachusetts. So this is dovetailing off something that Jordan just said that whenever I hear people complain about what a terrible thing in another state when they're trying to block their liberal capital city or some other big liberal, Metropolitan like Metro, metropolis, the city from passing its own laws, I end up thinking about well, Massachusetts beat them by 100 years. Since we in our state, just assume it's a matter of course, that municipalities shouldn't be able to pass a quite wide range of policy. When it comes to housing policy that municipalities are constrained are constrained from doing when it comes to say tenant protections that they that you can't do, because that is deemed to be governing the civil relationship between a landlord and a tenant. And a municipality is not allowed to do that, without express permission from the state. When it comes to the fact that municipalities have very little in the way of taxing power. And beyond property taxes typically can't do anything unless it's framed as a fee, as opposed to a tax, without state approval. It's not necessarily a big thing for like progressive purposes, although it can dovetail into like equity issues, it's just wild to me that about liquor licenses in the state, that you have to constantly go go through the state to get a liquor license, which actually has problems, like I know, like in Boston has problems, because it's typically moneyed white establishments that have all of them with which continue a pattern of under investment in black and brown- in black and brown neighborhoods. But in all of this, it means that there's there are artificial constraints imposed by the legislature on what you can do on a local level, and many legis- and many legislators like keeping it that way, because it gives them something to accomplish. Because as we've talked before, since there isn't a lot compared to what could happen in terms of actual legislating in Massachusetts, creating that kind of bottleneck of Home Rule petitions, what it's called when a municipality asks the state for permission for something, gives a legislator the ability to say, Look what I got you town, and also as a way of asserting their power visa vie local electeds. But that means that everybody in the town loses out because of that.
Anna Callahan:And I'm going to jump in and say that if you want to listen to season four, Episode 24, it's a great one home rule petitions. Massachusetts protects the powerful from democracy. So that's- for more information on that one. And I think we're now up to our final.
Jordan Berg Powers:Now we're at the Baker's- yeah the 13. So we'll end with this one, which is just, the thing that drives me the most crazy, which is, we lead in donating to leftist things around the country, Massachusetts is a donor state, there's a reason that you could sort of trip over national elected Democrats here, because they are coming here to raise
Anna Callahan:Yeah. Well said, absolutely fantastic. So there's money, we donate a ton of money to other states. And it's not that we shouldn't do that we should do that we should care about other states. But as Anna said earlier, we need to pass things here. And we have a skeletal progressive movement in Massachusetts, our ability to move things here, the reason things are moving backwards quickly, the reason that we can't pass big things here is because our larger progressive community is anemic, that all the money leaves and almost nothing stays here. So this is my pitch to remind you to donate locally, to donate here, to donate to organizations, and not just politicians, organizations who are on the ground, doing this work, trying to make the state what it could and should be. So please do yeah, don't let money just leave. Yes. Care about other states. Yes, donate to other states. But money also has to stay here, we need- we can't just be against things, we have to be for things. We have to be for things in places where we can pass those things. your baker's dozen of myths. We hope that if you know anybody that you're organizing with, who maybe believes one or two or three or 12 of these myths that you might forward this podcast to them. We love being in touch with you all please send us reach out to us. Send us your questions. We're probably gonna do a live podcast sometime soon where we actually take questions live. So let us know what you want us to talk about. And we look forward talking to everybody next week