Fix the Broken Legislature
The ballot initiative to audit the state legislature passed with 72% of the vote in 2024, but no audit has happened yet. The Massachusetts legislature is the least effective of the 50 states, despite being one of only 10 states that meet year-round. They refuse to keep public records for transparency or cooperate with the state auditor. Party leaders secure votes by holding legislator pay hostage. We need to hold politicians accountable to the people of Massachusetts. They need to do their jobs and stop hiding their work from the public.
Election Reform
Our voting system is rigged to keep partisans in power. We support any and all election reforms that give power back to the people and make our elections representative of our people. Let’s repeal partisan primaries so candidates have to listen to everyone, not just extreme voters. Let’s remove barriers to voting and ensure a secure process for same-day registration so people can vote without having to plan logistics. Let’s abolish gerrymandering with independent redistricting so voters choose their representatives, not the other way around. We should fix our first-past-the-post election system that all-but-guarantees voters only get two choices.
Housing
The solution to our housing problem is building more housing. Massachusetts has thousands of empty strip malls, motels, parking lots, and old buildings sitting unused while working people, including nurses, teachers, and tradespeople, cannot afford to live near their jobs. We can amend zoning and regulations to turn these empty properties into starter homes at prices families can actually afford. Let’s start to close Massachusetts’s 441,000-unit housing shortage over the next ten years without requiring a massive new state budget.
Cost of Living/Affordability
Living in Massachusetts is more expensive than neighboring states but it doesn’t need to be. In many cases, this is the result of well meaning but flawed policies that ask Massachusetts families to pay for the cost of legislative priorities. Let’s revisit the laws and regulations that add unnecessary costs to families.
Education
Massachusetts has a strong educational system, ranking #1 of all 50 states in all four categories in the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in 2024. That said, achievement gaps are widening, with poorer outcomes for struggling students in particular. At MA-FWD, we believe that high standards combined with opportunity will improve outcomes for our state’s children. We plan to work with individual communities to pilot effective ways to lower absenteeism and ensure smart integration of technology in the classroom.