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Comerford discusses upcoming legislation

Date: 5/4/2021

WESTERN MASS. – During a public forum on April 26, Hampshire, Franklin and Worcester District Sen. Jo Comerford discussed current and upcoming legislation she and her team are working on.

To begin the discussion, Comerford said she and her team are currently working to help 125 constituents and have worked with people more than ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our numbers in terms of constituent cases during COVID-19 have quadrupled, we are currently serving 125 people in the Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester District. Sometimes it is a pesky thing with the RMV, sometimes it is an issue with health care, sometimes it is an issue of unemployment, eviction or a court case,” she said.

With the bills her team is working on, Comerford said she wanted them to help usher in the post-COVID-19 world.

“We call these bills to meet the moment, we see them as bridges into the world we are entering. As we approach a post-COVID-19 world, we wanted to see what we could offer in terms of legislative proposals that would build us back better and stronger,” she said.

In terms of criminal justice reform, Comerford said she worked with Families for Justice as Healing in order to come up with a bill that would cut back prison spending and to prevent the building of more prisons.

“I want to highlight a bill that is essentially no new prisons and jails. This bill represents for me a full circle of work and interest in criminal justice. Right now, in the commonwealth since 2011 our prison census has declined by 29 percent, at the same time our spending has risen by 25 percent,” she said.

With this bill, Comerford said the focus would be to invest in alternatives to incarceration and support services after someone is released from jail.

“They said no more focus on new construction, put any kind of state money into alternatives to incarceration or post-incarceration support services, and that is the value proposition I got behind when I agreed to file this essential bill,” she said.

One of the education bills Comerford discussed was a proposal to eliminate MCAS testing to allow more students to graduate that may not be able to because of failing even just one subject test.

“We are saying that we can determine competency of students without that one test. Many states do it, in fact we have done it three years running during COVID-19, so we can do it here in Massachusetts. We must stop taking diplomas from kids who have otherwise passed their requisite course work. And wouldn’t you know, kids of color, immigrant kids, kids one IEPs and kids new to the English language are disproportionately represented in the kids not getting diplomas,” she said.

Along with education, Comerford said one of the bills she proposed would establish an organization outside the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families to review its work.

“Currently in Massachusetts, the Department of Children and Families conducts its own review of its own work, but this would establish an outside Foster Care Review Office to help strengthen the state’s commitment to the 10,000 or so children in the state’s custody,” she said.

Comerford said one of the biggest environmental focuses for her during this legislative session is to eliminate polyfluoroalkyl substances in the state.

“We filed a suite of bills on energy and the environment, and this is just one of them. PFAS chemicals is a class of chemicals that are exceedingly toxic. The current understanding is if you have one part per million, that is one part too many. They are known carcinogens, they are known neurotoxins, they have been found to reduce the efficacy of vaccines, and they are in so many things,” she said. “Last year we heard a number of PFAS bills, this year we are hoping to lead the work to rid the commonwealth of PFAS.”

After presenting her team’s current legislative goals and proposals, Comerford hosted a brief question and answer session with her constituents before adjourning the forum.