Dear SCA Coalition members and supporters:
We DID it! On Wednesday, July 15, the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security cleared the path for the Safe Communities Act, releasing it to Ways and Means with a recommendation for passage!
This is an important milestone; in the last session, the SCA was “sent to study” – the fate of the vast majority of legislation. Read our joint statement here.
With formal sessions ending (at least for now) on July 31, it’s full court press for the next two weeks!
We have momentum now, and the next week is critical to get House and Senate leadership to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. They need the support of your legislators to do that. And then the Governor needs to sign it.
Here’s what you can do to build momentum:
• Email the Governor, House and Senate leadership, and your own legislators, even if you’ve sent emails before, using our super-easy Phone2Action tool: http://bit.ly/MA-SCA.
• Call Governor Baker today! The number is (617) 725-4005. Let him know that the SCA is a public health priority, and that he should follow the advice of medical experts and sign the bill when it reaches his desk. (You can read this letter or this one for inspiration.)
• Like our Facebook Page, and share our posts widely! You can also follow the hashtag #SafeCommunitiesAct on Twitter and Instagram and retweet generously or repost on IG (use a program like Reposta).
• Create your own social media posts! We’ve got a trove of artwork in this folder, customized for Twitter and Instagram, along with suggested blurbs. You can also use our Click-to-Tweet tool to quickly generate tweets, with artwork, focused on public health, medical leaders, and immigrant families.
• Help us mobilize constituent calls from across the state! Join a text-banking team on ZOOM on Wednesday or Thursday next week. You’ll have a brief training and you don’t need your own phone. Times and sign-up right here: bit.ly/Textbank-SCA.
• Send a letter to the editor of your local news outlet, especially if you’re in a “purple” district! See our sample texts here.
And of course, rebrand and resend this alert to your networks! The wider this alert circulates, the more legislators will hear from their constituents!
With deep thanks from the SCA Steering Committee,
Amy Grunder
Director of State Policy & Legislative Affairs
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition