Legislative Updates

Early this morning, after nearly 17 hours of painful debate, the Senate passed their vision of police reform by a 30 to 7 vote with 3 members voting present. Senators Rush, Collins from Boston , Velis, Gobi, Fattman, Moore and Tran from central and western Mass voting no . Senators Tarr, O Connor and DiZoglio

As we alerted you, the Senate did meet and the item was quickly tabled again. A session is scheduled for tomorrow but we are hearing that real action in more likely on Monday. We cant let our guard down and must continue to press for fair and equitable solutions to qualified immunity and due process.

We are getting early indications that the Senate session scheduled for today may be impacted by further use of parliamentary  procedure to lay the bill on the table. The standoff hinges on qualified immunity with the MPA position being that the issue is too complex to decide in 3 days. We have been advocating for

Using parliamentary procedure, Senator Ryan Fattman moved to place the item on the table. This means the debate will begin again tomorrow at 11:00AM. Over the last several hours, we have been involved in detailed discussions on qualified immunity. Explainations of the anticipated action created more confusion than answers. Given this, we asked the issue

Executive Director Jim Machado is working tirelessly on the proposed legislation and we will up date membership when we have concrete info. We are working towards change that is fair for all. Our biggest concerns are preserving qualified immunity and an appeal process as well as the number of votes necessary from the board for

Today the Senate will be releasing their version of the Police Reform. The entire bill can be viewed by clicking the link provided. We expect this to move very quickly and anticipate a vote this week. Continue to call your Senators and let your voice be heard.

Just received word that the final touches are being put on the Senate version of police reform/ POST legislation. It could be released as soon as this weekend but no later than next week. We are led to believe that it will focus mostly on POST with several items such as chokeholds, data collection, militarization

Throughout the weekend, we have been in numerous  communications with members of the legislature as well as the administration including those in the House and Senate responsible for creating legislation for their branches. As bad as some of the already released legislation cripples law enforcement, we are aware of a concerted effort by some to

Earlier today, Governor Baker was joined by members of the black and Latino caucus and released his bill on police licensing/certification. We have put together a summary and highlights of the legislation. Establish a police officer standards and accreditation committee (POSAC) made up of 7 police officers and 7 civilians. They would serve for three