Dear friends,
I am writing to you today with legislative, public health, and Cambridge updates.
Table of Contents
Legislative Updates
Public Health Updates
A Glimpse at the Past Week
Recent Press
Cambridge Updates
Services and Resources
Legislative Updates
House Votes on Supplemental Budget to Fund Emergency Assistance Shelter System
On Thursday, the House voted to pass a supplemental budget to appropriate $425 million of funding for the emergency assistance shelter system. Funding had run out on January 31st, and it was essential to get the system money to keep it operational and to continue supporting the incredibly vulnerable populations who need shelter.
At the same time, as I said in my floor speech, yesterday was one the most challenging days that I have experienced in my 12 years in the Legislature. As you may know, the Governor sent a letter a few days after filing this supplemental budget, asking for several restrictions on shelter access. After many years of opposing the Governor and protecting the right to shelter, we took a vote yesterday that does restrict it.
While the bill does not go as far as the Governor wanted, it does go further than I would have liked it to. However, I worked really hard yesterday to ensure that children can still benefit from presumptive eligibility and extended stays, which was the most significant change adopted through the amendment process. The final vote on the bill was 126 in favor and 26 against, with the vote largely split along party lines as only two Democrats (who thought the bill didn't go far enough in restricting access) voted with the Republican caucus in opposition.
I will provide a more thorough overview early next week breaking down my history working on this issue and my work on this bill ahead of the vote.
Trans Rights Continue to Be Under Attack
I want to name that President Trump and the federal government continue to attack the trans community. This week, Trump signed an Executive Order intending to bar trans athletes from girls’ and women’s sports and the NCAA quickly changed their policy to ban trans athletes from competition in womens’ sports.
I am beyond disgusted at the continued targeting of the trans community, and I want to unequivocally say that I see you, I value you for who you are, and I stand with you in the fight for recognition and representation.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of resources; I welcome any feedback and additional resources that I can add to this newsletter:
GLAD LAW (GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders) - Information for LGBTQ+ People Under the Trump Administration
This resource includes information about marriage and relationship protections, family protections, health care access, schools, identity documents and name changes, other protections, and online safety
Fenway Health - Trans and Gender Diverse Resource Library
This page includes a plethora of resources for gender queer individuals, including those related to behavioral health, community and peer support for adults and children, gender affirming gear, health information, provider resources, and more.
Trans Lifeline - 877-565-8860
This is a trans-led organization that connects trans people to the community, support, and resources they need to survive and thrive.
Public Health Updates
Senate Finance Committee Advances RFK Jr’s HHS Secretary Nomination
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received approval from the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, with a vote of 14-13 along party lines, advancing his nomination as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services for a full vote on the Senate floor. If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee vaccine recommendations and public health campaigns for the agency, which has a budget of $1.7 trillion. This agency is also responsible for food and hospital inspections, overseeing the financing of Medicare and Medicaid, conducting research to improve care quality, monitoring health care fraud and abuse, providing guidance for the nation’s pharmaceutical and health care companies, and responding to pandemics. Concerns have been raised regarding Kennedy’s potential financial incentives to alter vaccine guidelines or weaken federal protections against lawsuits for vaccine manufacturers. Having passed in the Senate Committee, Kennedy now awaits the full Senate vote, which has not yet been scheduled.
Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality Rates Widen, According to New CDC Report
Maternal mortality rates in the U.S. have fallen below pre-pandemic levels overall; however, racial disparities have widened, according to 2023 federal health data. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report on Wednesday that analyzed deaths from death certificates of women who died during pregnancy, childbirth, or within 42 days after childbirth, excluding accidental deaths. In 2023, Black women in the U.S. died at a rate of almost 3.5 times higher than white women around the time of childbirth. In comparison, the rates for 2021 and 2022 showed that Black women had a maternal mortality rate 2.6 times higher than their white counterparts. The data suggest that pregnant women’s health was significantly affected during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the impact of systemic racism and inequitable access to healthcare across different racial and ethnic groups. The most common causes of maternal deaths are excessive bleeding, blood vessel blockages, and infections, including COVID-19. For information on maternal healthcare in Massachusetts, please visit Maternal and Perinatal Health | Mass.gov.
FDA Approves New Non-Opioid Painkiller
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved suzetrigine, sold under the brand name Journavx, the first effective non-opioid painkiller developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The FDA’s approval of this medication marks the first approval of a new class of pain medication in over two decades. Journavx is approved to treat moderate to severe acute pain resulting from tissue damage caused by trauma or surgery. This drug was developed in response to the opioid crisis, which claimed over 80,000 lives in 2023 alone. Given that about 10% of patients prescribed opioids to relieve acute pain will go on to use them beyond their initial prescription and almost 85,000 people develop opioid use disorders annually, the introduction of a non-opioid painkiller is critical to address the opioid epidemic. Rather than reducing pain by binding to pain receptors after they receive signals of pain from nerves like opioids, Journavx reduces pain by acting on pain-signaling pathways to prevent these signals from ever reaching the brain. At this time, the list price of Journavx is $15.50 per pill, making it significantly more expensive than comparable opioid pain medications, and it is not clear the extent to which health insurers will cover this medication.
New York Shields Abortion Pill Prescribers After Doctor’s Indictment in Louisiana
On Monday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill to protect the identities of doctors who prescribe abortion medications. The new law allows doctors to request for their names to be left off bottles of abortion pills and list the name of their health care practices on the labels instead. The shield law is a result of a Louisiana grand jury’s indictment of a New York doctor and her company for allegedly prescribing abortion pills online to a pregnant minor in West Baton Rouge Parish. This case is one of the first instances of criminal charges being levied for doctors prescribing abortion pills to patients in another state since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022. In the United States, pills are the most frequent method of abortion; medication abortion accounts for over half of all abortions, and 19% of abortions in the U.S. are facilitated by telehealth. Massachusetts enacted its shield law in 2022, protecting providers, patients, pharmacists, and others who assist people in accessing abortion from professional licensure consequences and out-of-state investigations and legal actions. The new law quickly went into effect this week. Governor Hochul says she intends to continue the protection of a physician by pushing for legislation that will allow pharmacists to comply with physicians’ requests to leave their names off of a prescription label.
Some CDC Health Websites Reappear after Vanishing Following Trump Orders
Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed several health-related websites and datasets, including those focused on HIV and LGBTQ+ health. These changes came in response to a push by the Trump administration to cut funding related to gender ideology and reduce the emphasis on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) across the federal government, reducing access to crucial information for healthcare professionals treating infectious diseases and HIV, particularly those caring for people with HIV and members of the LGBTQ+ community. This week, some of the information was restored. Among the restored resources is the Atlas Tool, which is used by policymakers to track rates of infectious diseases like HIV and STIs, pages that explain the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which monitors adolescent health, and the CDC’s data site. Public health experts are still attempting to catalog information that is still missing; while broken links and pages make some missing information easy to identify, some pages have been scrubbed of certain words or groups of people. Some pages, for example, previously referred to “pregnant people” but now refer to “pregnant women.” Other pages continue to appear offline, like a tool that assesses social factors that make communities vulnerable in the event of a disaster. As such, there remains to be continuous concern about the removal of federal websites and the potential impact on access to government data extended beyond the CDC advisory group.
A Glimpse at the Past Week
On Tuesday, I organized a call between three constituents and small business owners of Western Front, Kush Groove, and Yamba — three cannabis companies in Cambridge — and the Executive Office of Economic Development to discuss improvements to the Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund established by the Legislature. The Trust Fund was established to provide funding to cannabis entrepreneurs from communities that have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement. The program aims to increase equity and opportunity within state’s regulated marijuana industry. We specifically focused on how the fund could better support first-to-market entrepreneurs.
On Tuesday, I joined my colleagues and fellow members of the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators for the Caucus’s Annual Meeting. We celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Caucus, the continued increase in women legislators, and talked about the Caucus’s legislative and strategic priorities. You can read more about them on the website. We were also joined by Executive Office of Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh, hearing updates on the Administration from her.
On Wednesday, I organized a call with my Public Health co-chair, Senator Julian Cyr, to meet with MassHealth. We addressed the challenges related to access to assessment and early diagnosis for children with autism spectrum disorder. We also discussed efforts to alleviate barriers to care and enable providers to offer services that meet the needs in a field where care is already limited already limited.
Also on Wednesday, in honor of Go Red For Women, a American Heart Association initiative to highlight that women have historically been overlooked when discussing cardiovascular diseases and heart attacks, my staff and I wore red. This initiative aims to spread awareness of the impacts of cardiovascular conditions that claim the lives of around 500,000 American women each year.
On Thursday, I attended the Massachusetts Association for Community Action (MASSCAP)’s Public Policy Briefing. I was honored to receive the Community Action Champion award alongside my longtime friend and colleague Sal DiDomenico.
MASSCAP has done such incredible work to alleviate barriers for people living in poverty such as providing a food pantry, free tax preparation, and housing/health insurance assistance. I experienced firsthand some of the services MASSCAP offers through the Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee (CEOC) when I was a child. As someone who grow up in public housing I understand that that poverty is not an identity, but the result of policy decisions. My lived experience aids in my efforts in leading legislation that addresses poverty and why I always center the needs of our most vulnerable populations in policy and budget conversations.
As I mentioned in my past two newsletters, the Governor has again proposed to slash the cash assistance grant increases, which will reduce Families and Dependent Children (TAFDC) and Emergency Assistance for the Elderly, Disabled, and Children (EAEDC) programs, undoing the increase that Senator DiDomenico and I worked hard to secure in the FY25 budget and that the Governor signed into law. We have successfully secured five increases since 2021; prior to our efforts, TAFDC and EAEDC cash grants hadn’t been increased in 33 and 21 years, respectively. I will continue to advocate against these cuts in parallel with my advocacy for continued increases in the FY26 budget.
I also discussed my work as co-chair of the Poverty Commission, which I am leading alongside Senator DiDomenico. We are working to craft a omnibus package that will incorporate recommendations from many different policy areas in efforts to reduce poverty and expand opportunities for people with low incomes. More to come on that soon.
It was great to see Joe Diamond, Executive Director of MASSCAP, and Tina Alu, Executive Director of CEOC. Thank you to MASSCAP for all that you do to alleviate poverty.
I was delighted to speak on Thursday at the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Organization for Women (Mass NOW)’s Menstrual Equity Advocacy Day alongside my colleague Chair Jeff Roy. I am excited to have co-filed An Act concerning disposable menstrual products in schools with him this session, a bill that aims to provide elementary and secondary public students in grades 6-12 with free disposable menstrual products in the bathrooms.
As House Chair of the Joint Committee on Public Health, I have filed, worked on, and prioritized bills surrounding reproductive rights and maternal health. The last time President Trump was in office, I filed An Act to improve access to emergency contraception, which became the basis of the Legislature’s response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Last session, I authored An Act Promoting Access to Midwifery Care and Out-of-Hospital Birth Options. This comprehensive maternal health omnibus will expand and improve access to maternal health care and services. This session, I filed An Act expanding access to perimenopause and menopause care and An Act expanding access to hygiene products alongside Chair Mindy Domb, which would require the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to conduct a study to see whether hygiene products — including menstrual products — could be purchased through the WIC program.
Access to menstrual products is a public health issue; it is a human right. No one, especially young children, should have to miss out on their education, employment, and social interactions because they cannot afford them. One of the first steps we must take to alleviate the barriers to access is addressing poverty. By providing families and individuals with housing, cash assistance, nutritious foods, and healthcare, we can minimize the financial, physical, and emotional distress that contributes to menstrual inequity.
It was great to hear from advocates and my colleagues in the Legislature about the incredible work they are doing to mitigate the challenges of menstrual inequity that a significant portion of the menstruating population in Massachusetts faces. Thank you to Mass NOW for inviting me to speak at this amazing event.
On Friday, I had the pleasure of attending the Cambridge Public Library legislative breakfast. Cambridge Public Library has always been a place that is near and dear to my heart. I remember the countless times I went to the library as a child growing up in Cambridge, especially during my days at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. As a mother of two, I also fondly remember bringing my children to the library.
The Cambridge Public Library is an internal part of our community, and we are fortunate to have a space that provides many great resources, from books, computers, events for all ages, literacy, and English for speakers of other languages and citizenship classes.
It was great to see Mayor Denise Simmons, Reverend Irene Monroe, Maria McCauley, Director of Libraries at Cambridge Public Library, City Councilors Ayesha Wilson and Sumbul Siddiqui, and my colleague Representative Steve Owens. Thank you to the Cambridge Public Library for hosting this incredible event.
Recent Press
Families would have to prove legal status under new $425 million bill for emergency shelter system by Anjali Huynh (Boston Globe)
“Not all House Democrats initially appeared onboard with the changes. Several, including Representatives Marjorie Decker... filed amendments seeking to eliminate the new 4,000 families cap. All, however, were withdrawn and not voted on.
The House approved two amendments — including one also filed by Decker — that would expand who can receive hardship waivers to extend the proposed six-month limit to include families with children under the age of 6 and people with disabilities.”
House passes $425 million shelter funding bill with new eligibility restrictions by Sam Drysdale and Sam Doran
“Representatives on Thursday also adopted Democrat Rep. Majorie Decker's amendment maintaining presumptive eligibility for children under 6 years old in shelter.
Decker said Thursday's debate was one of ‘the most challenging days’ she had experienced during her 12 years as a representative, ‘and I know that's true for so many of my colleagues.’ She added that she believes the House has tried to maintain the difficult balance of housing homeless families, while handling the realities of the strains the crisis has put on their communities.”
I care deeply about the emergency assistance (EA) shelter system and will continue to be a voice advocating for the protection of the right to shelter law and for the state to lead with compassion.
Cambridge Updates
Throughout February, the City of Cambridge will host a series of events celebrating Black History Month. The events will touch upon Black heritage, culture, film, poetry, music, theater, and food.
Here is a list of the events taking place:
Barbara Ward Armstrong Sculpture Display on February 7, 11:30 a.m.-5 p.m., and February 8, from 1-4:30 p.m. in the Teen Room at the Cambridge Main Public Library.
Saturday Screening: Black Panther 2 on February 15, 1 – 3 p.m. in the Lecture Hall at the Cambridge Main Public Library.
Live at the Library: Ethiopian Dance Performance and Demonstration on February 18, from 6-6:45 p.m. at the Cambridge Public Library - O’Neill Branch.
Movie Night: Hidden Figures on February 18, 5:30-7:40 p.m. in the Cambridge Public Library - Valente Branch.
The Secrets of Phillis Wheatley – Multimedia Theatrical Monologue on February 19 from 12-2 p.m. in the Sullivan Chamber at the Cambridge City Hall.
Central Square Book Group - Kindred by Octavia Butler on February 19 from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. at the Cambridge Public Library – Central Square Branch.
Cambridge Cooks with Yego Coffee on February 20 from 6-7 p.m. in the Community Room at the Cambridge Main Public Library.
Homecoming: Celebrating the Black Voices Collection on February 20, from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Cambridge Public Library Central Square Branch.
Central Square Cooks Book Group- Cooking from Jubilee by Toni Tipton-Martin on February 27 from 6 – 7 p.m. at the Cambridge Public Library.
Cambridge Public Health Helpline Supports Residents with COVID-19
To speak with someone, call the confidential COVID-19 Hotline at 617-933-0797. Learn more here.
Intimate Partner Abuse Prevention Helpline
This initiative is designed to prevent intimate partner violence by fostering accountability and change in people who harm or may harm their partner. You can find more information at 10to10helpline.org or by calling 877-898-3411.
SafeSpot Overdose Prevention Helpline
SafeSpot is a virtual spotting/overdose detection service for people who use drugs. Learn more at safe-spot.me or access it by calling 800-972-0590.
De Novo Center for Justice and Healing
De Novo is a Cambridge-based nonprofit that provides free civil legal assistance and affordable psychological counseling to people with low incomes. You can learn more about their services at denovo.org.
MassLegalHelp.org is a resource to help Massachusetts residents learn about their legal rights. The website does not offer legal advice or answer individual questions but has a page about options for finding a lawyer. It does provide resources for those facing legal issues, such as a landlord refusing to make repairs, appealing the denial of SNAP benefits, and questions about getting a CORI sealed.
As always, please contact me with questions or concerns at Marjorie.Decker@mahouse.gov.
Sincerely,
Marjorie