OTHER AREAS OF SPECIAL CONCERN TO THE WBA
The WBA Legislative Policy Committee also monitors legislation on a variety of issues of particular interest to women. Specifically these include:
Civil Rights: The WBA supports full implementation of the Goodridge decision on same sex marriage and removing barriers such as the 1913 anti-miscegenation law. The WBA supports a bill to protect transgender people by adding “gender identity or expression” to hate crimes and employment, housing, credit, public accommodation and education non-discrimination laws.
Domestic Violence/Family Law
The WBA opposes Section 202, Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act: Section 202 changes the progressive MA approach to removal and jurisdiction and endows judges with continued jurisdiction where a co-parent lawfully moves to another state with her child. This would strain poor co-parents, hurt women, and give domestic abusers a tool to manipulate and harass the co-parent.
The WBA opposes various Acts Relative To Responsible or Shared Parenting - The bills would harm children because they usurp and override the Court’s practice of using the “best interest of the child” standard when deciding child custody.
Family Medical Leave: The WBA supports an Act Establishing Paid Sick Days and has supported the FESA bill which would provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave (with health insurance and job guarantee on return) for birth, adoption or the illness of oneself or a family member and the “Baby UI” bill to provide unemployment benefits for family and medical leave recall status for serious health condition of employee, or child, for childbirth or newborn care or adoption or foster care placement.
Childbirth/ Breast Feeding: The WBA supports a bill to establish a Board of Registration in Midwifery.
The WBA supports legislation which would give nursing women protection from discrimination in public accommodations like that already granted by law to people on account of race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, deafness, blindness, physical or mental disability and encourage employers to create breastfeeding sites.
Women in Prison: The WBA is concerned for the special needs of incarcerated women who are pregnant or who are mothers and for programs (educational, training, drug rehabilitation) equal to those offered male prisoners. The WBA supports an Act Creating a Mass. Corrections Commission to monitor Dept. of Corrections; an Act Providing for the Protection and Care of Certain Children to require DOC to make every effort to keep newborns with incarcerated mothers; and An Act Regulating Programs Outside Correctional Institutions for Female Inmates, educational, vocational, health, housing and child care services in place for re-entry into the community.
Employment: The WBA supports legislation to add four objective characteristics with which to compare jobs under the existing Comparable Work statute, MGL c.149§105A.
The WBA supports legislation to create a special legislative committee to study sex segregation in state service (public) employment and wage inequities between male- and female-dominated jobs of comparable value and make recommendations to eliminate pay disparities which are found and update the work of such a committee in 1983.
The WBA has supported legislation which would reduce the vesting requirement for the state public pension system from 10 to 5 years to the benefit of women workers who are disadvantaged by the current vesting requirements.
Family Law: The WBA has supported a bill to overhaul the process by which parents acknowledge parentage of a child, An Act Relative to Establishing Paternity written by the BBA/MBA and An Act Relative to the Health Insurance of Children of Divorced Parents, legislation to require insurance carriers to recognize and acknowledge the custodial parent in a variety of ways. The carrier must provide information with regard to the available coverage, notify custodial parents of impending changes or lapses in coverage, and permit the custodial parent to submit claims for payment without the signature of the non-custodial parent.
Sexual Harassment and Other Forms of Workplace Discrimination: WBA has opposed a bill that would require plaintiffs in cases before the MCAD to retain expert testimony in order to recover damages for emotional distress and limit such awards against public employers to $100,000. This bill would severely compromise access to justice for all citizens of the Commonwealth and particularly women.
Legal Services: The WBA has opposed bills which would hinder IOLTA legal services funding by requiring burdensome requirements on banks and attorneys under the guise of client disclosure and by requiring client consent for such interest and which would require legal services domestic relations programs to serve equal numbers of mothers and fathers as dangerous to women. Due to the limited funding of civil legal services, assistance to victims of domestic violence (DV) must take priority. Women are the vast majority of DV victims.
Diversity on corporate boards and upper level management: The WBA supports bills that would make the state’s pension fund more accountable in the exercise of its power to influence policies of major corporations. The pension fund investments in corporate stocks give the state a significant voice in electing boards of directors and in determining the outcome of shareholder resolutions related to corporate business practices. The WBA urges the state to use this power to promote equal opportunity and nondiscrimination in corporate management and in the workplace.
Addressing the state’s budget: The WBA supports efforts to identify progressive methods to increase state revenues to avoid drastic budget cuts in education, welfare, health care, and other programs vital to women and children. The WBA supported the 2002 tax rollback freeze because it was fiscally irresponsible to implement tax cuts when the needs of our poorest citizens and other important government services are under- or un-funded.
Privacy of Counseling Records: The WBA has supported legislation to promote essential privacy protection in situations when a criminal defendant seeks disclosure of a victim’s therapeutic counseling records. These would include advance notice to victims and counselors before records are subpoenaed, court hearings on whether to allow disclosure and protective orders to prevent unnecessary disclosure of confidential records.
Reproductive Rights: The WBA supports Healthcare Privacy Act to prevent protesters from photographing people entering/leaving a facility with the intent of invading privacy, coercing or putting people in fear of bodily harm and a bill to allow minors’ abortion choice with counseling alone rather than parental consent and which would reduce the age to which 12S applies to sixteen. The WBA opposes bills that would create a substantial burden on the courts and the young women seeking judicial consent by allowing parental involvement under certain circumstances.
The WBA supports legislation to codify the standards of Roe v. Wade into state law and preserve current practice. The WBA opposes an undue burden standard amendment and other anti-Choice measures.
Welfare: Since welfare policies have a disproportionate impact on women and children, the WBA supports programs which offer real long term solutions through education and training, increasing self-esteem, not cheap, short-term, punitive solutions. We work for measures which increase child care subsidies and extend of Medicaid benefits for recipients entering the paid work force, and for appropriations necessary for effective education and training. We support efforts to expand and improve the Family Violence exemption that would require training of DTA workers to actively screen for domestic violence so that appropriate exemptions from certain welfare requirements can be granted. (See also Domestic Violence section below.)
The WBA has supported extensions to the 24 month benefits time limit for completion of education and training and budget line items increasing the gross income test for “working poor” families to 130% of federal poverty level and bills to allow recipients of Transitional Assistance to count hours devoted to education and training toward the program’s work requirement and to “Let Child Support Come Home” and allow parents to choose not to receive welfare and receive direct child support instead.
Children’s Issues: The WBA is concerned about the health, education and safety of children and pays special attention to areas such as adoption and abuse and to those bills supported by the Legislative Children’s Caucus.
The WBA opposes bills to overrule the SJC’s “Paternity of Cheryl” case.
The WBA has supported efforts to end child hunger by establishing a unified application system for and increases access to all food programs
We support affordable child care bills: for state loans/grants to develop child care & Head Start centers & legislation which guarantees access to child care for welfare recipients in education & training, to those in first year off welfare & to families below the poverty line.
The WBA supported efforts to help reduce homelessness and promote housing stability for low-income families with children.
Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault:
The WBA supports An Act to Prevent Harassment and Witness Intimidation. This law is necessary to protect all victims of harassment and to prevent witness intimidation since many victims of harassment do not meet the relationship requirement established in the criminal restraining order law, M.G.L. ch. 209A.
We support an anti stalking bill which would make possible civil “no contact” orders; and a variety of technical amendments to MGL c. 209A which would strengthen the protections for women who are victims of battering and oppose efforts to weaken law.
We support efforts to expand and improve the Family Violence exemption that would require training of DTA workers to actively screen for domestic violence so that appropriate exemptions from certain welfare requirements can be granted. (See Welfare section above.)
Elder Law: The WBA is alert to policy measures which could impoverish elders through insufficient maintenance and resource allowances for community spouses of Medicaid recipients; therefore we support bills to restore methodology of 2002 of valuing assets of a community spouse. We also are concerned about exploitation of dependent elders and guardianship provisions for incapacitated elders and children and support the reforms of Article V of the Mass. Uniform Probate Code.
Death Penalty: The WBA opposes the introduction of the death penalty in Mass. The WBA believes that a death penalty would make our society less just and understands the danger of mistaken convictions, the arbitrary and discriminatory features of the system, the lack of a deterrent effect and the costs. The WBA believes that the current mandatory sentence for first-degree murder - life without parole - is sufficient to meet public safety needs.