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[Music] good evening and welcome back to buy line this is a public affairs show here at Amherst Media co-sponsored by the Amherst League of Women Voters and we've been visiting with a lot of our town council members and town officials today we're gonna meet for the second time with our new state representative Mindy Don welcome Mindy thank you very much it's great to be back thank you you did such a great job the first time I've been getting all kinds of comments and people saying when is she coming on again and I think they actually would like you to replace me here on this side okay we're all comfortable where we are very good so let's dig in you're in about oh let's see when we're taping this show which isn't it's a little bit a few weeks before it's going to be broadcast but in about 120 days now how's it feeling it feels great it is the most fascinating job I've ever had the pace is very hectic which is great there's no room for boredom and I feel like I'm getting an opportunity to advocate for the district and for issues that are concerning to the district and I'm also getting a chance to touch base and come back and kind of get replenished by the district so it feels good yeah well that's the great thing about coming home and putting your feet back on the ground here absolutely seeing your constituents and your supporters and your friends to get energized to go go back there for battle very good so we want to cover a few things tonight because just a couple of weeks ago you folks who are in the throes of the budget debate and that was your first budget debate it was so I'd like to talk with you a little bit about that experience tell us what the what it felt like to be in that in that fishbowl and with 160 members running around trying to pursue 100 and I guess it's 1,500 amendments or even more okay so tell us I loved it I loved budget week so as any of your viewers may know that's our main job at the state legislature is creating a budget right and passing it on to the governor for the next fiscal year and in the house it occupies everybody for this period of time and so we all get a chance to submit amendments the budget comes out on a Wednesday we have three days to submit amendments I submitted four amendments many people submit a lot more some don't submit any and then the week following our submission of amendments the House Ways and Means staff are putting together and organizing all these amendments into different subject areas and then we come back the next week and we have what you call a debate I actually I'm not sure it was actually a debate it was more like a conversation about what amendments people support and don't support him what's actually gonna go into the budget and I loved it I want to say it was more like a conversation than a debate explain that because I think I know what you mean but people who don't know the process in terms of how the house handles the amendments may not understand what that means well even before we submitted amendments House Ways and Means hold statewide hearings as you know being a former chair of that committee where they hear from the administration as to what they want advocacy organizations and individuals as to what they want and they also the chair of House Ways and Means gives his schedule to members for like two months saying that if you want to meet with them for 15 minutes and give him like a 15 minute pitch on what your district needs or what your statewide concerns are you can do that which I did I went and met with the chair and I brought two letters one was specific to the district and one was about statewide issues that are of concern to the district and then that staff takes all that information and creates a draft budget and then we look at that budget as members and we get to say that it include the things I wanted so I'm gonna go in and try to amend it then during budget week each of those subject areas education energy and the environment transportation has a set time where we go into room 348 it's not mysterious it's actually just a room and the House Ways and Means leadership is there as well as the chairs from these committees and every member who wants to speak on amendment goes into that room and has their time to say you know I hope that you'll consider putting this amendment back in and gives a little explanation why some members do it about one amendment maybe their own other people will go in and give a slew of amendments and I love that part because we really get to see not only what my colleagues are concerned about and what their districts want and what projects are important to them but what their advocacy style is and what their priorities are and nobody is adversarial in the room so it's really just advocacy without animus I loved it I went to every single meeting from start to finish I scheduled myself to talk at the end after I heard everybody and I'm still jr. and I want to see what people do and I felt like I really walked away with a better understanding of the Commonwealth and about the specific members in the room how long was that meeting those meetings will they depends on what the subject areas but it could go up to about an hour an hour and 15 minutes so it wasn't really debate and that way it was more like a conversation a colleague of mine said it felt like being at a Thanksgiving table because it's a it's a round on round table and people come forward and say here's what it's a concern to me I thought it was a really how many members were in typical and it's only members only members of the house and so it wasn't 160 people but really packed room could be probably about at any given time maybe 30 to 40 people and then after most people after they gave their speech they left a lot of the newly-elected and I did not I stayed there for the whole time and so I got to see also how veteran legislators and non-veteran legislators would would approach the leadership and how they would make their pitch and then what happens after that one hour or so meeting is over then they're you know then the leadership sort of takes and all that information and I saw the spreadsheet that they use to sort of record our presentations which was really intricate and they develop a consolidated amendment where they take in some of the amendments and they create a whole new amendment to that section which includes some of the things that members had asked for and wanted and that's what we debate and discuss and vote on and at that point your amendment might be still left out right it might be put in in part right or but anybody in exactly as you want it right and so my I'm going to four three so I asked for two local amendments and I did not get them in full I got them in part which is good because it's something now that budget goes to the Senate so maybe they'll add in a little bit more and one of my amendments I didn't get at all which was and was kind of statewide but also had a direct local impact it was to increase the UMass budget by ten point two million dollars to freeze undergraduate tuition for the next year and that was not put in but who knows maybe the Senate will put it in well they've typically looked to the Senate to ad for higher education spending it's been a pattern for decades decades occasionally the house will will match the governor's number and the Senate will match that number but for the most part the governor has the loan number the house has one it's a little bit higher and then the Senate adds then they'll have to figure between the house and the Senate at that point they'll have to come up with their wealth of what the compromise number is going to be so let's talk before we go into the detail about the other amendments that you filed and that you got in whole or part a lot of people criticize the consolidated amendment process because it's all behind the scenes and the public doesn't get to hear a debate on each of the amendments and it doesn't get to see a vote on each of the amendments when a vote is taken it's taken on a whole pile of amendments at the same time right so there could be ten twenty fifty a hundred amendments embedded in that one absolutely so tell me your perspective on that because again we're very big on transparency around here and people really want to understand how that works and how you feel as a as a representative using that process this particular budget I felt okay about it because I also thought that the budget the House Ways and Means provided us with initially was a really pretty good budget like it increased money for housing and homelessness services and increased money for adult education increased money for libraries hiv/aids funding there were a lot of pieces of the budget that we were originally given that I thought really focused on vulnerable populations and increased support for those folks people with developmental disabilities the programs that serve them were increased a great deal so that left me with a lot of feeling of trusts to tell you the truth leadership and I do like the people who are in leadership in ways that means they come to that from like the mental health field the drug and alcohol treatment field the nursing field so that and I'm new so I know I can't write a budget because I'm still figuring that out if the budget had been very different I probably might feel very different about the process but because I felt like the budget really lived up to a lot of expectations it really did a great job with child care and early education before we even touched it that made me feel like I could have faith plus I don't really want to sit and have 30-minute debates on all the amendments that I heard about in room 348 you know the dog park in another community the fire hydrant that needs to be repaired like although I think it's fine that they had an opportunity that my colleagues had an opportunity to say this is what my constituents need and that I got a chance to learn about it but debate it for 30 minutes I don't know if that's the best time for members of the House in a different scenario I might feel very differently about the process this time around from my first one I liked it and it also like I said it gave me an opportunity to hear information from other members that I can use and building future coalition's that I otherwise would not have either okay and how about the actual debate and vote on the consolidated amendment was there debate on most it was well there wasn't bate but there was a couple of sections where people pulled things out and were able to debate it that's because they were not satisfied and wanted another bite at the Apple exactly and so there is an opportunity if you want if you're like I'm mad that they didn't do ten point two million dollars for UMass for fries I could have taken that and called for a roll call vote on it I decided not to do that with that because I really just wanted a conversation to happen and maybe that conversation will continue on to the Senate but there were a couple of members who pulled things out and we debated them and they were voted down in some cases they were voted down I'm trying to think there was one that was I think there was one that was approved but I forget what it was and so that worked and was that on a roll called yes and so that worked out well for them and what that was against leadership's intention well it was just against the budget as it was also that amendment is yes I think that happened twice that there were two amendments that were brought up so that means that the people who are bringing them up don't agree with what leadership in that Ways and Means did and their amendments actually passed so that meant that the body could weigh in on that and there were a couple amendments that didn't pass okay so let's talk about the specific amendments of yours that did pass let's start with one that's really critical which is Craig's door which has been something that this community has made available which very few communities do which is a winter shelter for people with substance abuse problems and most most shelters are what are called dry shelters this one is not you cannot be using in the shelter but you you can stay there even if you're not in recovery at the moment right and if you're not sober if you're not sober at the moment and so it's a well staffed and well-managed facility and for years we've been getting an earmark starting with you I think yes yes and representative Allen's story was actually the one who started that with earmarks in the House budget and then I picked it up in the Senate and we made sure that it got done but we ran into a little bit of problem last year and so a new scenario was worked out which is now actually being implemented through this budget yep hopeful so why don't you describe that for us so I think that I think we all thought that homeless services shouldn't be subject to an earmark right if we think that everybody should have a place to stay at night especially in the winter then it shouldn't be subject to this special appeal it should be part of the program right and I think what's happened in the past years when it was an earmark depending on what our revenues were in the end of the calendar year sometimes it would be dangled and we're not sure if we can fund it right in the middle of the winter right in the middle when organizations like Craig's doors need certainty and stability it was always maybe yes maybe no so when I came in I also didn't want one of my earmark requests to always be for only one nonprofit or human service organization because we have a lot of them in the third hampshire and i think that i really want to be able to sort of spread the love so when i came in what had already been in works by you as well as my predecessor was trying to see if we could get it within the line that the governor's budget has and right now that's where it is and so one of my earmarks was just to make sure that that happened in that line but that means that the house doesn't have to add money into that line and that's a big plus and to the administration's credit they included it in their budget absolutely House Ways and Means Credit and to your credit it's included in the House budget and now hopefully senator Comerford will be able to hold that in place in the Senate budget and that will be a permanent solution to this problem yes not an annual fight to get that earmarks oh that's terrific and isn't this also going to involve a partnership with another aging I think that hasn't yet happened but I think that this potentially gives sort of more support if that if that was an option that people wanted to choose to do and I think that the other piece of making sure that it's in there is that the House budget because when that original House budget increased the line housing and homelessness services that actually protected the crane stores funds so that's a great thing terrific okay what was the other budget amendment and I the two other ones that I did that were very local was a request for the John Musante Health Center which I got a part of which is terrific as a new access point for medical care for not only Amherst and Pelham and Granby but the whole area and the other piece was a part of funding that the towns of Amherst and Pelham were looking for to be able to do a feasibility study on a congregate energy and choice and community choice around energy and they're doing that in partnership with Northampton to not only do an aggregation around energy just to be able to save folks money but they want to have this extra element of save money and reduce fossil fuels so that's I'm really excited about I'm very excited about that too because I put the original aggregation municipal aggregation language in the bill that created the utility deregulation which then led to a number of places but not yet here well aggregating energy purchase for saving your work continues well it takes a long time for some of these things to get actually get implemented so I'm really glad that here you are let's say you're the fourth state rep after me and you're actually bringing that to life so thanks to the towns of Emerson Pelham for wanting to do it that's great okay so let's shift gears here for a second you had some very interesting constitutional amendments that you proposed I did and by the time the viewers are watching this the deadlines will have come and gone for legislative action but tell us about the hearing and the prognosis today about what you think is likely to happen okay so today the hearing that the Joint Committee on the judiciary had was terrific I had two amendments one would allow everybody not just people who identify as Quakers who are public officials to not only swear in their oath but if they chose they could affirm their oath right now according to the Massachusetts it's constitution own that's only was that choice his only reserved for people who are Quakers everybody else has to swear in their oaths so the amendment for that is to give the choice to everybody and the second amendment was and that one's moving now moving along so as a result of the hearing the committee took that in they mended it a little bit in a really good way which I'll talk about in a moment and they have I guess reported it out with an ought to pass peace and so actually as we speak right now next week I expect that the house will be voting on that because May 8th is the deadline to vote on constitutional amendments constitutional amendments had very specific complicated and long journey and it starts not only with the hearing but there has to be taken up very early in the session the vote has to happen pretty early it has to go to a constitutional convention and the process has to happen again the next session and we should clarify what the vote in the house is next week has the clerk have you talked with the clerk about the actual vote I think it went in what way so on most bills when it appears on the House floor it's for a vote up or down yes or no and you agree with it this vote is shall it appear on the constitutional convention calendar so it's a move it moves it along but it's not the house voting on the substance it's voting on moving it to the next stage of the process right so that's a great point because it means that members can actually vote for without saying I support it they're just saying I think that the Constitutional Convention we're at do it so kicking that can down the road and there's one other little twist here and that is that it doesn't automatically come to the floor for that action a member has to request that it go to that next stage so I think I've done that I think that's the report out from request and it's coming up with other constitutional amendments there's like maybe 10 or 12 of them right one of them is a fair share amendment that's terrific I think there's also a constitutional amendment that's I spoke in favor of that will be before us to vote and that's to allow no excuse absentee voting because that's also of something that has to amend the Constitution my second amendment however was not reported out what not to pass and that was the one that struck all the he's and replaced them with days and I decided not to pursue it I could have but I thought you know what if and when I got it reelected hopefully when I'll bring it back the next session and I actually flagged it for the chair of the Judiciary Committee and said I won't push it now but I'll be coming back with it but they did something with the oath amendment that was really terrific in that section it refers to public officials as he and so when they amended it they took out the he and they replaced it with the person so they've already started to chisel away I've already gotten a little toe in the water that's right next time maybe it won't be the he's to the dais it'll be the he's to the person well you know it's not an it's very unusual for a first-term legislature to propose a constitutional amendment and it's even more unusual for it to advance to actually get on the calendar so I've heard that's very exciting yeah to hear that you took that initiative and that you're building support for it okay so now let's go to something else I read recently in the daily hampshire gazette that you and Natalie bleh a new state representative from Franklin County co-authored a letter talking about the use of campaign funds for day care yes how could you talk about that lower on the federal level you can use your campaign funds to pay for campaign related child care expenses so this is really about supporting parents who have small children to be able to run for public office because if they can't pay for the amount of campaign funds it's either a personal expenditure or they're bringing their kids along with them which may be fine but in not in all cases and also sometimes parents get sort of subject to judgment about that you know why are they bringing their kids around with them and so on the state level though you still can't use campaign related funds for campaign related childcare expenses and so this bill would allow that to happen and I think some people think oh it's really important for moms and women it's just really important for parents who are thinking about running to know that they can raise funds that then can help them care for their kids so they can be able to turn their attention fully to the campaign and not be at a disadvantage from that and so I think it's a great bill I'm happy to have supported it both web play and myself supported it very early on we wrote the letter actually in response to another letter that sort of inferred maybe that we weren't supporters so we thought well we should take the opportunity clear know right now that bill has not been scheduled for a hearing it sits before the Joint Committee on election laws and if people are interested they should write to the Joint Committee and say let's have that up for a hearing so that we can bring it to the floor and allow it to be voted on great okay so let's shift gears here for a second and I'm gonna ask you a two-part question part one is what's been the biggest disappointment so far in your whole hundred and twenty days as a state representative from the third hampshire district I know it's gonna sound kind of hokey but the biggest disappointment is how little work I get done on the commute back and forth I would so much rather be able to I mean there are a lot of people do phone meetings and all sorts of ways to maximize their time and I don't seem to be able to do that so that's part of my district as you're driving yourself I'm driving myself and I end up wanting to catch up on the news during that time because otherwise I don't know when I would and so it becomes it's great time to listen to podcasts and news but not great time to be distracted with the meeting when I can't take notes of it but I you know there haven't been too many disappointments it's not like everything's lived up to my expectations because I'm not sure what my expectations were but it's still incredibly fascinating and everything is an opportunity to learn so it's going through that filter in terms of low points next time I might give a little bit more thought to some juicy low points but right now I think that's my my major disappointment is that I'm not as productive in the commuting time and I would like to be if we had a train only we have the very productive and I appreciate the conversations you and I have had about he's west rail and your openness to the idea that we should be connecting both on northern and southern routes like to do it all yeah because we need to be able to get people not just from Boston to Springfield to Pittsfield but also from Boston to Greenfield in Northampton or everywhere and I actually had the opportunity to talk about that a little bit in my committee on bonds this week because we were talking about rail improvement and so I was able to talk about existing creating rail for Western Massachusetts and you know what's interesting is I don't know if this was there when you were there stamp but at the beginning of every committee meeting now colleagues are complaining about how long it took them to get into Boston people who live within 128 oh it took me an hour and a half to get in it took me two hours and I think that's great because I think it's also pressing the issue of if it's taking you that long mm-hmm now you can get a better understanding why we need commuter rail in western Massachusetts have given people real-life experience yes when I started it was under two hours all the time from here from here under two hours of course you've got the pedal to the metal writer whatever the expression is but but it's still it and now how long is it typically depends on what time but generally two to two-and-a-half and I used to go in on Sunday evening and stay over at the apartment in Boston Sunday evening I'd get there an hour and three course was like nothing and as you say the ride back and forth was decompression time right and now because of cell phones and bluetooth right meetings constantly yes on the phone constantly and keeping track of those means when you're driving can be held to be very difficult so let's let's end on a high note what's what in these 120 or so days was the highlight that you're most excited about and and most grateful for I think so in the beginning a lot of the veteran legislators are saying ask me anything you need you know if you have a question to ask me and you don't really want to ask but as the session is moving along it's really impressive to me how incredibly generous my colleagues are that they meant it like if I go back and ask them a question they give me exactly what they think they don't hold back and I appreciate their very direct feedback and the advice and you know it's a funny thing right because coalition's are built on shared values but it also can just be shared experience so having the conversations with people around different topics even if we don't come out with the same issue is giving me an anchor sort of to go back to folks and I'm appreciating the fact that at least for now everyone's making themselves available to that kind of significant so you've got the support of your constituents here and when you're in Boston you've got support and guidance from the veterans who can tell you and you don't have to follow their direction or advice but at least you get the and they're not expecting you to follow it or not and I have to say the flip side of that is working in conjunction with like Webb Lane and Senator come aboard and having this sort of regional partnership is quite amazing and wonderful I really I feel a delegation some cohesiveness is key I don't know how we'd be doing it without it if you if you don't stick together here you're not going to be effective there that's right thank you very much for being with us and this is our state representative mindy dom and you can get her online you can text her email she has many ways that you can reach her you can attend her office hours they're published so Mindy keep up the great work and thank you very much for joining us thank you [Music]