 Welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town. It is a legislative update with our state rep or one of our two state reps. Dave Rogers is with us today. Dave, as always. James, pleasure to see you. Absolutely. I'll say Happy New Year. Yeah. Even though we're in the February. Well in the February. Exactly. But I don't think you and I have seen each other yet. It's been right. I always wonder what's the etiquette about that. Like how long can you keep saying Happy New Year but what the heck? I like that idea because we still have some stuff on our website that's basically saying Happy New Year to people. So you're keeping it current. There you go. I appreciate that. There you go. I've also in this little round of conversations with our two reps and our senator, I've been had a chance to kind of delve into a little bit of the fact that all of you have a certain amount of experience behind you now in your respective chambers in the state house. And to ask you, I know you are probably, I think you're coming up to 10 years now, right? That's right. So that's a good solid chunk of time. And congratulations. It's kind of like a nice round number anniversary kind of thing. But I'd like to start, before we start talking about the legislation that will always fill most of our conversation, let me just ask you, how does that feel? How's your energy? Sure. What are you thinking about looking forward, that kind of thing? Yeah. Well, thanks for the question. And it's quite a feeling. When I first ran, as most candidates, I didn't know if I would be elected. My first race was highly competitive, had started with five Democrats, a couple of them dropped out, but still three were left. And then a Republican and an Independent. A lot of good candidates. And so when you talk to the limited group of folks who actually follow this stuff closely, I was kind of an underdog. And so I wasn't at all certain I'd get elected to one term, let alone I'm now in my sixth. And so in a sense, I guess I'm saying it was improbable or at least deemed unlikely at the time that I would get elected. And I've been blessed and fortunate to get this opportunity to do public service, something I've always wanted to do. And I've say I've had a heck of a run doing it. Been able to get a lot of useful things done for the community and for the Commonwealth as a whole. And I'm still energized by the prospect of doing more. And like any job, you learn the ins and outs, where to invest your energy, maybe where your energy is less well invested, how to be effective and to make a difference. And so it's been a great thing to do. And looking forward to this session, which is now just underway. Right. We'll talk about that in a second. Let me just say, though, that's really interesting to me to hear what you just said about your first election. Because I'm sure you haven't had such an uncertain kind of topography since then. Because I personally cannot remember any election local that has involved, sounds like at least at some point, seven different people. That's right. That's right. And yeah, it was highly competitive. And I had a lot of help from a lot of people. I have to be clear that any successful campaign, whether it's school committee or select board, city council, state legislature, governor, president, whatever people are running for, it's a team effort. And the candidate is just really just one component of a team. And I had a lot of help from a lot of people, including right here in Arlington, people who got to know me, my policy platform, the things I was campaigning to try to accomplish. And got behind me, supported me. And so, yeah, it's been great. And being a candidate is hard. I had a competitive campaign last, not this cycle, but the one before. Look, every job's hard, right? I mean, every job has its challenges. But there's something uniquely challenging about being a candidate. I mean, your name is printed on a ballot for all of your fellow neighbors to cast judgment on. I remember reading an interview with Obama, listening to an interview. He lost, you know, he lost for Congress, Barack Obama. And he was fascinating to hear him talk about it. He ran against Bobby Rush. Bobby Rush was an icon of the civil rights movement, a Black Panther. Obama was ambitious and probably against some advice he got, said, you know what, I'm going for it anyway. And he got thumped, two to one. And he talks a lot about it. And I never forget his quote was something, never underestimate how ignominious it is, a public loss that, you know, all your friends and neighbors know about. You walk down the street, which one of my neighbors didn't vote for me kind of thing. But anyway, I, I, I, but it's also exciting and challenging. And they say, you know, try to push yourself out of your comfort zone and do things in life that are, maybe get you a little beyond what, you know, you normally would do in your career or in your work. And public service has enabled me to do that. You know, before I got elected, we were talking before we went on air. I had a good job, a lawyer, reasonably successful with that. And, you know, but I was itching for a new challenge and new frontier, a new way to use my, whatever talents I may have to try to. And so I'm glad I did it in that. I was a little bit stagnating as a lawyer. Right. Being comfortable can be a little insidious, right? Yeah. That's a great way to put it. Being comfortable can be insidious. I was comfortable, good pay, good, good job. But not really growing, not really challenging myself. And so, and there's lots of different ways to challenge yourself. Good God, you don't need to go and run for office. You don't need to be judged by all your friends and neighbors. But, you know, I, this is what I did. And it's, it's been a really unique experience. And it's really in the end, as much as we're talking about me and me running, it's not about me. It really has to be about the people you represent. Right. And trying to make an impact. Trying to make a difference. Because that's what makes it interesting for me when I can have a meaningful impact. Yeah. And I think, if I'm just, you know, on a treadmill, but not really making things happen, then that's, that's no good either. So, I mean, we were all stuck before, you know, the camera started rolling about the fact that, you know, ten years in is an accomplishment in and of itself. And again, nice round number and all that. But what it really means in a lot of ways is that you, you know how to get things done in a way that you couldn't possibly when you had a year or two years, three years behind under your belt. So, let me ask you, let's, let's start by talking about, I've gotten an education in how things work in the legislature. And I know that with the beginning of the new term, which started in January, you basically have to start at square one with all the legislation that didn't quite get over the finish line before. And you're not starting at square one in terms of the experience that you've amassed and how you're going to approach getting that legislation passed. You can use all of that hard one wisdom, I'm sure. But in terms of process, things are back to square one, right? That's right. Which, let's start by talking about which are of the, you know, which bills or which subject areas contain bills of yours that, you know, you feel like you've been working on for a while but didn't quite make it over the finish line. And you're really, you know, kind of want to change your flag and make sure, yeah, I'm starting energetically on this, you know, with these things. Well, if I might, I would divide that into two categories. And the first category is I've been reappointed the chair of the Higher Education Committee. So the substantive work of the legislature is done through the committee process. If it's on transportation and the MBTA, there's the Transportation Committee. In my case, I'm the chair of the Higher Education Committee. Of course, Massachusetts is famous not only in the country but worldwide for our private institutions of higher learning. MIT, Harvard, Tufts, BU, Eastern and many others. But we also have 29 institutions of higher learning that are public colleges. The UMass system, nine state colleges and universities and 15 community colleges. And that's primarily what this committee has oversight and also legislation that would impact those institutions. Now, as I'm sure you know and your members would know, there was a big ballot question last year. The so-called millionaires tax, a sur-tax of 4% on incomes above a million dollars a year with the money to go to education and transportation. And so this session as chair of the Higher Education Committee, I hope to work with my colleagues and develop some legislation that will impact public higher education. Because far more as I mentioned all those world-renowned private institutions but far more students from the public colleges and universities stay here. Raise their families here. Have their careers here. Work here. So it's really important that we get it right and that we have thriving public institutions because that is literally the future of the Commonwealth. Those students stay here. Yeah, and those students probably by and large like you were just saying on the whole more of them are from here. You know, kind of have been here for much of their lives. You know, we're again with the private institutions they can come from anywhere in the country in the world drawing out a large part of their student body. But these public institutions really serve, you know, the Massachusetts population in a particular way. That's 100% true and so Governor Healy has a proposal, our new governor for those 25 and over to get free community college to get them back into advancing their skills and their education. There are a number of proposals and the key that the advocates point out and there are a lot of voices a lot of stakeholders but if you listen to the advocates for for students and for public higher education they tend to pick the year 2001 as the benchmark as the high watermark of the state contributing to public higher education and if you look at the data it is true that over time the share that the state now pays has gone down as a percentage and so students are bearing more of the costs student debt we know is in the news matter of fact today I think the United States Supreme Court the President Biden's plan for student debt relief is on the docket and being debated and argued but the very fact that you know we have an American president with a proposal it's at the Supreme Court tells you how big of an issue this is the student debt and how do you finance higher education so that started with your question about what do I hope to accomplish or make an impact and I foresee that we'll do something now exactly what is hard to say it's the session just started right but it is a really interesting moment for you to be reappointed because as you said with the fair share amendment the other way that that is referred to the millionaires tax amendment right or that that passed you should have some money to work with right I mean you should have the means to be able to to get something done like you said or whatever the form that takes is I hope so that's right and we'll see you know there are forecasts about how much the millionaires tax of the so-called fair share amendment would generate but now we're going to start getting the data now the DOR the department of revenue will begin to get monthly receipts to assess how much revenue are we really going to get from this fair share amendment and so we'll have to see the other thing is that this would happen no sooner was the ink dry on the fair share amendment that there are groups and people trying to push back and already chip away like for instance there's a proposal to cut capital gain stacks the short term capital gain stacks that is primarily not totally but primarily paid by wealthier folks so if you get money in from the fair share amendment but you start giving it where are we really going to shake out on new revenue and we'll see I mean there there are tax cut proposals governor Healy ran her campaign on a promise that she would have some package of tax cuts she's now put it forward just I think yesterday or the day before so that will get debated but certainly higher education and my role as chair of the higher education committee I hope to make a difference and then I have a lot of legislation that I filed myself that I hope to move forward some of which I know you and I have talked about before but I'll highlight maybe just a couple things one is access to council you know two thirds of low income people that go to civil legal aid societies for help because they can't afford a lawyer are turned away so for instance in Massachusetts we have GBLS that's the greater Boston legal services we have illegal services these are lawyers who are public service lawyers and provide legal help to those who are so low income they literally cannot afford a lawyer and so they turn away a lot of people so I have a bill that would provide in a limited circumstance for those facing eviction those in housing court would have essentially a right to a lawyer or access to council and if you're a criminal defendant in America and you're accused of a crime but you can't afford a lawyer one is automatically appointed for you we've all heard the Miranda warnings on TV you're watching our favorite shows you know if you cannot afford a lawyer one will be appointed well the question is what about in civil court what happens to low income people when they go into court and we know in housing 90% of landlords have a lawyer so the folks that control the property and they are wealthy enough or have enough money they have lawyers almost all of them less than 10% of tenants have a lawyer so you talk about a lopsided arrangement you know we all recite the pledge of allegiance and how does it end when we think about America what is America and justice for all there isn't justice for all there's a lopsided system and I've been working to address that it's become one of my signature pieces of legislation when I first introduced it it was sort of me and a couple other people it's like seven years ago but we now have over 200 groups supporting it and this is the most interesting to me we have landlords supporting not all not all landlords but some of the big property owners support it and I think the reason is I know you're a lawyer as well and I've gone to housing court housing court is chaotic it is people spilling out in the hallways on days when there are hearings when there are a lot of cases on the docket and I think a lot of landlords that support it support it because of the efficient administration of justice maybe you can get a clear consistent resolution if there are lawyers on both sides the cases can be processed and move along and a lot of times it's settled like oh look I'm behind on my rent but you have a code violation you fix the code violation and put me on a payment plan I'll catch up on the rent whatever the case may be the lawyers can negotiate a deal keep people in their houses which is what we want we don't want more homelessness we're working on there's a bunch of others one I care about is to do with data privacy I think we've talked about this before and there's a saying we don't search Google Google searches us and the amount of our personal information think about tracking and location you're carrying around a smart phone that tells these companies everywhere you are and I won't go on at too great a length other than to say I think there's a compendium or dossier of information on us that most of us can hardly imagine the amount of information that these companies are assembling about us is staggering every time you watch a YouTube video they know what you're watching, what you're listening to where you're going, who your friends are on and on and then use that to target you to manipulate you and so long story short America's data privacy laws are behind Europe we don't have as much protection for consumers and so I've introduced a bill along with another state representative Representative Vargas from Haverhill working with the ACLU American Civil Liberties Union because they care about privacy and our rights as citizens and that's a legislation that would put some reasonable constraints on our personal information what these companies are allowed to do what they're allowed to do with the information what information they're allowed to collect what notification you get I saw Apple now if you have an iPhone they ask not to track you can click the button that the app won't track you I've hit that button I cannot tell you how many times don't allow, don't allow but that's just Apple and that's just one limited part of your life when you're on your there's what you search online so that's a big, big idea what we're going to do about data privacy and there's legislation also pending at the federal level so we have to be mindful of that but there's room I think to operate here at the state level and do something I really hope you're right Dave though it does feel to me like wow that's a major uphill battle it is because these are powerful companies think about the money that Apple and Facebook and Google I mean the lobbyists have reached out to me I mean I know they're very well represented and to be fair the legislation has to be written in a thoughtful way because this technology also brings us great benefits that's the other thing is that I was going to say that you have on the other side those who would or should be outraged to know all this stuff are you know kind of maybe soft pedaling it a little bit because it's more convenient hey you know oh so they so an ad just popped up on my phone how did they know that I would be interested in that but I am so I'm going to go you know what I mean people aren't necessarily seeing what the threat is even if it is you know very clear to others so anyway well the ramifications are endless about the way society is changing in the way our information is being used but my bill would set up a Massachusetts office of privacy and again set rules of the road and some sensible guardrails about what these companies cannot do for instance can they sell your information to other third parties that had nothing to do with the reason you went online in the first place I don't think so so that's another major bill I filed I did file a bill on rent control which we have as you know a major affordable housing crisis in this state and a matter of fact at the globe just two days ago front page for those of us who still actually pick up a paper although I read digitally too but I know what you're talking about Sunday's paper right front page and there's been so many that we're losing it's not just people of modest means it's middle class people with college degrees who are choosing to move somewhere else because they can't afford the home to buy a home or even to rent something they really like and they're severely sorry I'm just interjecting because that article brought it right home here to Arlington because one of the two or three people that they happen to focus on is the owner of kind of a local Arlington institution right here on Mass Ave and Jason Street Laura's sewing school the woman is having to leave she's more or less my age as well which means she's laid some roots down here and for her to have to take off to Minnesota I think it is I understand why they picked her as one of the people to focus on because that really does drive home what you're saying these are people just like all of us it's your friends and neighbors it's your friends and neighbors and if you were fortunate enough to buy into this market 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 or more years ago great but for a lot of others it's causing extreme duress and difficulty and business leaders are also weighing in that this is an economic competitiveness issue it's going to put us at a competitive disadvantage with other states we thrive on high tech and biotech and lots of industries and to attract the kind of workers we need and there was a big report that just came out that did the forecasting the projections of the kind of workers we need in this state looking forward 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20 years and the forecast was pretty dire on our ability to have the kind of labor and workforce development we need to continue to be successful as a state Boston is now second in the country and the state of Massachusetts as a whole fifth in the nation for the most expensive so our biggest city is second and the state overall is fifth and look there are a lot of proposals for how to address this I'm not saying rent stabilization or rent control as it's called is the only answer you probably need a lot of tools in your toolkit and there are a lot of policy ideas to build more some folks say if the problem is housing prices are too high then it's classic economic model supply demand you need more supply, you need more housing but you know that's an idea that's been peddled now for a decade and in and of itself I'm not sure is the solution and I think my bill would not impose rent control or rent stabilization anywhere it's a local option bill let's essentially restore the status quo ante before 1994 when the voters narrowly repealed rent control because rent control you may know this it was only repealed 5149 it was so tight it might have been like 50.5 to 49.5 I forget the exact but it was very close and more than a quarter century ago so I had one gentleman say to me are you repealing the will of the voters if this passes that's over a quarter century ago and passed by the thinnest of margins so I think it's entirely appropriate to revisit it only three cities and towns had rent control when it was the law Boston, Cambridge and Brookline there are 351 cities and towns in our state but only three rent stabilization so if we allow it to come back who knows how many would adopt it but I think it makes sense as a local option and my bill would allow landlords to raise rent but just by a limited amount so I think it makes sense to look at it carefully Mayor Woot, Mayor Boston has a proposal it's getting a lot of attention she's got a little bigger megaphone than I do at the moment for sure but you know I'm happy to have her in the conversation I think I was the first one to use the idea of rent stabilization rent control so we'll see where that debate goes and it is a big deal not just for social justice and economic justice but as I said business leaders are really worried about our economic competitiveness as a state as people are being driven out this is an area where according to studies as you said and what business leaders are forecasting etc it's going to move from this is such a terrible situation to actually we're not able to we're stagnating we're not able to keep growing in the way that we have always been expecting exactly one of the biggest issues this state faces is affordable housing I can't believe we got already to the end of our conversation and I'm sure you have much more to share with us so we'll just have to get you in sooner in the next quarter happy to come back for a legislative update the sequel in a sense make sure we cover everything that we didn't get to today but I do appreciate the conversation I really do especially we took a full third of it probably just to talk about your experience so far over these last 10 years the things you've learned and what you're going to do with that I feel like that was really worth it as well I appreciate the conversation as always so thank you I have been speaking of course to our state rep Dave Rogers he has been kind enough to join us here in studio we always welcome his presence and we always appreciate his time he's a busy man took the time to be with us and to be with you we also appreciate your presence here thanks so much for joining us we'll see you next time I'm James Milan