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VOTE411 Voter Guide

2024 State House Nineteenth Worcester District

The Massachusetts House of Representatives is comprised of 160 members, each representing a district of approximately 40,000 people and each elected for a two-year term. As required by the Massachusetts Constitution, the House meets year-round in either formal or informal sessions to consider legislation. The Massachusetts House is led by the Speaker of the House who is elected by the members of the body at the beginning of each two-year legislative session. Base salary for each representative is approximately $66,256.

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    Kate Donaghue
    (Dem)

Biographical Information

Do you support election day voter registration? Why or why not?

What actions should the legislature take to address the climate emergency?

What should the legislature do to increase the supply of affordable and middle-market housing in Massachusetts?

What measures would you support to deal with the needs of the large number of immigrants coming to Massachusetts?

What are your priorities for dealing with transportation statewide and in your district?

Campaign Phone 508-341-4876
Twitter @KateDonaghue
Campaign/Contact Email lisam367@gmail.com
I support election day voter registration. It’s important to have as many citizens as possible vote to elect who they want to represent them or to cast their vote on an issue. Election day walk-in registration facilitates that by removing barriers and letting each qualified person be heard. Election day registration helps people who are more likely to have an address change, including college students, renters, and housing insecure populations.
The legislature needs to move forward with an equitable clean energy transition that includes advanced metering, fusion energy, and fast-charging infrastructure across the state to support wide scale adoption of electric vehicles. We need to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions involved in the heating and cooling of homes and other buildings. Heat pumps provide a cost-effective solution to traditional heating and cooling, while also significantly reducing carbon emissions, a key goal in the fight against climate change. I support incentives for homeowners to install these systems, as well as providing funding for the retro-fitting of existing homes to make them more efficient, less carbon-intensive, and cheaper for consumers.
The legislature should invest in constructing new homes and rehabilitating our aging public housing infrastructure. In particular, I support the creation of additional units available to those earning 120% of Area Median Income; traditional definitions of "affordable" housing often exclude those earning reasonable wages but still priced out of our area's markets. We need to support innovative and alternative forms of rental housing, including single person occupancy units, transitional and permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness, housing for seniors and veterans, and transitional units for persons recovering from substance use disorder. I support accessory dwelling units for housing for caregivers, parents and children.
Most importantly, this is a federal issue. We need comprehensive immigration reform. The federal government needs to take responsibility for the migrant crisis and see the responsibility shared by states across the country. Again at the federal level, we need to ensure that people arriving in this country can obtain work permits in a reasonable amount of time. I have met with migrants throughout the district. They want to work and employers want to hire them. In order for the migrants here in Massachusetts to be self-sufficient we need to have places for them to live and work.
We must ensure that our public transportation system is both safe and reliable. In recent years, there have been a number of safety incidents as well as chronic delays, which have eroded both trust in public transportation as well as ridership. Especially now, facing the threat of climate change, public transportation provides a convenient, less carbon-intensive way to commute. I am an advocate for continued investments along the Framingham-Worcester commuter rail line to increase reliability.. A top priority related to transportation is the electrification of both private vehicles and public transportation. At the district level I have been working with DOT on the reconstruction of the I-90/495 interchange.