2024 State House Twenty-Ninth Middlesex 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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Steven C. Owens
(Dem)
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?
Yes. We should be eliminating unnecessary barriers to voter participation. All eligible voters should be able to vote on election day. A potential voter can be mistaken that they were registered automatically, could have moved addresses too late to change registration or otherwise become eligible during the time the registration window closes. We should not be disenfranchising them.
The climate bills the legislature has passed over the last two sessions are good steps. We need to increase renewable energy generation, including solar and wind (onshore as well as offshore). We need utility scale energy storage and non-combusting home heating. We need to encourage electric vehicles through incentives to charging networks as well as the vehicles themselves. We need to improve the MBTA and other transit to reduce carbon emissions. We also need to make it easy for property owners to access funds to do clean energy retrofits.
The Housing Bond Bill contains a number of good incentives to increase housing production including the potential legalization of ADUs and the MBTA Communities act has made some progress in loosening up zoning rules near transit. I think there may be some work around the Community Preservation Act that could help make sure municipalities that have adopted it are using more of that money for housing.
The administration has done a good job of getting work authorizations. Getting folks jobs while their immigration cases are being adjudicated can help reduce the stress on the emergency shelter system, but until the Federal Government steps in to help make sure these cases are processed quickly or in a less chaotic manner, we are left to deal with the fallout. It is important that we treat migrants with the dignity they deserve and that families are not left on the street or sleeping in train stations and airports.
The MBTA is facing a fiscal cliff next year and we need to have all options on the table to fund it commensurate with the operations we expect and deserve. Greater Boston doesn't work without the T.
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