MY LAST DAY IN THE SENATE
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
This is a hard email to write—partly because it’s hard to say goodbye, and partly because it’s hard to do justice to all the righteous fights and incredible victories we’ve worked on together. There have been so many of them!
Together, we passed the Student Opportunity Act, sweeping criminal justice reform, the strongest police reform law in the nation, anti-discrimination protections for transgender Bay Staters, voting rights expansions, better school discipline policies, limits on MBTA fare increases, a ban on childhood conversion therapy, “Nicky’s law,” to enshrine anti-abuse protections for people with disabilities, an increase to the minimum wage (twice!), and paid family and medical leave for all Massachusetts workers.
We won huge increases in the budget for some of the things we value most: youth anti-violence programs (a 300% increase since my 1st year in office!), integrated public schools, small businesses, and substance abuse treatment.
We organized for vibrant, connected, welcoming neighborhoods. We kept Boston Public Library branches open throughout the Great Recession, re-opened the Melnea Cass Recreational Complex, fought to build and preserve affordable housing, beat back a proposal to cut Green Line service to the VA Hospital, and oversaw the opening of the Fairmount Line’s new Blue Hill Avenue Station in Mattapan. Our office worked thousands of individual constituent cases—whether helping someone access a shelter bed, get signed up for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or get a repair done on a broken bus stop bench.
And we made it a standard practice to require developers seeking support for their projects to provide detailed numbers on how many Boston-based workers, people of color, and women they planned to hire and contract with—because there have been many, many changes to our neighborhoods over the years, and we all have a responsibility to make sure the benefits of growth and development are shared.
And for nearly a decade and a half, this office served as a pipeline for smart, talented, dedicated young people—especially young women and young people of color—to get their start in public service. I couldn’t be prouder of former Team SCD staffers and interns who have gone on to serve at every level of government and pursue justice in so many fields—in education, in immigration, in environmental policy, and more. We’re so lucky to benefit from the great things they have done and continue to do.
I’ve gotten to witness so many people all across this state commit acts of patriotism, love, and courage during my time here: single moms who risked condescending looks to testify, sometimes in their second or third language, at a school funding hearing; hunger strikers who pushed us to finally, finally pass the Work and Family Mobility Act after two decades of fighting; thousands who gathered on the State House steps to call for justice after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor; and so many more. Their decisions—to stand up and be counted, even at personal cost—burn as brightly for me as our policy victories. They’re a reminder that we can, against long odds, make impossible things possible.
It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as your state senator. I’m so thrilled, now, to be passing the reigns to Senator-Elect Liz Miranda, who will be an incredible champion for the Second Suffolk District. Thank you for always holding your elected officials to the highest standard, for being good neighbors, for fighting these righteous fights with courage, grace, and conviction, and for showing what we can win together.
Saludos,
Sonia Chang-Díaz
State Senator, Second Suffolk District