PLEASE SHARE AND RE-POST WIDELY
Friends,
On the afternoon of Monday, August 11th, Governor Patrick sent the Legislature an “amended” version of S1987 that he knows they won’t accept. In order for them to make S1987 a law, the legislature would have to go through multiple, close to impossible steps that one legislator’s opposition can scuttle. WE WON the equivalent of a veto!
Your herculean efforts have led to an UNPRECEDENTED victory. No matter the industry, the rich lobbyists of powerful industries are used to filing to strip our rights and then passing them quickly, essentially behind closed doors, at the last minute – too fast for people power to mobilize.
We caught them! The years of talking to legislators, keeping the foreclosure crisis visibly in their faces, with our huge forces working together and then this huge final push with the governor means we basically STOPPED Senate bill 1987.
Together, we are powerful – and if we keep building this momentum, the best is yet to come!
MAAPL will announce the time of our Wednesday Victory Rally on the State House Steps soon.
What happened procedurally? The Governor can outright veto – for a bill that top legislators want that is politically costly. He clearly was convinced this was NOT a bill he wanted to sign. He had a third option which was to amend. And the safest amendment was the one we had written and the House leadership had accepted at one point even though they stripped it later.
So he sent back a 10 year amendment. The Senate and House could accept that – not our favorite option, but the Industry would HATE that. The Senate and House could try getting through very complicated procedures to strip the 10 year amendment out again. HOWEVER, that is MUCH harder to do now that they have ended all formal sessions for the year. We will make sure we are watching (like we did before) AND make sure our friends in the legislature don’t let the 1-year version pass! And the Governor will be watching right along with us!
In short, WE DID IT.
Thanks to everyone who called, faxed, wrote in, signed on to the Open Letter, and supported our efforts to stop this bill! Together, we all won! Please share this news widely–we want to inform and thank the many hundreds of people who made calls! this is a victory for ALL of us!
Please also thank the Governor for his action on behalf of Massachusetts homeowners: call him at 617-725-4005! He needs to hear we noticed and are still watching!
