During John’s time in the Senate, he has worked diligently to be an effective lawmaker and to ensure that Western Massachusetts always has a seat at the table.
It is no easy task to move a piece of legislation from an initial idea to being signed into law by the Governor, but John is always up for the challenge!
Learn more about the legislative process.
Below you will find some highlights of policy John helped shepherd into law:
193rd Legislative Session (2023-2024)
In the fall of 2023 legislation was signed into law to cut taxes in the Commonwealth for the first time in more than 20 years. Among the $1 billion in tax cuts, the bipartisan tax relief package included John’s own tax relief legislation to increase the Dependent Tax Credit, the Senior Circuit Breaker Tax Credit, and the Estate Tax Threshold.
John worked closely with the Executive Office of Veterans Services during 2024 to make critical enhancements to Governor Healey’s HERO Act. More specifically, John worked to expand the legislation to benefit not only the Commonwealth’s veterans but also active-duty service members and their families, by establishing a state military spouse liaison and improving access to childcare on our Commonwealth’s military installations.
Additionally, John led critical efforts to pass legislation to protect veterans from predatory “claim sharks” that charge hefty fees and target veterans seeking assistance filing claims for federal veteran benefits.
In the Spring of 2024, John had coffee with a local Jewish constituent who shared fears that her family, and particularly her young daughter, had about sharing that they were Jewish. John quickly came to find that Massachusetts had recently been noted as having the fifth highest number of antisemitic incidents in the entire country.
This conversation spurred John to file legislation to the FY’25 budget, that was quickly signed into law, to create a Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism. This legislation also requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to put together resources to help school districts prevent and address antisemitism and societal bias in our schools.
Massachusetts has a long-standing history of pushing back on all forms of hate and injustices directed towards vulnerable groups. John believed that Jewish residents across the Commonwealth deserved the exact same support, and that it should never be controversial to combat any form of hate.
Shortly after this legislation was signed into law, John was appointed by Senate President Karen Spilka to Co-Chair the Special Commission. Over the next year the Commission held over 16 public hearings where residents bravely shared experiences of antisemitism, best practices to combat hate, and professional expertise, all of which led to a final report and recommendations that have been supported by public officials throughout the state.
The unfortunate reality is that many Massachusetts residents know someone who is struggling or had struggled with addiction. John’s heart breaks for how many loved ones and friends we continue to lose to this disease. That is why as Chair of the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use, and Recovery, John worked diligently on this comprehensive law to reduce overdoses and expand access to quality recovery resources across the Commonwealth.
A key provision that John championed in this law was to expand access to Recovery Coaches, providers with lived experience who know what it is truly like to navigate recovery. Among other pieces, the law mandates insurance coverage for these critical behavioral health services and creates a new professional licensure for this profession.
As an avid animal lover who proudly adopted his family cat, Finnegan, from the Westfield Homeless Cat Project, John is always eager to work with our Commonwealth’s Animal Rights Advocates to pass commonsense legislation into law. This includes a now law to prevent the sale of puppies and kittens under 8 weeks old.
Too often, separating puppies and kittens from their mother and littermates early can result in health and behavioral problems, including disease susceptibility and aggression. Additionally, this law bans the roadside sales of dogs or cats in Massachusetts.
John had heard from so many residents about how absolutely frustrating it was to purchase tickets to see their favorite sports team or musician perform because of the hidden fees tacked on at the very last second by companies. Making headlines across Massachusetts and throughout the United States, John’s bill was affectionally dubbed the “Taylor Swift” bill as it made its way through the legislative process during the artist’s record-breaking tour.
This bill, which was passed into law as part of the 2024 Economic Development package, improves our Commonwealth’s consumer protection laws by requiring ticket sale companies to clearly display the entire cost of a ticket including service charges and fees from the onset of the purchasing experience.
After meeting with victims who had experienced torment as a result of another individual distributing sexually explicit materials of them without their consent, John also learned that Massachusetts was only one of two states that did not have an avenue to pursue justice. In response, John filed legislation to criminalizing this abhorrent behavior.
This bill, which was passed into law, makes it a criminal offense to knowingly distribute sexually explicit visual materials of another person without their consent. Often, explicit images are used by abusers to intimidate and injure the depicted person emotionally or financially. Those who are found guilty could face up to 2 ½ years in a House of Corrections for their first offense and a fine up to $10,000.
192nd Legislative Session (2021-2022)
As the Senate Chairman of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs and proud Senator for the City of Westfield, John introduced this legislation to significantly improve the way Massachusetts treats our active-duty service members and their families.
This bill, which was signed into law, was celebrated as “the most encompassing military and veterans bill passed in the Commonwealth in the last century” by Major General Gary W. Keefe, Adjutant General of the Massachusetts National Guard. Provisions included on Military connected families to help make it easier for spouses to begin working and students enroll in local schools upon moving to Massachusetts
The SPEED Act facilitated significant enhancements that enabled the Commonwealth to satisfy essential Department of Defense criteria necessary for ongoing federal investment, including the Air Force’s F-35 basing determinations at Barnes Air National Guard.
Alongside its support for military-connected families, John was pleased that the SPEED Act included legislation he had advocated since serving in the House to establish a Burn Pit Registry in Massachusetts for servicemembers exposed to the airborne hazards of burn pits during deployment.
As then Senate Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use, and Recovery, John was proud to help advance this legislation into law that created parity between mental healthcare and physical healthcare in the Commonwealth.
Among other measures, this law equipped the Department of Insurance to enforce mental health care parity and guarantees that each resident of the Commonwealth is entitled to an annual mental health wellness exam.
When John began meeting with the families and staff of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home following the devastating COVID-19 outbreak, he made each of them a promise: he would do everything in his power to ensure that this would never happen again. That is why John worked diligently on legislation to make significant governance and oversight reforms for not only the Commonwealth’s two Soldiers’ Homes, but for all veterans across the state.
This legislation, which was signed into law, elevated the state Office of Veterans Services to an Executive level office, ensuring that the Secretary of Veterans Services would be a member of the Governor’s cabinet. It also required both Veterans’ Home Superintendents to hold nursing home supervisor licenses, and mandated certification and licensing of each facility by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Department of Public Health.
During the 2023 fiscal year budget debate, John proposed an amendment that was subsequently signed into law, that made LGBTQ veterans who were discharged under the now repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy eligible to receive state veteran benefits from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Department of Defense’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy barred openly gay, lesbian or bisexual persons from military service from 1994 until 2011. During the 17 years that the policy was in effect, more than 14,000 service members were forced out of the military. Because these service members did not receive an honorable discharge, they and their families are not eligible for many veteran benefits despite their service to our nation.
191st Legislative Session (2019-2020)
John began this session in the House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate for the remainder of the session in May 2020
Following the 2020 COVID-19 Outbreak tragedy at the Holyoke Soldiers Home, John spent a great deal of time meeting with families and staff. As the Senator to Holyoke and fierce advocate for veterans, Senate President Karen Spilka appointed John as a member of this Special Commission tasked by the Legislature to investigate the causes of this tragedy and to make legislative recommendations to prevent future tragedies at our Commonwealth’s Soldiers Homes.
This Commission’s findings played an instrumental role in much of John’s work to secure funding for a new state of the art Veterans Home in Holyoke and the legislative governance reforms signed into law in 2022.
Check out the Special Commission on the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke COVID-19 Outbreak Report
Highlights from John’s Time in the House of Representatives
One of John’s earliest legislative successes at the State House was focused on ensuring that Massachusetts has one of the strongest Stolen Valor laws in the nation. This law criminalizes the impersonation of a veteran for financial gain.