Episode 243: Latinos in Massachusetts
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Steve Koczela [00:00:02] The horse race is brought to you by benchmark strategies. Benchmark is setting a new standard as Boston's fastest growing public affairs consulting firm. To know more, connect with Benchmark on Twitter at Benchmark Boston.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:00:26] This week on the Horse Race, municipal elections are coming up faster than we think, and that means it's time to unpack how mail in balloting is going and what clerks might want to change about the system. Also, we have a new poll on the challenges facing Latino residents in Massachusetts. And host Steve Koczela sits down with Amplify Latinx, president and CEO Eneida Roman to talk about the findings. And finally, romance isn't dead in Massachusetts, at least according to a new and very scientific list. It's Thursday, January 26th.
Steve Koczela [00:01:08] Welcome back to the horse race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Steve Koczela, here today with my co-host, Lisa Kashinsky. Our dearly beloved Jennifer Smith is off this week, so we'll sneak in some more horse puns. But Lisa, you know what was not off this week. You know what was on this week?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:01:25] Is it? Could it be could it? The Bachelor is back.
Steve Koczela [00:01:32] The Bachelor is back. Which means as our long time listeners would expect, we're going to be dedicating this entire episode to dissecting the plot, analyzing the contestants, and generally embarrassing ourselves.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:01:43] There were meatballs, though. I admittedly missed that segment because I was working on Playbook. There was a pig, which I did not miss and wish that had gotten more airtime. And quite honestly, Steve, I'm not sure what else happened in that episode.
Steve Koczela [00:01:58] Yeah, I think that's actually a pretty good synopsis of what I took away from it as well. So maybe that's good, and we should return to Massachusetts politics. Of course, as you mentioned in the intro. One of the things that's happening right now is we're asking ourselves, looking way ahead, what should we in Massachusetts do in terms of voting procedures for upcoming elections? So, of course, mail in balloting is something which has exploded in recent cycles, particularly during COVID. But now we're now seeing pushback from some interesting areas and from actually municipal clerks, something you've dug into for Playbook. So, Lisa, what's going on there?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:02:31] So basically, over the past couple of weeks, I've started to see some of the local papers shout out to them, reporting that towns are starting to opt out of mail in ballot and universal mail in balloting, I should say, for their spring municipal elections. Absentee balloting would still be available. But they're basically saying that between the cost and kind of the personnel burden on these towns with smaller clerk's offices, you know, the people who actually process all of the ballots and run the polling areas and the precincts and everything, that it's just not worth it because they don't see the interest in these low lower turnout. It's a typically lower turnout, I should say, municipal elections.
Steve Koczela [00:03:14] So basically what that would mean then is that you could still request an absentee ballot if you wanted to participate without actually going into your polling place. But you wouldn't just have one necessarily come to your home, which has been the practice for the last couple of election cycles. Is that right?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:03:28] Yeah, that's basically what they're proposing. And this wouldn't be a permanent change. You know, these town officials are saying that they're open to reevaluating this down the line, but for this year, they're going to give it a shot to opt out.
Steve Koczela [00:03:39] So what does this mean then, down the road, of course, we've got another presidential election coming in just a couple of years now.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:03:45] Yeah. So clerks are already starting to think ahead to unbelievably next year's presidential election and the next batch of state elections where we're going to have a Senate race, etc.. So they're looking at this and it actually might be a bit of the opposite problem where they're not anticipating a lot of interest in mail balloting in local municipal elections. It proved very popular in last year's state elections. Nearly half of voters used it in the September primary, a little bit less in the November general. And that coupled with kind of this eagerness from voters to return to polling locations on Election Day, meant that not a lot of people took advantage of early in-person voting, which was expanded under the state's new voting law. So now the heads of the Clerks Association, there's the town clerks and the City Clerks Association in Massachusetts. They're telling me that they want to file some legislation on Beacon Hill to kind of shrink that early in-person voting window to basically allow their staffs more time to process mail in ballots and actually run polls on Election Day, just kind of work out some of those kinks with that saved towns a little bit of money, you know, from extra, you know, it takes a lot of money and effort to staff and police details and all the stuff that goes into running, you know, two weeks of early voting before a statewide general election. They also want to make some other changes that would streamline, you know, the processing for mail in ballots and applications, too.
Steve Koczela [00:05:19] And then the one final question that we always have to ask whenever we're talking about changing voting processes is what does the secretary of state's office, what does Bill Galvin have to say about this?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:05:29] Galvin says that it's a little too early to be tinkering with, you know, the law that was just passed last year, you know, after kind of a long effort to make some of these changes. Because, you know, as he told me earlier this week, you know, off year elections aren't the best indicator of how people are going to vote in a presidential year where turnout is typically higher. He'd like to really see how 2024 goes, get some more data before kind of going back and maybe tinkering with the law. But he is open to and really wants to get these clerks in these cities and towns more support from the state, whether that's, you know, more money or anything else to help them better run elections. That's something he's interested in doing now.
Steve Koczela [00:06:10] All right. Well, certainly something to keep an eye on. But for now, we have to ask the question which we've asked millions of times over our centuries doing the horse race and never once provided a satisfactory answer for which is, Lisa, why are we here today?
Lisa Kashinsky [00:06:23] Well, we have another great poll from the mass polling group to discuss on the experiences of Latino residents from across the state. And we'll break it all down after this break. A new poll out this week from Amplify Latinx and the Massing polling group talked to over 1200 Latino residents across the state looking at their priorities, experiences, civic engagement, political views and more. Here to unpack all of that is well, as you'd expect, our polling maestro and president of the Mass Inc polling group, Steve Koczela. Welcome back.
Steve Koczela [00:07:03] You know, good to be here today, Lisa.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:07:06] Holding down the fort for us, as always. So, first of all, just describe the scope of this particular effort, because this is more than you would expect, more encompassing than you would expect from your typical poll, right?
Steve Koczela [00:07:19] Yeah, definitely. Particularly given that it's focused exclusively on Latino residents of Massachusetts. So certainly we've done polls where we've oversampled Latino residents, for instance, and we might get, you know, 250 or maybe 300. This one was exclusively Latino residents and we talked to 1200, just over 1200 residents total. It also included two focus groups. We did one in the eastern part of the state and one of the western part. And both of those were conducted in Spanish. And then to top it off, we also did interviews with elected officials at at starting down at the municipal level and up into the up into members of the state legislature who are Latino as well.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:07:58] Let's start with the priorities. What what are the priorities that emerged in these talks?
Steve Koczela [00:08:04] Right. So one of the things that happens in polling sometimes sometimes is that if you just ask, you know, what's a high priority, people will pretty much say everything if they're given that option. And so, you know, everything is very important. Everything is a high priority and that sort of thing. So what we did in this one was we basically asked people out of a list to say what's most important and what's least important out of these four or five things, and then show a different four or five things and another one and so forth, and use that to kind of ferret out if you can only choose one most important and one least important how people are kind of making those tradeoffs when they can't just say everything matters. And what we found was that the top two issues were both related to affordability. So making housing more affordable was, number one, certainly a familiar one from lots of other polling we've done. Making health care more affordable was number two. And then rounding up rounding out the top four were creating jobs and reducing unemployment and ensuring access to high quality K-12 education. So interestingly, those are pretty much what we're seeing in other polls these days as well. Three of those items have been kind of the top ones for, you know, as long as we've had the massive polling group in operation in some form or fashion, education, health care, jobs, housing has really grown in recent years, you know, the last 5 to 7 years or so. It's appeared at the top of polling lists. You know, pretty much whenever we are polling and wherever we're polling. You know, we saw it emerge in the Boston mayor's race polling, where it hadn't really been there in 2013 but was in 2021, for instance. So definitely some submit some familiar things. Even though we were exclusively focused on Latino residents here, the priority list actually looks very similar to what you might see in a broader poll.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:09:44] And so on the flip side of that, what were the things that were kind of, I guess, lowest priority?
Steve Koczela [00:09:50] Right. So that's the kind of interesting and unique thing about asking questions this way is it's not just like, you know, we're trying to tell the difference between 71% and 62%, you know, calling something a high priority. Here are some things at the top and some things at the bottom. And what we found was that when you ask people to kind of trade things off this way, the things that fall further down the list are improving public transportation. Interestingly, increasing the number of women in elected office and protecting the state against climate change. For the bottom three, protecting access to abortion was also down there. So it doesn't necessarily mean that people are opposed to any of those things. It's just that when you ask them to prioritize what state leaders should be focusing on and you can't pick everything, those are the things which were selected relatively less often.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:10:39] But that doesn't mean that people just because, you know, protecting access to abortion isn't their highest priority. Does that mean that they oppose it?
Steve Koczela [00:10:47] No, and that's important. You know, one of the things that we also did in this poll was we asked we just did also ask support, oppose for some of these policy issues and found that in the case of abortion, 58% say it should remain legal in all or most cases, compared to 34% who said illegal. We found big variations by things like whether you attend religious services and how often your religious preference you know, what what you say as far as a Catholic or some other form, a Christian and so forth or nothing at all. Younger people definitely much more supportive. So, you know, a lot of variation there.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:11:27] So something that we need to point out is that Latino voters, like, you know, any other ethnic group, are not a monolith in how they vote and what their priorities are or even, you know, how they identify. So what did your poll find in regards to that?
Steve Koczela [00:11:43] Yeah, that was one of the things that this poll enabled us to do, which we've never been able to do to this degree before, was to disaggregate and to really explore, you know, what are the different ways that people think of themselves and identify and how does that influence and relate to the other opinions that they have and the other identities that they hold? So for instance, religion was one of the ones we asked where 38% said that they were Catholic. Another 30% said that they were some other form of Christian. But then a pretty good chunk said they're either nothing, they don't have a religious preference, some other religion, or didn't answer the question. So it's certainly not a monolith there. And that, you know, that breakdown then relates to things like, you know, what level of support do you offer for abortion rights? Do you identify as LGBTQ? You know, those kinds of questions of identity are are related and also related then to the political opinions and priorities that you describe. So another one we asked, for instance, was church attendance. There we found a pretty substantial difference by age. So if you're looking at at Latino residents under 30, for instance, they're only a third even go to church, you know, either weekly or monthly, that number jumps up to 62% if you're talking about voters over 60. So, you know, there is no monolith that's shown here. And the more you slice the data, the more nuance is revealed.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:13:11] And speaking of kind of slicing that data and finding that nuance, there's also differences that you found in party affiliation. Talk to me about that.
Steve Koczela [00:13:19] This has been one of the questions that's been really active in the national political dialog, too recently is what is the is the party affiliation of Latino voters in the case of the national dialog mostly? And where is it going? More importantly, there was this very interesting switch in 2020, or at least movement from, you know, comparing that to 2016, where initially there was a huge vote against Donald Trump and for 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Then in 2020, there was actually a pretty big shift still to where a Democrat, the Democratic candidate, was by far the preferred candidate, but not to the same degree. You know, so if you looked at the map, for instance, places in Massachusetts like Lawrence saw big shifts from in terms of support for Democrats between 2016 and 2020. In this poll, we asked about party ID. So do you think of yourself as a Republican or Democrat? And for the moment, Latino voters are still even more Democratic than Massachusetts residents as a whole. 60% said that they identify with the Democratic Party or lean more towards it. That's 11 points higher than the state as a whole. They also are more likely to agree with statements like Democrats focus on issues that matter to you more than Republicans. Share your values, represent the interests of Latinos in Massachusetts. But on those items, there's a lot a lot, a lot a lot of residents and voters who say both or neither or don't necessarily have a view on that. So there's a lot of voters that are up for grabs on this. And this is definitely something to watch and in the next few years.
Lisa Kashinsky [00:15:01] Okay. Well, we are just getting started on what is a very interesting deep dive into Latinos in Massachusetts. So up next, Steve continues his conversation with Amplify Latinx president and CEO Eneida Roman. Stay tuned after the bugle.
Steve Koczela [00:15:26] In the last segment, we talked about some of the priorities Latino residents across the state expressed in the poll we released this week with Amplify Latinx. But how will action on those priorities become a reality? Here to talk about that, I'm joined by Enedia Roman. She's the co-founder, president and CEO of Amplify Latinx who sponsored the poll and is leading the charge on a legislative initiative to address some of these priorities. Enedia, thank you so much for being with us.
Enedia Roman [00:15:52] I. Thank you so much.
Steve Koczela [00:15:54] So you just started as president of Amplify Latin X formerly, and what sounds like a pretty exciting time for the organization. So tell us, tell the audience. You and I, of course, go way back and I know all about Amplify, but tell the audience just a little bit about what Amplify is all about and what's going on.
Enedia Roman [00:16:11] Absolutely. Thank you so much. So well, Amplify has been around for the last five years, but we actually started very informally ten years ago as the Latina circle, which was focused on elevating Latinas into positions of power and influence. Then five years later, we had been covering topics such as the wage gap, the wealth gap, and a bunch of gaps that are pervasive and in underserved communities. And we decided to expand our reach to not just serve Latinas, but also men and others who who identify as Latino or Latinx so that we could focus more on not just executive leadership, but also civic engagement and political leadership and policy and other other things that really move the needle for for communities that have historically been underserved.
Steve Koczela [00:17:08] And then fast forwarding to today, this week, of course, was the unveiling of a big policy proposal which amplify and a coalition of other organizations are putting forward. So tell us a little bit about what that proposal would do.
Enedia Roman [00:17:21] Yes. So this comes as a result of a presentation of the launch of the poll that we presented yesterday to the legislators on Beacon Hill. And essentially, as you know, it's the largest Latino focused poll on civic engagement and economic prosperity. And aligned with that economic prosperity aspect of the poll. We want to make sure that we are educating and advocating for policy initiatives and for policy solutions that actually affect real impact and transformative change for the community. And so with that in mind, we actually expressed our support and advocacy for the clarification of the term micro-business into state law. And not just that, but also a bill that would fund what is going to be called the micro-business Worker Development and Training Fund. So it's two separate bills that we are advocating.
Steve Koczela [00:18:30] So one is the definition, and then one actually puts some policies into place, which presumably would then address some of the issues that those businesses are facing. So why, first of all, is it important to create this definition? And then what would the policies actually do?
Enedia Roman [00:18:45] Well, that's an excellent question, Stephen. And so essentially the reality is that this is relevant because 50% of all small businesses are sole proprietors. 50%. But if we if we go if we dig deeper and we go into communities of color, it's closer to 90% and maybe a little higher. And so this is relevant and we want to make sure that we're leading on this because because a lot of these businesses were left out of ARPA funding. And so it's really critical that we make sure that all communities are served. And these a lot of these businesses are in our gateway communities. So we have a special lens and focus in in ensuring that there's equitable distribution of these funds to all Massachusetts residents and not just some.
Steve Koczela [00:19:36] Yeah, it certainly echoed very strongly of the small business survey that we worked on together last year, where it's just, as you said, you know, the smallest businesses were much, much less likely to say that they'd received, you know, assistance of many different kinds, certainly ARPA funding being one of them. And, you know, also we're facing a whole bunch of other problems and challenges recovering from COVID. So what then would that how would the policies that you're proposing now help to kind of bridge that gap or get the smallest micro-businesses to the next level?
Enedia Roman [00:20:09] So essentially, there's the first part. The first bill classifies what the definition of a micro-businesses and what the definition of a minority owned enterprise would be. And so essentially, they would. You have to be based in Massachusetts, principal place of business in Massachusetts. Independently owned either as a sole proprietor partnership operation with ten or less full time employees, and a gross income of no more than $250,000. That would be the definition of the micro business. Okay. I heard the the the clarification. And and so there's also an additional layer of of a minority business owned entity. Right. So that would be women, veterans, disabled individuals, LGBT, black, brown people, etc.. Anybody who falls under under the under the umbrella of minority business enterprise. And so this this this law would codify that, right. And not just support the access to these federal funds that will be available and that need to be need to be allocated by the end of this year and will start in September and then will have to be used up by 2026. But also there's an additional layer to this, and it's that there there is there are dollars in in in state dollars that that have not been allocated yet. There's funds that are available but have not been allocated. And we what we are advocacy basically is suggesting that, you know, these these funds are here and and we can essentially tap into those funds to to to bring the dollars into this fund for micro-businesses and minority owned enterprises.
Steve Koczela [00:22:11] And then bringing it down to sort of the level of the individual business owner. What are the kinds of things that you've heard from business owners who would potentially have access to this program as to what could they do with these funds? You know, how would it benefit them? What kinds of visions do they have or ideas to grow their businesses?
Enedia Roman [00:22:28] Well, that's where the power is, right? Because what happens is that when you have you have a sole proprietor that goes into their business, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.. They don't have time for anything else. So this fund would actually allow this would be a $30 million fund and it would take you know, it's very specific in the and the piece of legislation. And I don't need to go into all the details. It just basically says that, you know, no more than 50% from this fund, etc.. And, you know, some of the funds are, you know, the reinvestment reserves, community Empowerment grant, the Urban Agenda grant and reentry programs from the Department of Corrections that those are some of the examples of of the funds that are available. So it's you know, it would reallocate existing dollars, existing unused dollars from other funds to create this micro-business and worker development and training fund. So then what would happen is that with these dollars that are allocated, there's obviously going to be there's going to be a board and it's going to live under, you know, under what is right now the executive Office of Executive excuse me, for Economic Development. And and so it would create the micro and minority business strategy department under that umbrella, under that department. And then on a practical and in a practical manner, then each business owner would is would be entitled to receive $50,000, a $50,000 grant to support the growth of that microenterprise. Okay. And so it's basically a grant with an outcome, right? Because it's economic development for all our community. It's it's not just for some justice for, you know, for anybody who, you know, who's a micro business owner. And plus, if there a you know, the other you know, the qualification of minority business owner that would qualify them as well. And then and then they would be able per the the the current version of the law, they would be able to hire an individual and the state would basically cover 50% of the of the salary costs for for that individual. So if you want to pay a living wage of $18 then you cover nine. And the state would would basically put in the other $9. Not only that, there's also a tax incentive for five years. And so it starts at a larger range and then it goes it incrementally lowers because the the the premise behind that is that, you know, the longer the time goes, the more stable the business becomes. And and, you know, at the end of the day, you know, this is also a workforce development tool, right? Because by getting people employed and growing back, micro-businesses were not just going to the economy where we are supporting these individuals who, you know, who are looking for employment and, you know, and a living wage, not just minimum wage, which is $15 now. And one other layer to this is that there is there is the there's a component where the business owner would receive an additional tax incentive if they hired somebody who had been incarcerated in the last five years and or somebody who is coming off welfare or who has had to depend on welfare, but is looking to to come off this transitional assistance. And so so the bottom line is that, you know, these are you know, these are dollars these are unused dollars that that are in the budget already that would just be reallocated. So it's not a drain on the budget or the economy because it's the existing resources. Right. So so we see it as a win win for everybody because it builds it strengthens our local economy. It strengthens the economies of historically underserved communities. And it addresses longstanding inequalities for for minority business enterprises and is particularly in gateway communities by by supporting in all these ways that I just described.
Steve Koczela [00:26:54] Well, certainly there are a lot of pieces to it for the geeks and legislative insiders who tend to listen to this podcast. Where should reporters and legislative aides who are super now pumped about supporting this go to work for this piece of legislation? Where should they expect to see it?
Enedia Roman [00:27:09] Fantastic. So it's been filed. It was filed by Representative Carlos Gonzalez and co-sponsored by Representative Mike Moran. And the first bill is Bill HB 3815, and the second bill is Bill HD 3916.
Steve Koczela [00:27:30] All right. Well, we have to leave it there. Eneida Roman, co-founder, president and CEO of Amplify Latinx. Thank you so much for joining us and walking us through all this.
Enedia Roman [00:27:39] Thank you, Steve. It was a pleasure.
Steve Koczela [00:27:40] All right. And up next, we ask the question, are we living in a state of romance? And that brings us to our final segment, which this week is Power Rankings. This is the name we're giving to our recurring segment where our research department here at Horse Race, Global Media Empire headquarters, scours the far corners of the Internet for rankings of all kinds that include Massachusetts science and methods are, well, optional. We say just give us the rankings. So, Lisa, what is the super scientific ranking that our research team turfed up this week?
Enedia Roman [00:28:24] Apparently astoundingly, throw any other "a" surprise adjective in there? Massachusetts is the sixth highest ranking when it comes to romantic states.
Steve Koczela [00:28:37] Yeah. So I sort of don't even know where to begin with this one, but I don't know. Does it make sense? Does it? Does it pass the smell test?
Enedia Roman [00:28:45] Have you been and I ask us to our general listeners. Have any of you been on a dating app recently? Because I'm not sure how that, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I'm just as baffled as you are, Steve.
Steve Koczela [00:29:01] Yeah. So number one was Nevada. According to this method, which we definitely need to get into. Also up there were Florida, California, Hawaii and Washington and then Massachusetts and Utah. So who knows? Anyway, so I being that I have nothing better to do and no sense of self-preservation clicked on the link that where these rankings were stored and looked at the methodology. And it's apparently based on four factors. One is divorce rates. Two, is marriage rates. Okay, fine. Third is Valentine's Day spending. I don't know what to make of that. And the fourth is the use of positive emojis and communication, which just begs so many different questions. I don't know where to begin. Like, what kinds of communications? Like how do you even know that people are doing that?
Enedia Roman [00:29:51] I thought that was my first question is like, are you reading our text messages? Are you looking at our tweets? Are you on our dating apps? Like what? How do you measure that?
Steve Koczela [00:30:01] Right. So it says the article says, the data from our index also shows that Nevada residents communicate mainly with happy emojis, suggesting that they're generally content and satisfied community, which again speaks volumes for how strong their collective relationships are. So first of all, the way that it's phrased actually suggests that they only communicate with happy emojis rather than like words. Not happy versus sad, but happy versus literally any other form of communication. But also really, like this is what we're using as a proxy for romance. I don't know.
Enedia Roman [00:30:36] Steve, does this mean that you now need to poll very scientifically how romantic Massachusetts is?
Steve Koczela [00:30:42] I feel like we should do a Twitter poll on that, how romantic people think Massachusetts is. That would be that would be a good use of our all of our time.
Enedia Roman [00:30:49] Yeah. I mean, I was talking about a you know, fully commissioned, I think poll. But yeah, Twitter poll works to.
Steve Koczela [00:30:56] What, Politico sponsor or something like that? Do you think because if it works, I'm all over it.
Enedia Roman [00:31:00] Yeah, I might have to check in with my bosses on that one. So maybe let's start with the Twitter poll.
Steve Koczela [00:31:05] All right. Well, Valentine's Day is coming up, so let me know.
Enedia Roman [00:31:08] What that is all the time we have for today. I am Lisa Kashinsky signing off with Steve Koczela. Our producer is Adam Boyajy. Please don't forget to give the horse race a review wherever you're hearing us now. Subscribe to my Massachusetts Politico playbook and reach out to the Mass Inc polling group if you need polls done, though maybe not on how romantic Massachusetts is. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next week.