Mass Scorecard 2025
I'm a delegate to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention on September 13, 2025, and there's a BIG controversy there.
The Massachusetts Democratic Platform, one of our country's most progressive documents, has been weakened and watered down.
I will vote against it at the Convention, and I join the movement to re-invigorate the Party Platform.
I would like to re-make the "Mass Scorecard" that we made twenty years ago, in a similar fight then.
The Mass Scorecard compares how legislators voted, in comparison with issues in the 2005 Massachusetts Democratic Party platform.
We then score each legislator by how many votes agree with the platofrm, on the usual scale of an "A" for 90% or more, down to an "F" for 60% or lower. The idea is to hold legislators accountable to the party platform. A scorecard means that the party platform MATTERS.
I worked with the Progressive Democrats of Somerville to create the Mass Scorecard and to introduce it at a Convention just like the one on 9/13/2025. We asked the delegates to vote for or against having a scorecard, and our "Party Platform Amendment" passed by a 60%-40% margin.
We need another Mass Scorecard in 2025, for the same reason: to maintain a strongly progressive platform, so that we can hold legislators accountable to our progressive values.
The Platform Committee this year weakened the party platform because they believe that's the way to attract voters. I disagree. I think the way to attract voters is to have strong and clear progressive values, and to ask legislators to vote based on those values. I served on the Platform Committee twenty years ago, and many centrists made the same argument then -- but the progressives won, and we passed a strong and clear progressive platform. This year, the centrists dominated the Platform Committee, and offer us a centrist platform with watered-down centrist values.
Here's what the Massachusetts Democratic Party Charter says about "Adherence to Platform by Democratic Officials" (Article 6, section V, page 20, from Sept. 27, 2023)
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The most recent Democratic platform and/or agenda is the official position of the Democratic Party. Every Democratic committee member, every Democratic nominee, and every official elected as the Democratic nominee shall adhere to the national, state, and any local platform, in that order of priority, in all official statements and actions. Failure to do so shall not result in any removal or loss of rights within the Party, but may be publicized by resolutions or other appropriate action of any Party convention, conference, committee, or caucus.
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I read that statement from the podium at the 2003 Convention (the Charter said the same then!) in support of the Mass Scorecard. I was the last speaker; then the delegates voted, in our favor. Let's do that again!
Our party platform is a "vision statement" of what we want Massachusetts to look like. It's also a guide to legislators for how to vote on issues that matter to their constituents. We want our legislature to pass laws that move towards our "vision statement."
We can hold our legislators accountable to our vision for Massachusetts with a scorecard. We'll look at votes during 2025, and cmopare them to the previous platform, and present the results at next year's convention. Join me!
Sincerely,
Jesse Gordon, delegate to the 2025 Massachusetts Democratic Convention,
State Committeeman for Norfolk-Bristol-Plymouth district,
Co-chair of the Randolph Democratic Town Committee
and elected as a "progressive Democrat" to the Randolph Town Council
Text (617) 320-6989 email jesse@jessegordon.com
