Boston, MA — Citizens from across the Commonwealth are visiting the State House July 14 to urge legislators to vote in favor of S.1555 (Senate)/H.3688 (House). This bill would create a Citizens’ Commission to investigate the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to explore what should be done about it.
The bill was voted favorably out of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. It is now sitting with Ways and Means Committees in the House and Senate, where a vote is expected in the coming weeks.
A dossier explaining the rationale for the bill is available at Nuclear Weapons and Massachusetts:The Case for Creating a Citizens’ Commission. Full text of both bills is available here: S.1555/H.3688.
According to a May 2022 YouGov poll, 63% of MA adults, including 80% of Massachusetts Democrats, support this bill.
Vicki Elson, an organizer with NuclearBan.US, said, “The crisis in Ukraine is waking us up to the ever-present danger of nuclear attacks on the US, and Massachusetts is certainly a target. But even if nuclear bombs are detonated somewhere far away, we could suffer from windblown radioactive fallout and damage to our climate and agriculture.”
Lynne Hall, a member of Massachusetts Peace Action, adds, “This bill would simply create a Citizens Commission to study how to respond to this danger, how our economy is intertwined with nuclear weapons spending and jobs, and how the International Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons might bring changes to all of the above. We need information, and at the very least, we expect our legislators to support this serious conversation.”
