News from State and National

This page contains occasional communications and updates about the work of our parent leagues, LWV Massachusetts and LWV US.

Added February 2022

LWVUS 2022 Proposed Priorities

As a member league of both the LWVUS and LWVMA, the League of Women Voters of the Plymouth works with other leagues to establish positions and provide concurrence with other leagues’ language on our priorities. This page includes some updates from the latest board meeting of the LWV of Massachusetts, and the work that it is recommending be taken up at the Annual Convention.

The Campaign for Making Democracy Work®

The LWV of Massachusetts, along with leagues across the country, will support the 2022-2024 Campaign for Making Democracy Work® which includes work on voting rights, including:

Expanding Voter Access
Improving Elections
Money in Politics
Redistricting
Fighting Voter Suppression

Sustainable Democracy/Sustainable Planet

[Language added by LWVMA] We are facing two existential threats: sustaining our democracy and sustaining our planet. We need “all hands on deck” to address both. Our League feels strongly that addressing climate change should be added to the highest priority actions. Climate change threatens all living things and impacts all areas of public wellbeing, including the ability to run a functional democracy.

It is essential that the US League join other national organizations to address the destabilizing impacts of climate change at the highest level of advocacy. Time and again our members nationwide have ranked addressing climate change as a top priority–in surveys (2016), resolutions (2020), and through action and advocacy at our local and state levels. We cannot have a sustainable democracy without a sustainable planet: we must have both.

Healthcare Reform

[Concurrence with LWVNYS] The US health care system should provide a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost to all US residents. Basic care includes disease prevention, primary care (including prenatal and reproductive health), acute long-term care, mental health care, as well as health promotion and education. Health care policy goals should include the equitable distribution of services and delivery of care, advancement of medical research and technology, and a reasonable total national expenditure level.

Read the Healthcare Concurrence

Digital Equity

[Concurrence with LWV Connecticut] We believe that high-speed affordable internet access is an essential service that should be readily available to all U.S. residents and businesses, without charge, through schools, libraries, and other secure public buildings. Efficient, high speed, affordable access to the internet for all U.S. residents regardless of geographic location or neighborhood demographics–is a necessity for assuring equal access to local and state government, for maintaining openness and transparency in government activities, for communicating with legislative leaders, for engaging in political discourse, for competing in the global marketplace, and for assuring that voters receive the information they need to participate in our democracy.

We believe that community access media – for Public, Educational, and Governmental programming (PEG) – must be adequately protected, promoted, and funded, regardless of the provider of media services. Access to public affairs programming through modern media communication is essential to the public interest and to the League of Women Voters’ mission and purpose– to protect civil liberties, to ensure open, transparent government, and to promote the public’s right to know.

Read the Digital Equity Concurrence.