Will Brownsberger — State Senator, Democrat, 2d Suffolk and Middlesex District

In 2010, we did a deep energy retrofit on our home in Belmont. We tracked energy use in 2011 and found that we were 85% below the New England per person average. In so doing, we helped meet the “Thousand Home Challenge.” Check out the Thousand Home Challenge website and read about the challenge and [...]

Dear Will, I searched the site but didn’t see your support for the Constitutional amendment resolution to overturn Citizen’s United.  Just wanted to make sure you are supporting this and to be aware of the Judiciary committee vote.  Is there any concern that this may not pass out of the committee?  I have spoken with [...]

Does it make sense to you?  It seems very narrow in focus to me.  It seems that it would allow a very important segment of our higher education system to be ruled by the interests of businesses – primarily businesses in the Boston area.  There also seems to be a focus on creating “schools” that [...]

HI How about raising the Mass Pike Tolls a little. The Cambridge/Allston tolls have been 1.25 since as far as I can remember. Why not raise it to 1.50 and use that money to pay the Big Dig Loan? It’s not fair that public transportation is shouldering the burden of these loans for roads that [...]

The General Manager of the MBTA has been forthcoming in response to questions from the legislature about the budget crisis. Some of his replies are posted here.

Senator Will Brownsberger’s Office is pleased to announce that it will partner with the Charles River Watershed Association and other local groups to organize a Cleanup of the Charles River on Saturday, April 21st in Brighton and Watertown.

Senator Will Brownsberger announces that up to four part-time unpaid internships in his State House office will be available for the summer of 2012.

Nothing looks more like magic than the technology I saw on display in Watertown on Friday.

A discussion on Sentencing Reform will be held at the Watertown Library on Monday, March 12 at 7PM.

There has been recent publicity regarding the presence of coyotes, particularly in various of Belmont’s big woods, which pose a threat to pets and people of small stature. This is a regional problem and could be addressed by the Commonwealth without great expense, rather than by placing yet another burden on individual municipalities.

On Thursday, the Senate passed legislation that should improve transition for students with special needs.

I’m planning to submit a letter to the MBTA summarizing concerns about their budget cut proposals. I thought I would post the draft here so that people could identify any concerns or solution ideas that I had failed to include.

I transmitted today my annual statement of budget priorities to the Senate Ways and Means Chair.

On February 14 the U.S. Senate H.E.L.P. Committee will hold a Congressional hearing to review the Institute of Medicine’s 2011 report on pain, Relieving Pain in American: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education and Research. A little piece of Massachusetts trivia about this report.  The chairperson of the IOM committee was Philip Pizzo, MD, [...]

Will, This is such an important issue and I am so glad your are taking it on!! We have two family members who continue to be negatively affected by prescription pain killers which makes me very aware of the tight line one walks, starting from the very first prescription. Not that your bill addresses this but [...]

Will – while I appreciate the severity of this issue, as a practicing oncologist this bill would place significant constraints in terms of managing my patients. oncology patients frequently require long term narcotics, and I usually write several of these prescriptions daily. To stop and have to review each patient, every time, would be onerous [...]

I believe that addressing the problem of adequately treating pain, while at the same time trying to stop misuse of prescription pain medications, is something that the legislature can try to solve, but I am afraid legislation is more likely to cause harm than help.  Currently, health care providers are very worried about the consequences of [...]

Dear Sen. Brownsberger: Are you taking a leadership role in fighting these destructive and short-sighted T proposals? The MBTA was deliberately left with a huge Big Dig debt and an inadequate funding stream, to support itself by exploiting helpless fare-payers. We need to remove the debt from the T, and create a proper state funding [...]

Mr. Brownsberger, The 2012-2013 budget submitted by the Governor contains a 30 million dollar line item to provide cell phone service to the needy. It will provide free cell phones for over 242,000 in this state. This is absurd and allow me to point out why I feel this way. 1. There is already in [...]

The globe did a good story this week on the issue of T debt.