Dear Hecate

I work for a church sponsored program to help political refugees get settled in the United States. We help them get their papers in order, find safe homes, get jobs and find health care.

When it comes to finding health care our most helpful partners are community health centers, who really strive to hook us up with culturally competant providers and translators and we have been very grateful for their care and compassion and happy theat they were getting payed for their work.

We were dismayed when the Legislature cut access to health care for legal immigrants, relieved when the Governor submitted a half a plan and dismayed when the Legislature announced they had cut that half a plan in half again!!

What is going on? We've already been in contact with our Reps and Senators about this and the Governor's office as well.  Do you have any advice about what we should do next?

Waiting for Advice

Dear Hecate:

I just graduated from college with a degree in political science and I’m interviewing for a job as an aide to a rank and file State Senator. I’m worried I’ll get stuck handling calls from old ladies complaining that the manager of their housing project won’t fix their air conditioner or sorting out and counting up emails about veto over rides. (That’s what the staff was doing when I dropped off my resume and had my first interview with the chief of staff.) I’m really more interested in analyzing the cost and benefit ratios of pending policy decisions and making recommendations for action to the Senator.

I’m willing to start out doing scut work, but I don’t want to get stuck doing it for the next two years. Is constituent work a stepping stone to more important policy analysis? Will taking such a job at least expose me to other opportunities in the State House, including the Governor’s office and the press?

~ Smart and Ambitious

Dear Hecate,

Where have you been!! It’s been over a year—13 months actually.  And I’m still trying to figure out the state budget.  How is an ordinary advocate supposed to explain to our members where their tax dollars go? Yes, we have already attended a ONE Mass Connect the Dot training , and yes I know how to go on line to the Governor’s budget  , and yes I know how to go over on the right hand side of that page to On Line Services and click on FY 20010 budget tracking and after about another 100 clicks I can find the vetoes --line item by line item.

Anybody got the whole picture?

~ Bewildered in Billerica

There is still a little cleaning up to do, but the Public Policy Institute's new website is up and running!!

If you're looking for something specific, and don't have time to learn the new the site, you can still find the older version at http://old.realclout.org

If you have any comments or suggestions on the new website, please feel free to contact the website administrator at harmony@realclout.org.

Thank you!!