Email Rep. Minicucci now using your own email program (You can still edit before sending)

[Alternatively, select the text below, copy and paste this letter into an email and send it to [email protected] – edit however you wish. Please don’t forget to include your full name, address and phone number at the bottom in either case.]

Dear Rep. Minicucci,

I wish to express my deep concern about the danger of nuclear war that has been highlighted by ongoing events in Ukraine, and to thank you for your support inthe Joint Committee on Public Safety for H.3688/S.1555 A Resolve to Establish a Citizens Commission to research and recommend to the state legislature ways to better protect the citizens of Massachusetts from the existential threat of nuclear weapons. 

This bill is currently with the House Ways and Means Committee. Please urge your colleagues on this committee to support it. As you know, previous versions of this bill, together with many other pieces of similar legislation, have been “sent to study” and never seen again. Please support the establishment of a Commission to actually do the study this time!

My concern is that nuclear weapons are designed to destroy entire cities. If they are ever used, there would be a humanitarian catastrophe of unparalleled proportions. Even if they are never used, they are consuming enormous resources that would be so much better spent on the real needs of people in this Commonwealth.

Massachusetts itself is deeply embedded in the nuclear weapons business. Draper Labs in Cambridge is one of the main centers for nuclear weapons research in the country. Major nuclear weapons contractors like General Dynamics, Raytheon and Textron all have large facilities based in Massachusetts. Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, MA, is a major command and control center for US nuclear weapons.

These nuclear weapons facilities make Massachusetts a major target in the event of nuclear war. They also provide jobs and income to the state. How do we disentangle ourselves from this nasty business?

The Citizens’ Commission would look into how Massachusetts could remove itself from the nuclear weapons business while protecting livelihoods and the local economy. It would do research and hold hearings with experts and local residents across the state. It would report back to the state government with recommendations for future legislation.

Even if other colleagues in the State House don’t support the abolition of nuclear weapons, all this bill is asking for is a commission to look more carefully into this issue and report back to the state legislature. The Commission would cost Massachusetts taxpayers nothing, and it commits the state to nothing. We are asking for a real study instead of being ‘sent to study.’

And even if they don’t necessarily support setting up another Commission, surely it is up to the whole legislature to decide that by vote? Why are bills like this continuously allowed to ‘die’ in committee without even being voted on? Giving the State House a chance to vote on this bill is a matter of basic democracy.

Please ask Rep. Michlewitz as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee to bring this bill to the floor of the House for a vote, and please vote in favor of it! 

Thanks for your help.

Yours,

[YOUR NAME]

[YOUR ADDRESS]

[YOUR PHONE NUMBER]