User:EricksJP/sandbox

Tenure
During Chang-Díaz's tenure in the Massachusetts Senate she served eight years as chair of the Education committee. She also served 8 overlapping terms as vice-chair of the Senate Redistricting committee, vice-chair of the Judiciary Committee, and assistant vice-chair of the Ways and Means committee. She was speculated as a possible candidate for the 2013 Boston mayoral election, but did not run and instead endorsed Marty Walsh. She endorsed Donald Berwick for the Democratic nomination in the 2014 gubernatorial election. She endorsed Senator Ed Markey in the Democratic primary during the 2020 United States Senate election. During the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries Chang-Díaz endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Chang-Díaz announced on June 23, 2021, that she would seek the Democratic nomination in the 2022 gubernatorial election, but ended her campaign on June 23, 2022, although she remained on the ballot.

Education Policy

Chang-Díaz was an architect and key driver of the Student Opportunity Act, passed into law in 2019, but originally proposed in 2017 , and later re-filed as the Education PROMISE Act .This law was fulfillment of the recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission , a panel of experts convened in 2015-16 to prescribe updates to Massachusetts’ quarter-century old K-12 funding system, which Chang-Díaz co-chaired. Its recommendations pushed the state to double its investment in school districts with the highest levels of poverty. Chang-Díaz spent the next three years building a coalition of parents, educators, business leaders, mayors, bi-partisan legislators, and NFL players, to overcome incrementalistic proposals from then Gov. Charlie Baker and legislative leadership  and eventually win passage of the law. The law commits the state to $1.5 billion in new funding annually for K-12 schools, to be phased in by 2026.

Criminal Justice Reform

Chang-Díaz helped drive public momentum for comprehensive criminal justice reform in Massachusetts, culminating in its passage in 2018. She spoke publicly on the multi-faceted and generational ripple effects of mass incarceration upon her constituents, including children, parents, and teachers. She made a high-profile critique at the 2017 Boston Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast. Mandatory-minimum reforms were included in a final package later the following year. Chang-Díaz also pushed to redirect dollars saved by reducing prison populations into investment in job training and economic development in communities that had been hardest hit by mass incarceration. Together with Rep. Mary Keefe, she sponsored the Justice Reinvestment Act, and secured tens of millions of dollars in the state budget for the related Community Empowerment and Reinvestment Grant program.