The Driving Families Forward Coalition was a grassroots coalition of over 200 community organizations, including faith-based groups, labor unions, public officials, law enforcement and businesses working together towards the goal of making drivers’ licenses accessible to all qualified state residents, regardless of immigration status. Field First, led by Carl Nilsson, Crisayda Belén, and Hiba Senhaj, coordinated the coalition from 2019-2022. Since its inception, the Driving Families Forward Coalition passed legislation into law and successfully defended it on the ballot.
The Goal
The Driving Families Forward Coalition’s goal was to pass the Work and Family Mobility Act, legislation that would make Massachusetts the 17th state to allow anyone, regardless of immigration, to obtain a standard drivers license.
The Challenge
While Massachusetts is considered one of the most liberal states in the country and a leader on many issues, Massachusetts lags behind in immigration. The state legislature had not passed comprehensive immigration legislation in decades, despite many pushes from immigration advocates and organizations.
The journey to pass the Work and Family Mobility Act started over two decades ago, when the first iteration of the bill was introduced in 1997. Throughout the two decades of advocacy around this issue, there were many challenges advocates went up against.
The first, a broken federal immigration system. Many legislators and key elected officials always used the lack of federal immigration reform as an excuse to not move on this issue despite push back from constituents and advocates.
A second challenge was a rising anti-immigrant sentiment nationwide due to misinformation from the first Trump Administration. Massachusetts was not immune to this problem and many key elected individuals viewed anything immigration related as too controversial to support and pass legislation on.
The third challenge was Republican leadership at the Executive level in Massachusetts. Governor Charlie Baker and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito went on record to say that they would veto this legislation. This meant that in order for this to become law, there would need to be a veto-proof majority (66%) of support in both the Massachusetts House and Senate chambers.
The fourth, and last challenge, was that there was no centralized organizing entity focused solely on passing this legislation. There was a need to create a coalition and strong leadership to lead the effort to move this legislation forward.
Our Strategy and Work
Field First coordinated the Driving Families Forward Coalition from 2019-2023, helping plan and execute the legislative campaigns and implementation to ensure that people without status were able to access standard drivers licenses. In order to be successful, Field First realized that the coalition had to build a broad, cross-sector coalition that shows the breadth of support and proves that this is legislation that “everyone loves, no one hates” statewide. The Driving Families Forward Coalition achieved this by:
- Strong and tested messaging across the entire coalition’s branding from factsheets, to earned media and social media.
- Law enforcement and insurance industry endorsements and support
- Persistent lobbying efforts and pressure on the State Legislature to ensure a veto-proof majority in the Massachusetts House and Senate
- Consistent earned media attention in local and statewide news outlets
- Cross-sector and sector specific events to showcase the breadth of the coalition
- Grassroots mobilization during key moments of the campaign
In 2019, Field First came into the campaign management role and worked across all departments to drive the work and success of the legislative campaign forward. Field First made an immediate priority of developing a cohesive campaign plan which included campaign planning, strategy development, campaign and SWOT analysis. Field First also created a campaign plan and timeline, helped design and write coalition material, and worked with partners on research and messaging development. Field First went to work executing the plan. Field First met weekly with the coalition leadership, the steering committee and subcommittee to facilitate, take notes and keep track of progress to goals.
Our Outcome
Despite all the challenges, the advocacy of the Driving Families Forward drove the passage of the Work and Family Mobility Act in the Spring of 2022 with a successful vote and veto override. However, shortly after the bill was passed into law, opponents gathered enough signatures to get the bill onto the ballot in the Fall of 2022. Crisayda Belen was the Campaign Manager of the ballot campaign to maintain the legislation and successfully defeated the opposition. In July 2023, the Work and Family Mobility Act officially went into effect and anyone without status is now able to obtain a drivers license in Massachusetts.