2025/2026 BILLS
Learn about the bills we are supporting and opposing this legislative session and take action.
BE INFORMED. BE EMPOWERED. BE HEARD.
On this page, you’ll find everything you need to understand and take action on the bills that matter most during the 2025–2026 legislative session.
We’re breaking it all down for you:
- Which bills we support or oppose
- Bill numbers, summaries, and sponsors
- The current status, committees and key updates
- Direct links to full bill text and trusted, fact-based resources
- And most importantly—how you can take action!
Your voice matters. Let’s make sure it’s heard.
BILLS WE SUPPORT
AN ACT RELATIVE TO FAIR EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES
COMMITTEE:
Joint Committee on Education
BILL STATUS:
Awaiting Hearing Date
BILL SYNOPSIS: An Act Relative to Fair Educational Practices is a Massachusetts bill that strengthens anti-discrimination laws in education. The bill strengthens anti-discrimination laws in education and adds “special medical status” as a protected category.
This bill is a necessary step toward educational equity, ensuring that students with chronic health conditions, medical needs, or personal health circumstances receive the same protections as others. It promotes fairness, inclusion, and equal educational opportunities for all.
AN ACT PROHIBITING HARMFUL FOOD DYES IN COMPETITIVE SCHOOL FOODS
COMMITTEE:
Joint Committee on Public Health
BILL STATUS:
Awaiting Hearing Date
BILL SYNOPSIS: An Act Prohibiting Harmful Food Dyes in Competitive School Foods seeks to prohibit the sale or provision of competitive foods and non-sweetened carbonated water containing certain artificial food dyes (Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6) in public schools.
Exceptions allow the sale of these items off school premises, 30 minutes after the school day ends, or during school-related events like booster sales and concession stands.
This bill is a crucial step toward ensuring that all children in Massachusetts have access to safe, nutritious meals in school that support their health and academic success, while still allowing flexibility for extracurricular activities and fundraising efforts.
AN ACT RELATIVE TO THE PROTECTION OF MEDICAL EXEMPTIONS FOR IMMUNIZATIONS FOR SCHOOL ATTENDANCE
COMMITTEES:
S.347 – Joint Committee on Public Health
H.2541 – Joint Committee on Education
BILL STATUS:
Awaiting Hearing Date
BILL SYNOPSIS: An Act Relative to the Protection of Medical Exemptions for Immunizations for School Attendance aims to broaden and clarify the criteria physicians can use when considering medical exemptions for school attendance, allowing them to assess a child’s total health circumstances. This bill would also protect physicians from any professional repercussions for issuing medical exemptions. Additionally, it would preserve existing law regarding religious exemptions to immunization for school attendance.
An Act Relative to the Protection of Medical Exemptions for Immunizations for School Attendance is critical for protecting medical decision-making, physician integrity, and parental rights. It ensures fairness in exemption policies for school-aged children in Massachusetts.
BILLS WE OPPOSE
AN ACT RELATIVE TO ROUTINE CHILDHOOD IMMUNIZATIONS & AN ACT RELATIVE TO VACCINES AND PREVENTING FUTURE DISEASE OUTBREAKS
COMMITTEE:
Joint Committee on Public Health
BILL STATUS:
Awaiting Hearing Date
BILL SYNOPSIS:
The proposed legislation eliminates the religious exemption for school-required vaccinations in Massachusetts, effectively barring children from attending both public and private K–12 schools if their families object due to their sincerely held beliefs.
The bill also mandates that all schools (public, private, and charter) report student immunization and medical exemption data to the state. This data would be published annually by school, district, and municipality — increasing public visibility and pressure.
AN ACT PROMOTING COMMUNITY IMMUNITY
BILL SYNOPSIS: The Community Immunity Act purports to improve and standardize immunization reporting but goes well beyond this reasonable goal. It is complicated, wasteful, and blatantly coercive, not only for students but also for schools and physicians.
Spanning nine pages, key concerns of the bill include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Minors could consent to preventative care, including vaccination, without parental consent or knowledge—regardless of age or mental capacity.
- Private daycares, schools, and colleges could refuse religious exemptions and impose additional vaccines not required by DPH (like COVID-19, HPV).
- Both religious and medical exemptions require annual submission on a DPH-prepared form, subject to state approval.
- DPH would be given expansive authority to change immunization and exemption requirements.
- Doctors would be required to sign religious and medical exemptions that may lead them to dismiss the patient.
- Medical exemptions for medically fragile children could become much more difficult to obtain, as the Act would restrict the criteria a physician could use for a medical exemption to vaccination.
- Schools and programs with immunization rates below a state-defined threshold could be labeled as “Elevated Risk,”triggering public notification requirements and allowing the Department of Public Health to exclude healthy, unimmunized children—even in the absence of an outbreak or emergency.
- The “Elevated Risk” designation raises serious concerns around privacy, equity, and discrimination, particularly for small schools and minority communities that may be unfairly targeted or stigmatized.
AN ACT ENHANCING ACCESS TO ABORTION CARE
COMMITTEE:
Joint Committee on the Judiciary
BILL STATUS:
Awaiting Hearing Date
BILL SYNOPSIS: An Act Enhancing Access to Abortion goes beyond abortion-related care by granting minors the ability to consent to all forms of preventative care, including vaccinations and sterilization, without parental consent or knowledge. It does not include any age delineations or mental capacity guidelines for minors making these decisions.
This bill strips parents of their fundamental right to be involved in critical healthcare decisions affecting their children, potentially exposing minors to medical interventions without adequate oversight or guidance.
