Evan MacKay

AI rules should be strongest when a system can cost someone a job, deny health care or housing, affect public benefits, or expose people to government surveillance. Massachusetts should require public disclosure, impact assessments, independent testing, and ongoing audits when AI is used to make or materially influence decisions about employment, housing, education, health care, insurance, credit, public benefits, or policing. I support strict privacy protections and significant limits on facial recognition and other biometric surveillance. Companies and agencies should also be accountable when their systems discriminate or cause preventable harm. My labor background particularly informs my concern about algorithmic management. Employers should not use opaque systems to surveil workers, set unsafe workloads, suppress organizing, or automatically discipline or terminate someone without accountable human review. State agencies should disclose when they use AI, publish procurement contracts and evaluations, and never use “proprietary system” or “trade secret” claims to evade public accountability. Simultaneously, Massachusetts should not burden lower risk research, accessibility tools, creative applications, or small businesses in requirements designed for high stakes systems. The rules should depend on what a system does and whom it can harm, not on the technology or marketing label involved. Many of my neighbors, co-workers, and former classmates from my Masters in Statistics are involved in AI that is helping people and our community. Regulation and guardrails will help address concerns people will have and when people are not fearful, we can have more open conversations about positive possibilities with new technologies.

Land, water, and open space assets should be managed as public resources to improve health, climate resilience, transportation options, and recreation. In a dense district like ours, we should reclaim public land that is underutilized, and identify better uses for it. I support stronger protections for drinking water sources and wetlands, expansion of the urban tree canopy, green infrastructure to reduce flooding and extreme heat, and sustained funding for park maintenance, accessibility, and ecological restoration. State agencies such as DCR must use transparent, evidence-based planning and meaningfully involve the people who use these spaces, including people walking, biking, using mobility devices, living nearby, and working in environmental and public-health fields. We must also fully fund DCR, which is facing serious operating-budget cuts. Memorial Drive is an excellent example. It is state controlled parkland along the Charles River, but it generally functions as a high speed commuter highway that divides neighborhoods from the river. I support repurposing the road on weekends for recreation, public health, and community use. I also support improving safety by reducing dangerous speeding, adding safer crossings, and continuous, separated space for people outside of cars. These changes would expand access to open space while making it safer and more comfortable to travel through Cambridge. Public land should remain genuinely public, environmentally resilient, and accessible to people who do not travel by car.

High quality health care should be accessible to everyone, regardless of ability to pay, employment status, or immigration status. Cambridge contains world class health and research institutions, yet many students, gig workers, immigrants, and people between jobs still struggle to obtain timely, affordable care. I would work to protect and expand MassHealth, strengthen the Health Safety Net, and ensure continuous coverage when people change jobs or experience income fluctuations. Massachusetts should invest more in primary care, community health centers, mental health and substance use treatment, reproductive and gender-affirming care, dental care, and community based clinics. No patient should have to skip a medication, test, or doctor’s visit because of cost. I support stronger prescription drug affordability and greater accountability for insurers, hospital systems, pharmacy benefit managers, and private-equity hospital owners. I also support moving Massachusetts toward a universal, publicly financed health care system so that access to treatment is determined by medical need, not a person’s job, income, or an insurer’s profit calculations.

Education should be a public good, not a lifelong debt burden. I support making Massachusetts public colleges and universities tuition free for students and families in need, while moving toward truly debt free higher ed by also addressing fees, books, housing, food, transportation, and child care. These are often the costs that force students to leave school even when tuition is covered. Massachusetts should use Fair Share revenue and other progressive funding sources to guarantee that low- and middle-income students can attend public higher education without taking on debt. We should expand paid work study programs, emergency completion grants, child care assistance, and transfer pathways from community colleges. The Commonwealth must also provide enough direct funding that affordability is not achieved by underpaying faculty, graduate workers, or staff. As the former president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union, I have seen how financial insecurity determines who can pursue graduate education and who is pushed out. College affordability must include graduate students and other student workers, many of whom teach courses and conduct research while struggling with rent, health care, and basic living costs. I would also support stronger oversight of predatory lending and loan-servicing practices and advocate for broad student-debt relief. Affordable housing, groceries, and utility bills will also help open up access to education and higher education for all people.

The 25th Middlesex District is home to an enormous number of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, laboratory staff, and other scientists connected to Harvard, MIT, and research institutions across the region. Their research supports public health and is a major part of the Massachusetts economy, but many are now facing abrupt funding and employment uncertainty. I support fully funding and strengthening the DRIVE initiative, including immediate bridge funding for research disrupted by federal cuts or delays. Support must reach people quickly, not just institutions. I would prioritize direct one-year fellowships and stop-gap support for early career researchers whose NIH K awards or T32 training awards are canceled, frozen, delayed, or highly rated but unfunded. When Harvard’s NIH grants were frozen, students supported through fellowships and training grants faced immediate uncertainty. The Commonwealth could have guaranteed that support, with repayment once federal funding resumed. I also support creating a revolving Research Resilience Fund. When federal funding that has been delayed is eventually released, institutions could repay the state support, allowing the same money to protect another research program in the future. As the former president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union, I fought for fair pay, stable appointments, collective-bargaining rights, protections for international researchers, affordable housing and child care, and clear career pathways. Early-career scientists and their unions should have a seat at the table when these programs are designed. The state should report who receives funding, how quickly it reaches researchers, and how many jobs or training positions it preserves.