Remarks by Ruthzee Louijeune
94 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 4
- Play at 6:04
“Good morning, everyone. I'm happy to be with all of you. Thank you, Councillor Rao, for the filing. Looking forward to hearing from the administration and from everyone and how we can move forward. Thank you.”
City Council · Oct 8, 2026
- Play at 6:51
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 12:31
“Thank you, Councillor. And I, too, was at the event last night at Jeremiah program. I want to thank Alison and all the incredible black women who do incredible work to make sure that civic engagement is centered here in our city. So I want to say thank you to this incredible panel. We'll kick it off with five minutes of testimony from each of you. We have Tracy from the ACLU here, and then we have a video from Rahsaan over at the Urban League. So thank you so much. We'll kick it off in order before us, and we will start with You, Brooke, we have Brooke Simone here, a staff attorney, lawyers…”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 20:00
“Thank you so much, Celia. And we've also been joined by Council President Liz Breeden. Celia.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 29:16
“Thank you. Thank you so much, Celia. We now move on to Cheryl Clyburn Crawford. I said the executive director of MassVote. But hold on, y'all. She's also the chair of the Yes on 4 ballot committee. And hold on. Executive committee's second vice president? OK. Executive committee of the NAACP Boston branch here. So thank you so much for being with us. Cheryl, you have the floor.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 36:23
“Thank you. Thank you so much, Cheryl. We'll now turn it over to Tracy. Tracy, you have the floor.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 42:07
“Thank you so much, Tracy, and thank you for laying out some issues that we need to work on. I did see the administration writing down some of the issues, so I think they're taking some of those to hearts, and that's one of the reasons why we have these hearings, so thank you so much. And lastly, we have a video from Rahsaan Hall, Executive Director of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, that we will play.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 47:21
“Thank you so much to Rasaan. Thank you to all of the panelists. We've also been joined by Councillor Weber. I don't know if any of my colleagues were going to put in the questions if you wanted to offer an opening or if we could just go right into questions. Okay, thank you. I have also received an absence letter from Councillor Enrique Pepin, dear Chair Louis-Jean, Mr. Clerk, and Council colleagues. I regret to inform you that I am unable to attend this morning's committee on census, redistricting, and elections hearing on docket number 0183, order for a hearing regarding voter accessibility…”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 51:21
“all it takes is the one person who grabs the mail in your household um actually my fiance did this to us where he threw out the street listing i had to fish it out and uh get that to and if it's not returned to all the voters in the household then are deemed yes all the voters in the household are then deemed i don't believe that in boston we we do this do we do this to the same extent that we do we do okay we'll talk about it at the on the next panel absolutely”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 51:58
“Thank you. I know that this was a major issue in the last municipal election as well in other jurisdictions. So I'd love to, it doesn't have to be at this moment, but if someone can name the bill so we can see what this committee can do to be in support, that would be helpful if anyone has the bill number and status of where it stands and who filed it and how we can be supportive.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 52:23
“Thanks. Brooke, I know you also spoke to this, so I'm not sure if you wanted to.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 53:30
“Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I've heard about it from a number of voters, particularly I hear about it from Haitian voters in other jurisdictions. And so I want to make sure that this is something that we can work on. Are we at the point where any sort of benefit that we think we're getting from removing people from the rolls is completely outweighed by the harm that is happening? And it sounds like that we may be at that tipping point, and we may have been there for some time. Okay, I'm talking too much, so I won't be able to get to my questions. But my next, oh, and we've been joined by…”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 57:03
“Thank you, Cheryl. And Tracy, I just want to, whenever you want to jump in, also, Tracy, feel free. I am now going to move on to my colleagues. And I have more questions, so there'll be a second round. I'll ask the second round. But Council President Braden, you have the floor.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:07:52
“Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. We've also been joined by Councillor Arell. Councillor Weber, you have the floor in seven minutes.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:08:06
“Sorry, seven minutes. If you need more, we'll come back. Seven minutes is pretty generous.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:16:09
“Thank you. I will say that a lot of labor is against question three, and I know that question and and i think question three when you look at there are a lot of questions there's a lot of issues but if we're talking about expanding democracy and really giving voters a choice i think question three is a wrong question the right question is rate choice voting which we did take here up here on the council so just putting my two cents out there and i love that you raised election day uh Election Day should be a federal holiday, so I just want to thank you. If you have more questions, Councilor,…”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:25:14
“Thank you. And just want to make sure, Tracy, if you had anything that you wanted to chime in, you got to, you know, just talk. Just talk over me. Talk over everybody. I just want to make sure that you feel like you're a part of the conversation.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:26:58
“Yeah. Thank you, Tracy. And again, admin is here and we've heard a lot of comments about signage. So I'm going to take it. I'm the authority, the liberty to say that I know that they're going to be working on signage for this upcoming election. OK, the chair recognizes Councilor Rowe, you have the floor and seven minutes.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:28:38
“Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Orrell. All right. Councilman here, you can use the rest of his time if you want. No, just kidding. We're going to do a second round right now, and I'll come back to you. I think actually one of my return questions, it was what rights and information should be posted to every site about assistance, accessible equipment, and the right to remain in line at 8 PM. It sounds like you all will say that we need more of that signage. Anything specific at the polling locations that we need to do a better job of making sure there's signage about?”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:29:30
“And then also. Tracy, you uplifted the Higgins and Lewis in Roxbury from this primary, right? So that's something that we saw a few weeks ago. Okay. Yeah.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:30:39
“Thank you, Tracy. What is the plan for educating voters about the complexity of They're not complex, but there are nine questions on the ballot. And so what is a plan to educate voters? I will never forget on Election Day in 2020, it was ranked choice voting statewide. This was before I was elected myself. Ranked choice voting was on the ballot statewide. And I remember talking to voters who came out of the polling locations and said that they voted no on it. because they didn't understand the question. And I wanted to tear my hair out because I'm like, we could have done a better job of…”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:33:10
“Thank you. This will be my last question because everyone's going to get, oh, go ahead, Cheryl. My bad. I'm sorry. No, because I'm so excited. Yes, I know. You've been working on this.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:34:05
“Only three? Commissioner's saying three.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:34:29
“Yes, thank you. That's great. And I love—I hope that bookmark gets promoted. And I also hope that—I know that your mass vote is nonpartisan, but I hope that we are, you know, giving people, like, Yes on question four. No on question three that we are giving. I know that's not you all saying that. I'm saying that those are the positions that I'm prepared to take, that we are also sharing that information with others. Okay, I'm going to, Council President Braden, you have the floor in five minutes for any additional questions that you may have.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026
- Play at 1:41:29
“Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you so much, Council President Braden. Thank you to this panel. The chair organizes Council Weber. You have five minutes.”
City Council · Oct 2, 2026