When marijuana legalization was on its way to the 2016 ballot, then-Attorney General Maura Healey co-authored a Globe op-ed with Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh opposing it. (Healey’s future romantic partner, Joanna Lydgate, was also involved in helping craft the piece, according to a Boston magazine public records request at the time.) The op-ed argued that “marijuana is not safe.”
Eight years later, almost to the day, Gov. Healey announced a sweeping pardon of all misdemeanor marijuana possession convictions.
Of course, Healey isn’t the first politician to flip-flop on a policy issue, and voters are typically less inclined to punish a pol if the flop is in the direction they agree with. Notably, Sen. Ted Kennedy was opposed to abortion before flipping in the 1970s, when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, and President Obama came out in support of gay marriage, after a nudge from his vice president, Joe Biden, who announced his own evolution on the topic during a TV appearance. (Biden, as president, has also pushed the envelope on pot, moving to loosen federal restrictions on marijuana.)
Asked about her flip this week, Healey said her concern in 2016 was marijuana’s effect on young people. “We’ve seen since then a great deal happen, including actions by voters, actions by the Legislature, and most recently actions by the president of the United States,” she said.
“Hopefully people want a governor who is willing to evolve, right?” Healey said. “I think we all want to do that as policymakers.”
Heated debate over cold case
It’s been more than a decade since a 2011 triple homicide rocked Waltham, and there are still questions about what happened, including potential links to the Boston Marathon bombing.
Susan Zalkind, a journalist who has authored the new book The Waltham Murders, has spent years trying to find answers. There is a personal element to her quest: Zalkind’s friend, Erik Weissman, was among the three victims.
Her thesis is that if law enforcement officials, including Middlesex County investigators, had been more aggressive in trying to solve the case, there is a chance the 2013 Marathon bombing could have been averted. One of the two marathon bombers was friends with the Waltham victims. He is now dead, as is a potential accomplice; both were killed in separate clashes with law enforcement.
Zalkind has focused her criticism on the Middlesex district attorney overseeing the Waltham case and who worked for the office at the time of the murders and the bombing, Marian Ryan.
Zalkind’s reporting, drawn from interviews, documents from other law enforcement agencies, and “the limited information provided to me in response to records requests by the DA, reveals that investigators seemingly continued to drag their feet on this case after the bombing,” Zalkind told CommonWealth Beacon.
The DA isn’t offering answers. At an unrelated event at the State House this week, Ryan called the case “open and active,” and added, “Of course people would love to know where you are as you’re moving through. That’s not how you move through an investigation to get to a good conclusion.”
Zalkind has vowed to continue to press for information from Ryan. “She needs to answer questions not only about the murders, but about the actions and inactions of her office,” Zalkind said.
Conductor Wu
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has called for a fare-free MBTA, and now is looking to add a new commuter rail stop, funded by the city, in West Roxbury. Could city-owned trains be far behind? At his St. Patrick’s Day roast the other day, state Sen. Sal DiDomenico held up a poster featuring Wu’s face pasted onto a body of a train conductor leaning out of a train, with the words “Wu Train” on the side. She’s putting her money where her mouth is by buying a fleet of her own trains, he joked.
