Races for obscure elected county positions like the Supreme Judicial Court clerk post that was on Tuesday’s primary ballot are usually low-profile affairs that turn on name recognition, but that narrative was disrupted when the race became a proxy battle over the direction of Boston politics.
Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas works with Laura in overseeing CommonWealth Beacon coverage and editing the work of reporters. His own reporting has a particular focus on politics, education, and criminal justice reform.
Posted inPolitics
Why do we elect a Supreme Judicial Court clerk anyway? The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Why do we elect someone to the obscure, behind-the-scenes administrative post of clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court? The answer starts with the saga of a Black man who escaped slavery in Virginia more than 170 years ago and hoped to find freedom in Boston.
Posted inHousing
Could Harris make a dent in housing crisis?
Kamala Harris’s plan for tackling the nation’s housing crisis could help, say experts, but only if it strikes the right balance of incentives to increase both housing demand and supply.
Posted inEducation
New ad touts ‘replacing’ MCAS grad requirement
The ballot question campaign to end the MCAS graduation requirement rolled out its first ad — but as with the first ads from opponents of the question, it leaves out part of the story.
Posted inBy The Numbers
Sports betting is soaking ‘financially constrained’ households
The study linked sports betting to “a large decrease” in deposits to brokerage accounts, accompanied by “decreased credit availability, increased credit card debt, and a higher incidence rate of overdrawing bank accounts.”
Posted inCriminal Justice
ShotSpotter honchos fire back
The ShotSpotter gun detection technology used in Boston and other cities has come under fire from critics who say it generates lots of false alerts and leads to harmful “over-policing” of minority neighborhoods. Company CEO Ralph Clark and board member William Bratton say the criticism is off the mark and call the system a vital tool that helps police track the prevalence and patterns of gun violence in communities.
Posted inEducation
Backers claim progress in push to change teacher layoff rules
Backers of an effort to weaken seniority rules governing teacher layoffs in order to promote diversity in the teaching workforce did not see their bill passed this year, but say the issue is advancing because the state budget directs the education department to carry out an analysis of layoffs.
Posted inImmigration
Report says visa caps, red tape stifling immigrant entrepreneurship
A new report says visa restrictions and bureaucratic red tape are holding back entrepreneurship from international students in the US that could lead to billions of dollars in economic activity and the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US.
Posted inNews Analysis
On Biden future, Healey steps out
Gov. Maura Healey, a former two-term attorney general, has generally taken a cautious, lawyerly approach to politics, but she stepped out by becoming the first Democratic governor to suggest President Biden consider giving up his reelection run.
Posted inPolitics
Democrats tiptoe toward toppling a leader they like
Stopping a Trump return to the White House is something all Democrats agree on. The difficult question they now face is, which of the imperfect choices before them offers the best hope of doing that?
Posted inEducation
Political Notebook: Celtics win = end-of-school loss for Boston students | The definition of a publicity stunt
The Celtics victory celebration ended up raining on the parade of the Boston school students last day of classes, which were abruptly canceled. Meanwhile, the Mass GOP has a selective view of what qualifies as a publicity stunt at the US-Mexico border.
Posted inEducation
Study shows technology can help scale tutoring efforts
How to scale promising education innovations has long been a challenge. A new study suggests a way that high-dose tutoring, one of the most effective ways to make up learning loss, can be delivered at greater scale without any loss of effectiveness — and at lower cost and staffing.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: ‘Tool kit’ transportation revenues | Cold shoulder for Wu tax plan | Healey ethics disclosure
Hayes Morrison, the undersecretary of transportation, gave an update on the transportation revenue task force’s progress at this week’s MassDOT board meeting that made it sound as if it started pretty much from scratch using a very touchy-feely approach.
Posted inPolitics
Bill to allow campaign funds for childcare on the move
While everything from pricey steakhouse dinners to travel to far-off conferences can be paid with campaign funds under the broad definition of allowable spending that furthers a candidate’s political career, childcare falls outside that interpretation.
Posted inEducation
In wake of pandemic, Mass. achievement gap has widened
As schools try to recover the learning loss students experienced in recent years, a study by researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities shows that the achievement gap separating poor and non-poor students in Massachusetts has widened more since the pandemic than in any of 15 states they studied.
Posted inCriminal Justice
ShotSpotter in the cross hairs
Police Commissioner Michael Cox faced tough questions at a City Council budget hearing about the city’s use of ShotSpotter, the brand name of the gun detection system the city has used since 2007.
Posted inGovernment
Boston’s taxing war of words
To head off a spike in residential taxes, the Wu administration wants to raise the tax rate on commercial property. But the city already taxes commercial owners at a much higher rate than residential taxpayers – the highest level allowed by law – so it needs approval from the Legislature to raise that rate further.
Posted inGovernment
Watchdog says Boston should look to reserve funds, spending cuts before hiking commercial taxes
The Boston Municipal Research Bureau threw cold water on a city plan to hike tax rates on commercial property, urging the city to instead look to reserve funds and spending cuts, among other approaches, to address a budget crunch.
Posted inEducation
Mass. higher ed sector facing stiff headwinds
The state’s fortunes are more tied to the health of the higher ed sector here than in any other state, and that means some big challenges for Massachusetts in the coming years.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Suffolk DA Hayden fined $5,000 for ethics violation from 2022 campaign
Suffolk DA Kevin improperly used his office to undercut his election opponent, Ricardo Arroyo, in the 2022 Democratic primary, the state Ethics Commission ruled.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Something Fish-y, civics swipe, charter fall
Rep. John Rogers apparently never talked to officials at Mass General Brigham, but he said in a Facebook post on April 11 that he did talk to Gov. Maura Healey, Medical Properties Trust, and “members of the MGB board of directors who love the Norwood project and want the deal done.”
Posted inBy The Numbers
Half of state residents support legalizing teachers’ strikes
State leaders do not seem inclined to change state law to legalize teachers’ strike, but half of Massachusetts residents favor such a move compared with 34 percent who are opposed to a change.
Posted inEconomy
Amid talk of hiking commercial tax rates, should Boston also be tightening its belt?
Boston is seeking state approval to raise tax rates on commercial property, the assessed values of which are expected to drop. Some say the city should also rein in spending if it’s going to ask more of property owners who already struggling with high vacancy rates.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Facebook frenemies, West End ghosts, missing the Trump train
When it comes to many politicians and social media apps like Facebook, there’s a give and take: They take shots at the tech behemoth, and they also give the company money.