All eyes will now turn to the House and Senate, where negotiators need to decide in the next eight weeks whether to follow through on an earlier proposal to substitute their own idea for public records access for the version that four out of five voters embraced.
Chris Lisinski
Chris Lisinski covers Beacon Hill, transportation and more for CommonWealth Beacon.
After growing up in New York and then graduating from Boston University, Chris settled in Massachusetts and spent three years covering the Merrimack Valley for the Lowell Sun. He then worked at State House News Service for more than six years, reporting on everything from legislative action to MBTA slow zones to the 2022 gubernatorial election. His stories, photographs and data visualizations have appeared in outlets across the state, including the Boston Globe, WBUR and the Worcester Telegram.
Chris has also been a regular guest on radio, television and podcast programs to discuss politics and policy in the Bay State, including Keller @ Large, NEPM's Beacon Hill in 5 and The Horse Race.
Posted inBallot Questions
Primary election reform backers concede as ballot measure falls short
Voters rebuffed an attempt to inject more competition into the state’s low-energy elections by shuttling all candidates through a single primary contest, regardless of their party affiliation.
Posted inBallot Questions
Backers of primary election overhaul say the proposal is ‘Massachusetts-grown.’ For years, its top donors funded similar efforts across the country.
Campaign finance records paint a more nuanced picture of who’s backing the measure, and color the Bay State as the next front in a national debate over systemic reforms intended to fix persistent electoral problems.
Posted inBallot Questions
Ballotmania: Inside the flurry of measures upending Massachusetts politics
The record-tying number of initiatives on the ballot next week put Beacon Hill on the defensive, and it’s resurfaced thorny questions about the powers and pitfalls of lawmaking by statewide vote.
Posted inBallot Questions
Political Notebook: Question 8 surpasses Question 3 as most expensive ballot question
An early-October burst of spending by opponents of an attempt to eliminate the recreational marijuana industry has pushed the total amount spent on that measure (Question 8) to nearly $6.5 million. That’s a good chunk more than the $5.9 million spent for and against the all-party primary question so far.
Posted inPolitics
Mass. upgraded from least competitive elections in the country to second-worst
For the first time since Barack Obama was president, Massachusetts did not land in dead last in Ballotpedia’s biennial assessment of state legislative competition across the country.
Posted inTransportation
Slideshow mistake prompts T to disclose new delay to Red Line train procurement
A project already pockmarked with delays and growing costs will once again stretch on longer than MBTA officials hoped, this time due to federal scrutiny of components shipped from China.
Posted inBy The Numbers
New poll finds strong voter support for auditing the Legislature holding steady
For all of the sound and fury legislative leaders have raised, voter support for the audit law has not budged in two years.
Posted inPolitics
Healey cruising in reelection bid with Trump high on voters’ mind, survey shows
A new MassINC Polling Group survey finds that Bay Staters are still concerned about Gov. Maura Healey’s response to affordability concerns, even as she appears poised to win reelection with relative ease.
Posted inEconomy
Most residents think Massachusetts is a great place to live, and also unaffordable
People who are finishing their education are almost twice as likely to consider leaving Massachusetts in the next five years, quantifying a dynamic many have long suspected in a state that welcomes crowds of college students every year.
Posted inBallot Questions
Political Notebook: Teachers vs. Smith & Wesson
The state’s largest teachers union is now the single biggest financial backer of keeping a 2024 gun control law on the books.
Posted inBallot Questions
Deep-pocketed donors flood the ballot-question field with cash
Newly filed financial reports shed light on this election’s battle lines, which will pit business groups against unions, the marijuana industry against an out-of-state opponent, and transparency advocates against Beacon Hill itself.
Posted inBallot Questions
Let’s say a ballot question passes in November. What happens next?
Nine ballot questions are in the mix for November. Here’s what you need to know about what happens if they win approval from voters.
Posted inTechnology
$17 billion Meta settlement lands in hotbed of debate over social media regulations in Mass.
A landmark agreement both reshapes Instagram and Facebook for teenagers, and adds fuel to legislative debate about permanent reforms.
Posted inBallot Questions
Odd bedfellows: Progressive critics join Democratic, Republican party bosses to oppose election reform ballot question
“It’s not that our current system is good. It’s that this alternate one is worse,” says Jonathan Cohn, policy director for Progressive Mass.
Posted inTransportation
‘Future-proof’ or ‘a strategic mistake’? Inside the MBTA’s effort to electrify its commuter rail system
The first battery-powered trains will start running on the Fairmount Line more than a decade after MBTA overseers called for electrifying the system, and they’ll be eye-wateringly expensive. Is that just the price and pace of a transformative project?
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Layoffs the latest sign of trouble for clean energy
The state agency tasked with turbocharging the state’s green economy laid off 11 employees, citing a “challenging funding landscape” amid federal headwinds.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Senate quietly launches another push for juvenile justice reforms
House and Senate negotiators hashing out a final deal on a sweeping jobs and business support package need to decide whether the measure should also embrace a major criminal justice reform: allowing many 18-year-olds to be tried in the youth justice system, not adult courts.
Posted inHealth Care
With House vote, Beacon Hill inches closer to landmark primary care reforms
Negotiations on a final compromise could prove arduous, but the House and Senate agree on the fundamental idea of more than doubling the share of health care spending that goes toward primary care to ease the crisis that’s left many patients struggle to find appointments.
Posted inBallot Questions
On second thought: Late-moving legislative action injects ‘ambiguity’ into ballot questions
Legislative leaders opted not to engage in serious negotiations with initiative petition proponents earlier in the year, when a compromise might have averted measures going to the ballot. And now, they’re weighing last-minute action that could reshape or even upend a pair of decisions voters will make.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: House Speaker foretells Senate tax swerve
He was joking when he described “fortune-telling” as a preferred pastime, but House Speaker Ron Mariano still managed to divine the way electoral politics would affect a Senate tax cap proposal.
