The honeymoon for Massachusetts’ pioneering health care law is over as two gubernatorial candidates say they would pull the plug on the four-year-old mandate. The leading contenders for the corner […]
Jack Sullivan
Jack Sullivan is now retired. A veteran of the Boston newspaper scene for nearly three decades. Prior to joining CommonWealth, he was editorial page editor of The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, a part of the GateHouse Media chain. Prior to that he was news editor at another GateHouse paper, The Enterprise of Brockton, and also was city edition editor at the Ledger. Jack was an investigative and enterprise reporter and executive city editor at the Boston Herald and a reporter at The Boston Globe.
He has reported stories such as the federal investigation into the Teamsters, the workings of the Yawkey Trust and sale of the Red Sox, organized crime, the church sex abuse scandal and the September 11 terrorist attacks. He has covered the State House, state and local politics, K-16 education, courts, crime, and general assignment.
Jack received the New England Press Association award for investigative reporting for a series on unused properties owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and shared the association's award for business for his reporting on the sale of the Boston Red Sox. As the Ledger editorial page editor, he won second place in 2007 for editorial writing from the Inland Press Association, the nation's oldest national journalism association of nearly 900 newspapers as members.
At CommonWealth, Jack and editor Bruce Mohl won first place for In-Depth Reporting from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors for a look at special education funding in Massachusetts. The same organization also awarded first place to a unique collaboration between WFXT-TV (FOX25) and CommonWealth for a series of stories on the Boston Redevelopment Authority and city employees getting affordable housing units, written by Jack and Bruce.
Patrick vows ‘soft cap’ on health premium hikes
Echoing President Obama’s call to shore up small businesses, Gov. Deval Patrick says he is instituting a “soft cap” on health care premium hikes at companies with fewer than 50 […]
Introducing Charlie Baker
Republican Charlie Baker, a longtime political insider trying to raise his profile and his chances as he runs to unseat Gov. Deval Patrick, said he would back a single casino […]
Most late money came from outside Bay State
Massachusetts voters sent Scott Brown to the US Senate, but the flood of cash coming into his campaign from around the country indicates his race against Attorney General Martha Coakley […]
City workers tap BRA housing program
UPDATE: One of the benefits of our new website, as well as our new media partnerships, is the ability to have timely updates on stories that appear in CommonWealth magazine. […]
Fact checking the Senate candidates: Some fumbles, stumbles and personal revelations
By Jack Sullivan and Bruce Mohl More than 36 years after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land regarding abortion, it’s clear the legal procedure still inflames passionate […]
Fact-checking the Senate candidates: Youth will be served
It was the starkest contrast of the webcast debate and the one area where U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano clearly differentiated himself from the rest of the field running for US […]
A near disclosure
UPDATE: An official at the U.S. Senate Office of Records said the financial disclosure form form Stephen Pagliuca arrived in the office on Tuesday, one week after the extension Pagliuca's […]
An ethics dilemma: Do as I do or do as I say?
What would be the official reaction if someone had a court date for a speeding ticket but showed up a couple days later, maybe as much as three weeks after […]
Lawmakers cagy on how they use expense stipends
massachusetts lawmakers receive a $600 monthly stipend for expenses, even though nearly all of their needs, including office supplies, stationery, postage, and telephone service, are paid out of other legislative […]
Missed opportunity
INTRO TEXT In the wake of the indictments of former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson and former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, a State House under siege by a fed-up public recently […]
Broken MBTA ties trigger safety orders
MBTA rail inspectors are stepping up their response to the thousands of crumbling concrete ties on commuter lines, ordering engineers to throttle back for safety along the damaged tracks. It […]
Back(track) to the future
After months of insisting that deteriorating concrete ties on the Old Colony Commuter Rail line posed no safety risk or operational problems, the MBTA will begin replacing thousands of the […]
The line on succession
As speculation continues to mount on who will run in a special election to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, little attention is being paid to who might succeed the successor […]
Sox strike out on open bars
Regulators say they plan to order the Boston Red Sox to stop offering an open bar as part of $1,000-and-up packages for some of Fenway Park’s most coveted seats. Daniel […]
Tracking more trouble for Grabauskas
MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas has certainly had better weeks and the immediate future doesn't look like it's going to give him any relief. With heat over the looming […]
Bad hand for Lottery poker
Amid much fanfare and looking to cash in on the then-growing poker craze, the Massachusetts Lottery introduced its $10 Texas Hold ’Em instant ticket with a $10 million grand prize […]
Back tracking
INTRO TEXT UPDATE: The MBTA has announced plans to replace ties on the Old Colony line.
The shadow over ethics reform
The elbows came flying out, with everyone rushing to take credit for the ethics reform bill that emerged from the State House this week. And it is, by all accounts, […]
The cost of delaying a special education
In a highly anticipated ruling, the Supreme Court has ruled that parents of special needs children in private schools can seek tuition reimbursement from their public school districts if the […]
Gains and credit in the state’s tax foundation
The $27.4 billion budget headed for the governor’s desk contains outside sections that would attempt to smooth out the state’s year-to-year budget gyrations and reveal whether the hundreds of millions […]
Can we talk?
Correction: My face is red. Even though the artist John Ewing received a 2009 Knight Foundation grant announced Wednesday for his Virtual Street Corners project, the dates we gave you were […]
The trains will be on time… ish
The old saw about the regularity of a scheduled train is "you can set your watch by it." When a train is ready to leave at 12:38, there is no "ish" attached […]
Rennie forum seeks help for special ed students before, during, and after high school
There is no dearth of studies or reports on special education in Massachusetts. It is an issue and a service that everyone agrees is a mandate that must be met […]
