Ballot questions can energize and draw voters based on the issue being decided. Less well appreciated: The turnout they generate can affect — and perhaps even decide — the outcome of other contests on the ballot.
Lawrence S. DiCara
Posted inPolitics
Voting choices not a simple matter
I HAVE BEEN thinking about who votes for whom and why for a long time. I have been through plenty of campaigns and have sliced and diced numbers for decades. […]
Posted inOpinion
Bold thinking required at I-90 Allston interchange
SOMETIME IN THE mid-1950s, my mother packed the three of us into our black ’52 Plymouth and drove us onto the then-brand-new Southeast Expressway. She probably took us up the […]
Posted inHealth Care
Anti-vaxxers aren’t the main problem
DESPITE THE BELIEF that low vaccination rates are due to anti-vaxxers – those opposed in principle to vaccination — the majority of people who have not vaccinated their children in […]
Posted inEducation
Funding plus reform right equation for education legislation
NOTWITHSTANDING JOHN ADAMS’S almost sacred words enshrined in the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was a Johnny come lately with respect to state aid to education, with its earliest […]
Posted inOpinion
Time to stop zoning out children
DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES have accelerated in Boston and elsewhere in recent years. There has been an increase in healthy older people who may no longer want to live in single-family housing […]
Posted inEducation
Mass. cities losing clout in ed funding fight
WE PREVIOUSLY CO-AUTHORED an article in CommonWealth detailing the increasing discrepancies in municipal finance between the “haves” and the “have-nots” among Massachusetts cities and towns. It should not be surprising, therefore, […]
Posted inOpinion
Did primary turnout in Boston mark a turning point?
RECENT ELECTION RETURNS have generated much discussion as to a change in voting patterns in Massachusetts and elsewhere across the country. The research we have done over a period of […]
Posted inPolitics
‘A child shall lead them’
ONE OF US (LSD) is a Democrat. The other (PR) is a Republican. We disagree on many issues, but on the issue of access to assault rifles, we are in […]
Posted inPolitics
Boston city council races reflect change – and tradition
THEODORE H. WHITE WROTE many years ago that the life of a city is like a ballet. Anybody who has studied the American city, specifically the City of Boston, understands […]
Posted inEconomy
Where have all the children gone?
EVERY 10 YEARS, the Massachusetts Legislature must go about the arduous task of redistricting our House and Senate districts. Because of the continued shift in population within the state, each […]
Posted inOpinion
Nixon legacy lives on through Trump
THE MEDIA AND VARIOUS JOURNALS are overflowing with comparisons of Donald Trump to many political figures past and present. A recent Harvard Political Review article compared Trump to Maine Governor […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
For marijuana law, now the ‘Grown-Up’s Hour’
MANY OF US have listened to Longfellow’s poem that reminds us that there “Comes a pause in the day’s occupations, that is known as the Children’s Hour.” Now that democracy […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Politics
Bridging the urban-rural divide in Mass.
EVAN HOROWITZ AND JAMES PINDELL of the Boston Globe remarked in a November 14 article that “the Trump effect” occurred in Massachusetts as well: while Greater Boston voted more Democratic […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Transportation
Let’s boost transit-oriented development
I WAS RECENTLY honored to accept an award on behalf of the Commonwealth Housing Task Force for our work with respect to transit-oriented development. Anyone who has seen all the […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Civics education needed now more than ever
ACCORDING TO THE Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a nonpartisan research organization at Tufts University, only about half of registered voters aged 18-29 voted in […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Boston’s presidential election numbers
NATIONWIDE, THE STORY over the past couple of weeks has been how Donald Trump outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Back here in Boston the converse was true: […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Taking on the gun lobby
IN TRYING TO understand the power of today’s gun lobby, I’ve found myself looking for answers in earlier issues in US history. More than 100 years ago, the Anti-Saloon League was successful in ushering […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
No transforming option for president
IN JANUARY 2015, the two of us took pen in hand and collaborated on an article for CommonWealth titled “Looking for the Man or Woman on a Horse: Can the 2016 presidential […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
A last look at Boston’s 2015 city election
FOR DECADES, AMERICANS who thought they could predict elections have been reminded of the famous photograph of Harry Truman holding up the early-edition headline from the Chicago Tribune in 1948: […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Politics
The downsides of Prop. 2½ and Community Preservation Act
IN HIS RECENT book, Our Kids, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam argues that the American dream of obtaining a good education, joining the workforce, owning property, and being a prosperous […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
The incredibly vanishing Boston voter
WE HAVE LOOKED at voter turnout in each off-year Boston City Council election beginning in 1985 – the first off-year election after the change in the structure of government brought […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
Market signal: Roche Bros. arrival a welcome sign
THE RECENT OPENING of Roche Bros. supermarket in what most of us still refer to as the “Filene’s building” was not only a great day for downtown Boston, but also […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
End downtown Boston’s busmageddon
THIS WINTER’S PUBLIC transportation crisis offers our elected and appointed leaders a unique opportunity to undo decades of questionable decisions. Others can opine regarding commuter rail and other segments of […]