For sheer political drama, it would be hard to top the current face-off between Gov. Mitt Romney and former Senate president William Bulger over the University of Massachusetts president’s office. It features, in one version of the dramatis personae, a self-styled Republican reformer with no allegiance to the bureaucratic status quo out to streamline the […]
Richard A. Hogarty
Posted inPolitics
The public never forgets a governors first year
For a newly elected governor, the transition to office is a heady time, but it’s also politically perilous. Buoyed by victory at the polls and stocked up with advice from the worthies on the transition team, any new chief executive comes into the corner office assuming a popular mandate to implement his vision of government. […]
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Public authorities have always been torn between loyalty and autonomy
On September 11, two airplanes that took off from Logan Airport brought down the World Trade Center and our nation’s sense of security. In Massachusetts, the events of that day also rattled a seemingly impregnable structure of independent agencies that supplement state government. Just as the nation continues to recover from the shock of September […]
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Gerrymandering is alive and well
All summer and into the fall, politics junkies have been treated to an unexpected sideshow: a battle of insiders over congressional redistricting. That the redrawing of district lines gives rise to political gamesmanship should surprise no one. The federal census that takes place at the start of every new decade is always followed by a […]
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The only solution to lawmakingbybudget is legislative democracy
Last year about this time, Steve Crosby, the newly installed secretary for administration and finance, was shocked to discover a plethora of new laws attached to the state budget, which was passed under the pressure of a fiscal year already begun. On August 26, 2000, he held a press conference to rail against the abuse […]