A perfect storm of long-held resentments, the well-known story of the financial crunch squeezing small towns across the state, and an act of blameless chance — weather — is raising the stakes and stoking new tensions between these sparse towns and the powers that be in state government.
State Government
Posted inOpinion
Data privacy bill must have real teeth
We can end Big Tech’s abuses — but only if we have the courage to stand up to the tech oligarchs and maintain the strong standards of our consumer protection law when it comes to enforcing our data privacy law.
Posted inState Government
Signature cases add fuel to calls for ballot access reform
Legislative negotiators are finalizing the details of a bill requiring more frequent financial disclosures for statewide ballot question campaigns and implementing guardrails around the use of paid signature gatherers.
Posted inOpinion
Towns surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir protect the water for 2.7 million people in Eastern Mass. They’re getting financially starved in the process.
The state’s payments in lieu of taxes system treats Quabbin land as nearly worthless. In reality, it’s the most valuable land in Massachusetts: Without it, more than 2.7 million people across Eastern Massachusetts — 40 percent of the state’s population — would have no water.
Posted inState Government
Lawmakers send Healey bill governing library book access
As they wrapped up a host of priorities on the last day for major new business, legislators gave final approval to a measure aimed at preventing politically charged book bans.
Posted inEnergy
Healey sounds alarm on energy costs — but a legislative solution remains elusive for now
Healey’s decision to speak specifically on energy policy as the Legislature scrambled elsewhere in the State House to tackle other priorities is the latest sign of urgency from the governor to respond to Bay Staters’ angst around soaring utility bills — and of the political salience of the issue as the governor seeks reelection this fall.
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
An effort to boost nature, backed by big-money donors, lands in the middle of Mass. ballot question mania
As the campaign shifts from ballot-qualifying to general election mode, what the end result will be of all the money raised and spent, all the signatures collected and ads likely to come, and all the potential friction introduced with Beacon Hill — even if the question passes this fall — is for now unclear.
Posted inOpinion
Massachusetts must regulate cannabis like alcohol and tobacco
The retail cannabis sector faces a fraction of the regulatory strictness, compliance checks, and public safety enforcement applied to other age-restricted products.
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 inOpinion
I led efforts to increase primary care spending in Rhode Island. Here are the things Massachusetts must get right.
High-quality primary care must be a common good for all Massachusetts residents. It is the most important part of a health care system, and it needs to be treated as such.
Posted inState Government
Spilka to lead Senate into a ninth year, first since Bulger
Spilka was first elected president of the Senate on Thursday, July 26, 2018. Eight years later, she says there’s still “more to do” and suggested she is not thinking about handing off the gavel.
Posted inEnergy
A proposed moratorium on data centers hits resistance in Mass. Senate
The back-and-forth nature of data center policy in Massachusetts raises the question: Do Bay State policymakers want to draw in these facilities, which can provide some jobs and property tax benefits, or not?
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.
Posted inHousing
Layered over ADU law, Senate duplex bill would allow three units on most residential lots
Lawmakers “could, say, take another 10, 20 years to ask cities and towns to legalize duplexes,” said Amy Dain. “We have learned that is not possible. You could spend 50 years on it and you would only see it at the margins.”
Posted inPublic Records
Senate ready to open access to legislative records, muddying outlook for ballot question
The Senate will take up a bill next week that would subject the governor’s office and Legislature to public records requirements, but huge questions still linger about how legislative action would affect a question on the November ballot seeking a similar goal.
Posted inHealth Care
Small businesses still in line for double-digit health premium increases — with some relief
Newly approved health insurance premium rates in the so-called merged market mean hundreds of thousands of Bay Staters will face average increases of more than 10 percent in 2027.
Posted inOpinion
The Legislature can adopt a simple fix to help Massachusetts communities drowning in student transportation costs
According to the recent IG’s report, 53 percent of Massachusetts school districts received no bid or only one bid for student transportation contracts. When that becomes the rule, not the exception, it is clear what the problem is.
Posted inState Government
Surtax supporters say haul shows wealthy are staying in Mass.
Revenue generated from the state surtax on wealthier households was up more than 13 percent last budget year, totaling more than $3.38 billion, the Department of Revenue reported this week.
Posted inOpinion
SJC ruling shouldn’t be the last word on rent control
State lawmakers must take action to uphold the will of Bay Staters by lifting the ban on rent control and allowing local jurisdictions to pass the rent stabilization ordinances that work best for their communities.
Posted inPolitics
Eleventh-hour Senate move could upend tax rebate ballot question
Democrats in the Senate appear to be coalescing around a late-term push to repeal the law known as Chapter 62F, in the process inviting incendiary anger from groups that want government to control its spending habits.
Posted inBallot Questions
Marijuana question survives as all nine ballot questions get their numbers
It’s official: voters will face nine statewide ballot questions, tying the record last reached in 1994, and the list will include whether to undo recreational cannabis legalization.
Posted inOpinion
In the panic over a talent exodus, Massachusetts is forgetting the underutilized talent it has
Most states compete for the workers everyone else wants. Talent activation is a different discipline. It starts not with who might move to the state, but with who is already here.
Posted inOpinion
House transparency bill is anything but
The bill is an excellent example of just why the Legislature is so unpopular.