The Saturday Send
The Dean of Massachusetts mayors
By Hallie Claflin
After more than 32 years in office, Dean Mazzarella has become the longest serving mayor in Massachusetts history, managing to transform the city, limit his list of enemies, and remain an ever-present, zealous leader. Despite an electoral touch other officials would die for, he comes off far more as affable everyman than calculating politician, which could be why he has endured politically for so many years.
On second thought: Late-moving legislative action injects ‘ambiguity’ into ballot questions
By Chris Lisinski
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.
Proposed graduation requirements revive debate over standardized testing
By Saaya Daga
The K-12 Statewide Graduation Council recommends in a new proposal that students complete state-designed and administered end-of-course assessments, sparking debate over whether Massachusetts is reintroducing the standardized testing voters rejected by ballot question in 2024.
Federal housing bill includes modest help for Mass., but buzzy investor limitation unlikely to have much impact here
By Jennifer Smith
“It’s not very tailored to Massachusetts related-housing concerns,” said Andrew Mikula, senior housing fellow at the Pioneer Institute. “The bill nibbles at the edges on a number of process and regulatory standards,” which “disproportionately” affect other regions more than the Northeast.
An effort to boost nature, backed by big-money donors, lands in the middle of Mass. ballot question mania
By Jordan Wolman
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.
A new book details how neoliberalism hurt America’s health care
America’s uniquely expensive, uniquely underperforming health system didn’t just result as an accident of history, John McDonough argues in his new book, but was the predictable result of a specific ideological turn taken in the early 1980s — the start of the neoliberalism era.
Published by MassINC