sponsored by The Boston Foundation
CommonWealth Voices aims to be a beacon of robust discourse, offering a platform for analysis and advocacy on the challenges and aspirations of political life in Massachusetts.
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Lessons – and opportunities – from starter home ballot question loss
As Democrats across the country celebrated historic election victories as a mandate to tackle affordability, here in deep-blue Massachusetts voters rejected a tangible solution to one of the biggest drivers of our affordability crisis: housing costs.
Rural microtransit is a lifeline. Massachusetts should help it reach more people.
We need to change how we judge whether transportation is working. Ridership matters, but it cannot be the only measure.
Our polling shows strong support for statewide restrictions on cellphones in schools. Will the Legislature act?
Local school districts, including the state’s largest district, are increasingly moving forward on their own, creating a patchwork of local policies in the absence of statewide action.
Notwithstanding Mayor Wu’s claims, the ‘State of the Schools’ in Boston is not good
To continue to pretend like our schools are better than they really are is a disservice to students, teachers, families, and the city at large.
I studied smaller homes in Natick. Question 7 would make room for them.
Question 7 will not transform Massachusetts neighborhoods overnight. But it can give homeowners, builders, and communities more room to create the smaller homes that zoning has made difficult to build.
A developer’s warning: Question 7 is not an affordable housing plan
Smaller lots reduce land cost, so they should produce less expensive homes. Sometimes they do. But smaller lots do not require cheaper homes, and often that’s not what gets built.
It’s time to end Boston’s unique status of being exempt from the state zoning code
The case for maintaining the archaic status quo grows weaker with every statewide housing reform.
Question 7 is fair because it spreads the burden of building housing
Nobody wants denser housing built only near them, so no city or town wants to be the only one that builds.
We’re retired law enforcement officers. Don’t turn back the clock on cannabis reform.
There appears to be little appetite among many in law enforcement for returning to the enforcement practices of the past. Police already face considerable demands on their time and resources, and renewed cannabis enforcement would add to that burden.
Question 5 would lead to deep cuts in services that communities rely on
It would cause tremendous uncertainty in the economy, with experts predicting the necessary spending cuts to fund the question would vary wildly from year to year.
When we have the chance to prevent tragedy, why would we take it away?
The question before Massachusetts voters cannot be reduced to whether firearm regulations should be more or less restrictive—it is whether the Commonwealth should preserve an additional pathway for intervention when credible warning signs are present.
Many voters can’t name a single major accomplishment of Gov. Healey’s. Here’s one that has flown under the radar: saving public transit.
Gov. Healey has taken crucial steps to reverse the downward trajectory our transit systems were on. Part of the reason why this has gone unnoticed is that there remains so much to do to bring our transit systems up to the level that users deserve.
Question 3 would let voters reclaim their voice
Question 3 moves the final decision from the elections that most people ignore to the ones that have high participation
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