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.
The Boston Foundation is deeply committed to civic leadership, and essential to our work is the exchange of informed opinions. We are proud to partner on a platform that engages such a broad range of demographic and ideological viewpoints.
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We welcome informed commentary about local, state and national public policy. Please include the author’s contact information when submitting.
Think capping ticket prices will save you money? Think again.
Gov. Healey is right to look at this issue. Unfortunately, the proposal included in her supplemental budget bill, called “The Great Divide Act,” will likely only make the problem worse.
More donor disclosure is always in the public interest
Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.
Massachusetts can protect data privacy without hurting small businesses
As lawmakers debate the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act, they should be careful not to adopt an approach that unintentionally makes it harder and more expensive for local businesses to compete, grow, and innovate online.
To maximize consumer protection, new data privacy law must include a ‘private right of action’
Regular people’s ability to sue businesses for the alleged violation of a law is called private right of action, and it is a necessary inclusion if the future Massachusetts data privacy law is to truly protect citizens’ rights, safety, and privacy.
Complexity isn’t the issue. The Legislature’s dysfunction is.
The complexity of our few bills tells us very little, if anything, however, about the quality of the bills or of the process that produced them. In fact, the complexity of bills covering multiple topics often only adds to the dysfunction and underperformance of our Legislature.
Rather than a defense of their productivity, the Legislature’s reliance on omnibus bills should be an indictment
Democracy depends on being able to give positive and negative reinforcement to elected officials. Constituents should be able to praise legislators for what they do right and criticize them for what they do wrong. Omnibus bills weaken that ability, and that’s the point.
Omnibus bills enable opaque lawmaking
The modern trend of relying on omnibus bills for routine legislative work is not a neutral choice. It turns a simple democratic process into a labyrinthine ordeal.
Massachusetts needs to rethink how it improves schools. Here is a blueprint for doing it.
We now know that learning is not simply a matter of delivering the same content to every student on the same schedule.
Cornell University case means we must redouble the fight for institutional change on campuses
The details are different. The university is different. But the questions students are asking are ones generations of us have asked before.
I’ve operated both alcohol and cannabis businesses. Here’s which is more heavily regulated.
My experiences as an operator in both industries is that cannabis, despite being safer than alcohol, is already regulated much more strictly.
Massachusetts can’t afford to skip natural gas pipeline upgrade
Project Beacon would add about 300 million cubic feet of natural gas capacity per day—roughly enough to meet the winter needs of 840,000 homes, or more than half of Massachusetts residential gas accounts.
Proposed Trump administration changes would gut vital Head Start regulations
Head Start works comprehensively. The harm of the proposed rule does not come from any one of the above changes alone, it comes from the compounding impact of removing services and protections for the most vulnerable children and families.
The false savings — and cruelty — of cutting GLP-1 coverage in Massachusetts
Ending coverage does not merely stop progress. It reverses it—and costs may return as diabetes, CPAP equipment, additional medications, disability, and hospital care.
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