STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE SEN. ANNE GOBI will leave the Legislature to fill a newly created post in the Healey administration, triggering a special election in the central Massachusetts district […]
Healey names Gobi director of rural affairs
Posted inThe Download
Like Goldilocks, Glynn trying to fashion ‘just right’ T board
When “snowmageddon,” an unprecedented succession of blizzards, shut the MBTA down in 2015, Beacon Hill created a five-person Fiscal and Management Control Board to right the organization. Control was the […]
Posted inTransportation
Like Goldilocks, Glynn trying to fashion ‘just right’ T board
WHEN “SNOWMAGEDDON,” an unprecedented succession of blizzards, shut the MBTA down in 2015, Beacon Hill created a five-person Fiscal and Management Control Board to right the organization. Control was the operative […]
Posted inEconomy
Mass. economic growth slows, projected to go negative
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE MASSACHUSETTS SQUEAKED OUT a smidgen of economic growth in the first quarter of 2023, slowing substantially from its late 2022 growth rate, and analysts are predicting […]
Posted inEducation
End discriminatory admissions policies in vocational schools
SHOULD AN EIGHTH-GRADE student with a low grade-point average and/or low attendance, due to feeling disengaged from the school and curriculum, be excluded from enrolling in a Massachusetts vocational high […]
Posted inEconomy
State economic development plan must include entrepreneurs of color
STATE LAW REQUIRES the governor to present the Legislature with an economic development strategy every four years. Crafted with input from a council of business and civic leaders, these plans […]
Posted inOpinion
A creative imagining of the Emancipation Group statue
IN THE SUMMER of 2021, I wrote an opinion piece for CommonWealth with suggestions on what to do with the city’s Emancipation Group statue, the one showing Abraham Lincoln with […]
Posted inEconomy, Gambling, Opinion
An online lottery will hurt Main Street retailers
LOCALLY OWNED retail stores are rightfully up in arms about inclusion of an online lottery in the House fiscal 2024 budget. As demonstrated through testimony before the Legislature’s Joint Committee […]
Posted inEducation
Student loan ombudsperson is working, let’s fund it
IN TODAY’S UNPREDICTABLE economy, the future of nearly 1 million student loan borrowers in Massachusetts is particularly precarious. Combined, they owe a whopping $31.7 billion in student loans. Their fate […]
Posted inEducation
Childcare helps power our economy
ELECTRICITY. WATER. Internet access. To this list of fundamental services that enable us to have a strong and growing economy, we’d add another critical service: childcare. Over and over again, […]
Posted inThe Download
Attention turns to Arroyo’s role in Rollins scandal
Rachael Rollins wasn’t sending out text messages into the void. City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo was answering. Two scathing reports on Rollins’s conduct as US attorney showed that she crossed all […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Politics
Attention turns to Arroyo’s role in Rollins scandal
RACHAEL ROLLINS wasn’t sending out text messages into the void. City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo was answering. Two scathing reports on Rollins’s conduct as US attorney showed that she crossed all sorts […]
Posted inOpinion
Why stopping the super PAC ballot question is important
ON JANUARY 21, the famous Supreme Court decision of Citizens United vs the FEC celebrated its 13th anniversary, but here in Massachusetts the efforts to undermine this expansion of our […]
Posted inTransportation
‘Red flags’ in budget worry MBTA Advisory Board
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE CITIES AND TOWNS that help fund the MBTA are concerned it will be “impossible” to restore pre-pandemic service levels and that the agency might need to […]
Posted inPolitics
House leaders pushing majority rule in joint committees
HOUSE LEADERS appear to be pushing majority rule in most of the Legislature’s joint committees, but the effort has had little impact so far except in the badly divided Telecommunications, […]
Posted inThe Codcast
Attorney General Andrea Campbell picks her targets
CommonWealth Magazine · Attorney General Andrea Campbell picks her targets
Posted inHealth Care
Mass health officials move to protect preventive care
AFTER A FEDERAL Texas court ruling lobbed another potential grenade at comprehensive health coverage, a Massachusetts state board is pulling one of its lesser-known levers to make sure residents here […]
Posted inThe Download
Mass. health officials move to protect preventive care
AFTER A FEDERAL Texas court ruling lobbed another potential grenade at comprehensive health coverage, a Massachusetts state board is pulling one of its lesser-known levers to make sure residents here don’t […]
Posted inOpinion
It’s time for major reforms at the US Supreme Court
FOR 146 YEARS, until 1935, the Supreme Court had no building of its own: it met in the Capitol. But architect Cass Gilbert, in consultation with former chief justice Charles Evans […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Media
Rollins wheeled and dealed with the Globe, Herald
SIPPING CHABLIS WITH Jill Biden, it turns out, was the least of Rachael Rollins’s transgressions. Ever since reports last summer that Rollins attended a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at an […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
A reputation for straight talk – but a record of subterfuge
RACHAEL ROLLINS built her political persona on a straightforward message: What you see is what you get. But it turns out the public got a lot from the US attorney […]
Posted inThe Download
Black redistricting plaintiff doesn’t mind ruffling feathers
THE LAWSUIT CHALLENGING Boston’s city council redistricting map has often been portrayed as a showdown pitting the council’s four White, more moderate members, who objected to its boundaries, against its […]
Posted inPolitics
Black redistricting plaintiff doesn’t mind ruffling feathers
THE LAWSUIT CHALLENGING Boston’s city council redistricting map has often been portrayed as a showdown pitting the council’s four White, more moderate members, who objected to its boundaries, against its […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Rollins resigning as US attorney
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE RACHAEL ROLLINS, a former Suffolk County prosecutor who quickly rose in political prominence and often drew the ire of Republican lawmakers, will resign her role as […]