The Probation Reform Working Group today issued a report with recommendations for the embattled Probation Department. Click here to read the report in full. For more coverage of patronage at the […]
Probation report
Posted inEconomy, Health Care, Politics, The Download
The Download: Seeking middle ground on public workers
Gov. Deval Patrick is struggling with how to rein in municipal health care costs. Those costs are eating up city and town budgets, and most voters think public sector union […]
Posted inPolitics
DeLeo doubles down with casino allies
House Speaker Robert DeLeo’s dramatic leadership shakeup today did more than put an end to the power struggle between would-be future speakers James Vallee and Charles Murphy. It also consolidated […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Set aside childish things?
Our nation’s leaders were on their best behavior during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address by President Obama: no congressman shouting, “You lie” at the president, no Supreme Court […]
Posted inPolitics
Access to justice in a recession
State government programs addressing issues of the poor or the lower-middle class face the iron law that resources are typically least plentiful when they are most needed. The need for […]
Posted inEconomy, Health Care, Politics, The Download
The Download: Killer bees, space aliens, and the invasion of the bankrupt states
The national news media has finally discovered that most states are bleeding a lot of red ink. Washington has so far rebuffed calls for bailouts. But California state treasurer Bill […]
Posted inPolitics
Turner done in by his own deeds and words
Chuck Turner was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday, and afterward, he repeated what he’s been saying all along about the case against him – he’s innocent, he was […]
Posted inEconomy
Budget breakdown
Gov. Deval Patrick is growing into the role of a manager during tough times. At the unveiling of his fiscal 2012 budget today, he made a solid case that some […]
Posted inEnvironment, The Back Story
Hostage negotiations
Will the Patrick administration hold hostage the proposed merger of NStar Corp. and Northeast Utilities until NStar agrees to buy the rest of Cape Wind’s power output? Regulators have already […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service
Ending Middleton’s environmental nightmare
Receivers have been known to parachute into Bay State municipalities to clean up their finances, but never to clean up their landfills. That all changed when attorney Michael Leon was […]
Posted inPolitics
Ireland appeals to keep probation
The state’s top judge today strongly urged the governor, speaker and Senate president to keep the Probation Department under the judiciary, threatening that putting the embattled agency under the executive […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics, The Download
The Download: Term limits
Massachusetts voters narrowly approved a term limits law in 1994, but two years later it was overturned by the Supreme Judicial Court because of the way it was crafted. Governing […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Give probation chief 2-year appointment
By Bruce Mohl Saying an effective leadership team is needed at the scandal-plagued Probation Department, a judicial task force is urging the Supreme Judicial Court to give the acting commissioner […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Congressional math
massachusetts legislators got the bad news in late December. And by late February or early March, they should have detailed Census figures confirming what they’ve long expected: The state’s congressional […]
Posted inHealth Care
Health plans are tiering up
a new law is prodding health insurers to design plans that would force their customers to pay more out of pocket if they go to a more expensive hospital or […]
Posted inEconomy
Swearing off earmarks
earmarks. you might as well insert a profanity into the federal budget with all the disdain that has been dumped on the term. For decades, incumbent congressmen touted their ability […]
Posted inPolitics
Everybody knew
commonwealth first began investigating patronage at Probation in 2008. We tried to pry records from the Probation Department under the state’s Public Records Law, but the agency, as part of […]
Posted inPolitics
Robin Hood mayors
Activists in City Hall: The Progressive Response to the Reagan Era in Boston and Chicago By Pierre Clavel New York, Cornell University Press, 225 pages reviewed by don gillisboston’s ray […]