Lottery Winners and Losers

You can’t buy a lottery ticket in Leverett, a tiny town about 10 miles north of Amherst, but the people there still come up winners. Leverett’s town treasury took in […]

Changing times: Citizens for Limited Taxation, a group that has been a factor in Massachusetts politics since the 1970s, has expanded its mission. Executive Director Barbara Anderson has merged her […]

Designed especially for policy wonks, activists, and civic-minded cyberspace cruisers, the following is a special CommonWealth Guide to the World Wide Web. Not all information is created equal; herewith are […]

Dian Chaisson knows what it’s like to lose a job–several jobs, in fact. The Gardner native was laid off three times in two years: once from her secretarial job at […]

Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front LinesBy Suzanne GordonLittle, Brown and Company, Boston, 352 pages.It’s a tough time to be a nurse. My downstairs neighbor, a registered nurse, drags […]

No equivocation, then. “The land where the gold grasshopper swings above Faneuil Hall to the bidding of a damp east wind,” in other words Boston, has never been decanted more […]

NATICK – If you want information on town meetings in Massachusetts, the logical place to turn is the Massachusetts Moderators Association, the closest thing there is to an organization that […]

Rank State Total (in millions) Per Capita Rank Per Capita Year Round 1. New York $178.1 $9.80 5 Yes 2. California $176.2 $5.61 31 Yes 3. Pennsylvania $142.8 $11.85 4 […]

In the fourth-floor press room at the State House, there’s no more popular sport than flack-bashing. If reporters harbor a natural mistrust of politicians, it’s nothing compared to their contempt […]

About two years ago, David M. Kennedy, a researcher at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, had an idea about the youth violence that was plaguing Boston. He reasoned that the […]

“The natural tendency of representative government, as of modern civilisation, is towards collective mediocrity.” – John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative GovernmentOr, as a lawmaker down in Texas used to […]

WEYMOUTH – It is the nature of government to respond to the crisis of the moment, and last fall the crisis on the minds of town officials had to do […]

At least 30 towns in Massachusetts are making a decision similar to Weymouth’s on replacing their punch-card systems. Secretary of State William Galvin is urging towns to update their voting […]

Thomas Birmingham, in the regal office of the Senate President, says he feels like the proverbial kid who shows up for dessert. He gets to enjoy the delicacies–in this case […]

Not far from a ragged basketball court squeezed between two sidestreets just off Dorchester Ave., you could sense the boredom, the chronic misjudgements, the drifting spirit of urban life as […]

Katherine Newman set out in the mid-’80s to explore a story that, since then, has only gotten bigger: the experience of downward mobility in America. Her book Falling From Grace, […]

Charles Baker is right that welfare needs fixing, and he’s right that states (on average) are better innovators than Washington. If that ended the story, block grants might indeed beat […]

Before heading off to Chicago for the Democratic Convention this summer, President Clinton had to decide whether to sign the welfare reform legislation sent to him by Congress. In the […]

Suppose state government–or a high-minded philanthropist–awarded a special grant to communities that demonstrate stellar records of high voter turnout. Which Massachusetts cities and towns would be in the running? Who […]

One of the facts of political life for Governor William Weld during the 1995-96 session of the legislature has been that, even if he had every fellow Republican in the […]

As any reporter, lobbyist, or campaign manager knows, trying to get a document by fax from a State House office or committee when the legislature is in session can be […]

Twenty years since public financing of presidential campaigns began, taxpayer contributions to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund are at their lowest level since the program’s first year. Taxpayers just aren’t […]