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, […]
With Katherine Newman Chronicler of Middle Class Anxiety
Posted inUncategorized
Counterpoints
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 […]
Posted inUncategorized
Argument
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 […]
Posted inUncategorized
Who Votes
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 […]
Posted inUncategorized
The Veto Game
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 […]
Posted inUncategorized
Representation without Faxation
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 […]
Posted inUncategorized
Presidential Campaign Fund Plummets
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 […]
Posted inUncategorized
How a Legislator Knows Its Time to Step Down
As of September, five senators and 19 members of the House had announced plans to retire from the Massachusetts legislature by the end of 1996. Some, like House Minority Leader […]
Posted inUncategorized
Rep Donna Cuomo RNorth Andover Gives Crime Victims a Voice
One of the first things you notice upon entering the offices of Joey Fournier Services is a wall of photographs to the right. They are the type parents proudly display […]
Posted inUncategorized
One Tough Neighborhood
Lyon Street in Dorchester is a modest little thoroughfare. It’s nothing more than a one-block-long connector between Dorchester Avenue and Adams Street, but when the Commonwealth’s biggest law enforcers came […]
Posted inUncategorized
Getting Smart About Fighting Crime
What would Massachusetts need to do to wage a war against crime that was less symbolic and more practical, less scattershot and more systematic, less simplistic and more serious–not just […]
Posted inUncategorized
Bringing up Children
Dinner is over at the Morgan household, but the woven placemats, flecked with crumbs of food, have not been cleared. It is hot and mom, Rebecca Morgan, fiddles with the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Two Guys with Half the Answers
In late summer, as the Senate race seemed to be hopelessly mired in policy sludge, reporters and some of the voting public were showing signs of disappointment. Great things were […]
Posted inUncategorized
Our Brothers Keepers
Our Brothers’ Keepers Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice System By Jerome Miller Cambridge University Press, 1996, 304 pages, $24.95 Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes […]
Posted inUncategorized
Looking Back at emThe Man in the Gray Flannel Suitem
Occasionally, a work has a title that takes on a meaning that outruns the work’s actual content. Often, the added meaning is merely a plausible variation of the original. Sometimes […]
Posted inUncategorized
Two More Towns Scuttle Town Meeting
Seldom does one hear the argument that since the state legislature doesn’t work very well, we should do away with it. Seldom does a city saddled with a clownish city […]
Posted inUncategorized
Reading 300 Years of Minutes
PLYMOUTH–Laurence Pizer, town clerk, wears the look of a man who has just been interrupted from a good book and has noticed suddenly the glare of bright sunlight. Behind his […]
Posted inUncategorized
Crime Control
Total number of sworn police officers in state and local law enforcement agencies (1992) Rank State (Top 25, plus New England) Total number of officers Total number of officers per […]
Posted inPolitics
A Newspaper Grows in Holyoke
HOLYOKE–Mary Signet’s afternoons felt empty after the daily Transcript-Telegram newspaper folded three years ago. She would climb the stairs to her home in Holyoke’s Highlands after teaching grammar school all […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Vermont Puts Nonviolent Criminals to Work
Building contractor Jeff Goodwin is standing in front of the glittering surface of the municipal pool in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. While teen-agers take turns diving into the rumpled iridescent water […]
Posted inEconomy
On Heritage Road
In the heart of suburbia, anxieties about the new economy.
This article first appeared in CommonWealth’s Spring 1996 issue, the premiere issue of the magazine.
Posted inOpinion, Politics
The Know Somethings?
The Tea Party phenomenon aims to upend Massachusetts political structures with a combination of anti-establishment populism, a challenge to prevailing economic wisdom, and anti-immigrant vehemence. John Mulkern has written a […]
Posted inUncategorized
Broken promises and changed deals
Back to main Sue Tucker is a Democratic state senator from Andover. When asked whether or not Massachusetts should have casino gambling, people inevitably imagine one or two fancy Connecticut-style […]
Posted inUncategorized
Responsibility rests with Patrick
Back to main Kathleen Conley Norbut is president of United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts. Scott Harshbarger, senior counsel at Proskauer,was the Massachusetts Attorney General from 1991 to 1999.Last week […]