Boston City Councilor John Connolly is pulling off a trick few city pols have managed: He’s putting the city’s mayor for life, Tom Menino, in a reactionary stance.
Ambitious Boston politicians have been scrutinizing Menino for months, trying to divine some hint of whether the city’s powerful leader has another race left in him. Nearly everyone inside City Hall who doesn’t already work for Hizzoner wants his job, but they’ve learned enough from vanquished Menino opponents like Michael Flaherty, Sam Yoon, and Maura Hennigan to keep their heads down, and their dreams of higher office to themselves. They’ve waited, through Menino’s long hospitalization and convalescence, to declare their own political futures; as stacks and stacks and stacks of brutal columns pleading with the mayor to retire have piled up, indecision has gripped Boston’s political power structure.
That indecision extends even to Menino himself. Even before Menino’s hospitalization, Globe columnist Larry Harmon recently noted, “the 69-year-old mayor was dragging and leaning heavily on his cabinet.” Harmon predicted that “the people who actually care about Menino [would] likely convince him to walk away while he still can.” Months after leaving Spaulding Rehab, Menino still isn’t acting like a man who’s running for mayor. After a modest show of fundraising strength in late October, Menino’s campaign operation has all but shut down. He’s badly lagging the pace he set during his own reelection efforts four years ago, raising less than $4,000 in the first six weeks of 2013.
Connolly, for one, hasn’t waited around for Menino to declare his political intentions. He’s been aggressively raising money, and today, he throws his hat in the ring for mayor, whether or not Menino ends up chasing reelection. Connolly’s decision drastically ratchets up the pressure on Menino to declare his intentions. The mayor enjoys a sizable $300,000 campaign warchest advantage over Connolly, but his financial edge is far smaller than it was against Flaherty. Connolly’s fundraising blitz has rapidly narrowed the mayor’s cash advantage. If the mayor is indeed seeking a sixth term, he has to get busy running, and raising money, sooner rather than later.
When nearly every political columnist in town called for Menino’s retirement over the past few months, they did so because of the mayor’s health, not his performance. What’s fascinating about the way Connolly is framing the race is, even though Menino is clearly not running at close to full speed, Connolly is acting as if he is. He tells the Globe today he doesn’t think Menino’s health is relevant to the mayoral race: “He’s clearly up to the job. I take him at his word. It’s not an issue for me.” Instead, he’s taking on Menino on education. It’s a high-risk strategy, since there isn’t much overlap between the population of Bostonians who vote in municipal elections and the population of Bostonians who have kids in the city’s schools. The issue remains ripe, though.
Connolly is declaring for mayor the day after a mayoral committee put forward a new plan that would give parents six schools to choose from and allow children to attend schools closer to their homes. The committee’s chair called the plan a “dramatic, bold move,” but the Globe’s Harmon recently labeled all three plans that were considered by the city lost opportunities, saying the city had promised a radically different plan but was producing “a marginally different one.” That’s essentially the same critique Connolly has been leveling at Menino for some time, and one he’s likely to dial up leading to November: that the mayor has been unwilling or unable to deliver the kinds of deep changes he’s called for. Connolly will lead with that criticism again today. Now it’s up to Menino to respond.
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
Gov. Deval Patrick files legislation that would allow municipalities to change the terms of post-employment health insurance coverage owed to employees who will retire in more than five years, the Lowell Sun reports. Officials estimate savings of $20 billion over 30 years.
The Massachusetts House is leaning toward user fees instead of an income tax hike to pay for transportation improvements, the State House News reports (via CommonWealth).
Battle of the bands: Two South Shore reps want Aerosmith’s “Dream On” to be the state’s official rock song, a counter effort to a bill pushing the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner.”
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The Quincy City Council rejected a proposal to ban medical marijuana dispensaries within 1,500 feet of a school and is now considering a nine-month moratorium while members wait to see what state regulations will be.
The Lowell Retirement Board votes 4-1 to strip former License Commission Chairman Walter Bayliss Jr. of his pension, the Sun reports.
The Attorney General approved a new Swansea bylaw to abolish the elected — and highly dysfunctional — Recreation Commission, but one vocal member of the embattled panel says he intends to challenge the decision in court.
Cambridge’s new city manager will earn $330,000 per year.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Sen. Elizabeth Warren decries sequestration’s “mindless” approach to spending reductions, the Associated Press reports (via Telegram & Gazette). House Republicans seek leeway in instituting the spending cuts.
US Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer chastise an unnamed US attorney for race-baiting, NPR reports (via WBUR).
Prominent Republicans, including Meg Whitman and Jon Huntsman, sign a Supreme Court amicus brief arguing in favor of same-sex marriage.
ELECTIONS
Two different approaches are on display in the Democratic primary for US Senate, WBUR reports.
The Middleboro Board of Selectmen voted to move the town election from April 6 to April 30, the same day as the special Senate primary, to save money.
The Massachusetts Republican Party is trying to bridge the divide between its conservative and more moderate members. Meanwhile, Red Mass Group ponders the race for governor and a Brown-Baker primary.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Moody’s downgrade of Great Britain’s credit rating could be a warning sign for the United States of further downgrades here.
A Brockton area state representative has introduced a bill to give tax breaks to “angel” investors who put money into start-up businesses and higher tax credits if those businesses are in Gateway cities.
CommonWealth’s Paul McMorrow looks at “neighborhood-building” near North Station in his weekly Boston Globe column.
Brick and mortar retailers are snapping up tech companies and launching innovation labs to compete with web firms like Amazon and eBay.
EDUCATION
The state approved an application by Boston-based City on a Hill Charter School to open a high school in New Bedford despite opposition from Mayor Jon Mitchell and the city’s teachers’ union.
Saugus City Councilor Arthur Grabowski slams a proposed charter school for its Turkish ties and its similarities to a charter in Texas, the Item reports.
TRANSPORTATION
The National Review pans Virginia’s proposed billion-dollar transportation bill and its increased taxes (where have we heard that plan before?), which are backed by outgoing Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Massachusetts has asked federal transportation officials to temporarily shut down Fung Wah, the troubled discount bus carrier, after state inspectors discover serious safety issues with 21 buses.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
Time explains why the debt crisis trumps the climate crisis in Washington.
The fracking debate heats up in many states, Governing reports.
RELIGION
The Weekly Standard goes deep on potential successors to Pope Benedict XVI, giving no chance of the new leader of the Catholic church hailing from the United States.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The state Department of Children and Families is investigating a Brockton family after public uproar over their 9-year-old son, a rapper known as Lil’ Poopy whose video shows him dancing in sexually suggestive ways with adult women and singing graphic lyrics.
MEDIA
A North Carolina newspaper apologizes for seeking the names of gun-permit holders and permit applicants, Romenesko reports.
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson sues a Wall Street Journal reporter for describing him as a “foul-mouthed billionaire from working class Dorchester, Mass.”