Kirsten Hughes must, at times, feel like King Sisyphus. Though Hughes, the chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, has never been accused of being deceitful like the Corinthian ruler of Greek mythology, she must have done something to be tasked with pushing an enormous boulder up Beacon Hill, only to watch it roll back down, flattening the struggling GOP in its path.

How else to explain the latest black eye of would-be gubernatorial challenger and self-described Tea Party flag bearer Mark Fisher allegedly demanding $1 million to drop his legal challenge to get on the September primary ballot? Through the years, there have been many candidates viewed as buying their way onto the ballot and into office but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone trying to get bought off the slate.

The Boston Globe‘s Frank Phillips today reports that Fisher, a Shrewsbury businessman, wants to be “made whole” for his attempts to run for the Republican nomination against the presumptive GOP candidate Charlie Baker. By the slimmest of margins, Fisher failed to garner the necessary 15 percent at the party’s convention in March and Fisher claims there was some shenanigans behind the scenes that thwarted his Quixotic run.

Fisher filed suit and there have been ongoing negotiations, with some in the party hierarchy who support Baker, pushing for a settlement to allow Fisher on the ballot to both appease the conservative base and as a way of keeping Baker out of the shadow of a heated Democratic primary by giving him an opponent to talk about.

  

Phillips reports an agreement was nigh with an offer to put Fisher on the ballot but the ersatz candidate either rejected the offer or did not respond by last night’s deadline, depending upon whose version you listen to, and instead lowered his $1 million demand to $650,000. Part of Hughes’ problem, and in turn Baker, is that it was GOP insiders who leaked the letter containing the demand to Phillips, showing a party still more comfortable with eating their own rather than uniting against the Democrats.

“I advised you and your client, as well as my own clients, that . . . in layman’s terms ‘buying people off the ballot’ is illegal,” the GOP’s attorney Louis Ciavarra wrote to Fisher’s lawyer, Thomas M. Harvey, in a letter yesterday.

Harvey confirmed the initial demand but said it was a “starting point” and said the $650,000 was also negotiable, noting Fisher has poured personal money into the campaign so far.  State campaign finance records show Fisher has loaned his campaign more than $340,000 so far.

“Mark Fisher wants to be made whole financially,” Harvey said.

The demands and the suit, though, could be moot and that is another reflection of the problems Republicans are facing in one of the country’s bluest states. Fisher so far has a little more than half the required 10,000 certified signatures to have his name placed on the ballot and the deadline for certification is next Tuesday. And the deadline to file signatures was yesterday, so if the petitions Fisher’s team filed fail to produce enough certified signatures, his suit and efforts are moot.

In addition, two other GOP candidates for statewide office are sweating out the certification deadline. Both Brian Herr, a Hopkinton selectman mounting a challenge to US Sen. Edward Markey, and Winchester attorney John Miller, looking to run for Attorney General, each have about 6,500 of the needed 10,000 signatures and things aren’t looking good.

In the six special elections so far this year to fill legislative seats, Republican failed to mount a challenge in half of them and lost all six, including one that had been Republican. Long gone are the halcyon days when garnering enough seats – 14 of 40 — in the Senate to uphold then-Gov. William Weld’s vetoes was considered a monumental victory. Now just getting someone to run is a chance to cheer.

In a state where 1 in 9 voters are registered Republicans, they can ill-afford the constant missteps taking place or present a fractured front to an electorate.

–JACK SULLIVAN  

BEACON HILL

Cape Cod is in a furor over a move by Rep. Michael Costello, a Newburyport Democrat, to block a local shellfisherman from expanding his territory.

The Herald dives deep into Beacon Hill’s closed-door culture, spotlighting Room 348, the members-only room where policy debates play out; leadership’s tight control over the lawmaking process; the the rapid-fire pace major bills get dealt with. CommonWealth delved into the same themes in this Spring 2012 feature.

Charlie Baker argues against moving the state’s health connector onto HealthCare.gov in this Herald op-ed column.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

In the 11 days since New Bedford‘s fire and police departments have been administering Narcan, the drug used to rapidly counter opiate overdoses, they have reversed nearly one overdose a day.

Marshfield voters approved a bylaw to ban public smoking of marijuana but allow those with a medical certificate to use it in non-smoking forms.

The Greater Lowell United Football Club applies for licenses to sell liquor at games this spring and summer in Lawrence, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

Marshfield Town Meeting again votes down the Community Preservation Act, the Salem News reports.

GAMBLING

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is trying to ramp up last-minute talks with local casino developers, but a meeting is scheduled only with Mohegan Sun-Brigade Capital and not with Wynn Enterprises, CommonWealth reports. A Herald report is here.

The Globe reports that gambling commission chairman Steve Crosby mingled with track officials and the casino-pursuing mayor of Revere at a swank Suffolk Downs party last Saturday to mark the opening of the track’s season and the running of the Kentucky Derby. The state’s former inspector general says Crosby’s appearance at the soiree was “wholly inappropriate.”

Shirley Leung picks up on the fact that Deval Patrick has been a decidedly unenthusiastic champion of the casino era that he ushered in. (And while remarking that he’s eager not to have gambling be a highlight of his legacy, she pulls out of mothballs the “Governor Slots” moniker former Globe columnist Steve Bailey attached to Patrick.)

The Globe, too, has been showing some buyer’s remorse over its backing of casinos, the latest evidence being today’s editorial urging the Supreme Judicial Court to allow on the November ballot a question that would repeal the casino law.

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduces legislation allowing students to refinance existing debt at current, lower rates, WBUR reports.

Many states, including Massachusetts, are grappling with how to provide better oversight of IT projects, Governing reports.

ELECTIONS

Former Florida governor Charlie Crist, who was once a Republican, then an Independent and now a Democrat, says he made the switch because of the party’s racist attitudes towards President Obama. Crist is running for governor against Rick Scott, the current chief executive.

Early GOP primary fights favor the party’s establishment over its tea party wing.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court hears arguments on whether Tesla can sell its cars directly to consumers instead of through dealerships, WBUR reports.

The Boston Fed will cut 160 jobs, or about 15 percent of its workforce, over the next three to four years.

Cities are leaning on apartments, rather than office space, to drive economic development.

EDUCATION

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is aiming to double the number of preschool students by 2018, WBUR reports.

Marshfield became one of the few communities in the state that will require seat belts on school buses as voters approved a Town Meeting measure to put the restraints in buses beginning in 2016.

Swansea officials say the number of homeless students in the district has “fluctuated daily” since the state began housing displaced families at a local motel since the start of the school year, months after the budget had already been in place.

A Swampscott couple donates $500,000 and the Catholic Schools Foundation chips in another $500,000 to support three Catholic schools in Lynn, the Item reports.

Boston College is offering to return to subjects recordings made of interviews with them about the conflict in Northern Ireland in order to head off any potential further efforts by investigators looking into crimes committed during the Troubles to obtain the interview material from the college.

A Gallup poll finds that many college graduates believe that attending an elite college isn’t necessary to succeed.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

A new federal report says climate change is already affecting the United States and it’s getting worse, USA Today reports. The Northeast is being hit harder than any other region of the country by its effects, reports the Globe. The New York Times compares American public opinion on climate change to the globe’s.

The town of Fairhaven won yet another legal challenge to its two wind turbines but the suits are beginning to take a financial toll on the community.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

The MetroWest Daily News suggests that police should “knock first” after gun wielding police burst in on an innocent Framingham family one morning.

Prosecutors said a Brockton man charged with vehicular homicide purposely struck the victim then repeatedly drove over the man’s body before fleeing the scene.

MEDIA

A new study of journalism finds the average age of journalists has gone up to 47, women have made some gains in numbers but still trail in wages, and more than 80 percent use social media to “promote myself and my work.” The survey also finds only 7 percent say they are Republicans while more than half of journalists identify themselves as independent politically, up from only a third who identified themselves as independent a decade ago.

The Telegram & Gazette, on the block after being purchased along with the Globe byRed Sox owner John Henry, has ended the long-standing practice of free home delivery for its retired employees, who will be given free digital subscriptions instead.

Vanity Fair promos an upcoming article Monica Lewinsky is writing about her affair with Bill Clinton. “It was a consensual relationship,” she says.Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus opines that Lewinsky may be doing Hillary Clinton “a big favor.” Let the why-this, why-now speculation begin.