IN A MARATHON all night session, the Massachusetts Legislature finally finished many of their key priorities of the 2021-2022 legislative session, even as one key priority – tax reform – […]
Legislature
Posted inOpinion, State Government
On Beacon Hill, it’s last-minute business as usual
AS THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE slogs to the finish line, having once again ceded its super Democratic majority, this time to a lame duck governor, it’s fair to ask how does […]
Posted inPolitics
Reform advocates will press for changes in House rules
WHEN THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE sets its rules for the new two-year session, a group of advocates and lawmakers will renew their attempts to introduce more transparency into frequently opaque House […]
Posted inPolitics
Sweating it out on Beacon Hill like it’s July
THE WEATHER IS cold, Christmas lights are still up. But on Beacon Hill, the mood is more like July 31 – the traditional last day of formal sessions during the […]
Posted inOpinion
A holiday wish list for legislative action on housing
WHEN IT COMES to Massachusetts affordable housing policy, it is easy to have a vigorous debate about whether the glass is half full or half empty – and both sides would have […]
Posted inPolitics
Legislative candidates seek election do-overs
DOING THE SAME thing again and expecting a different result may be the definition of insanity, as the saying goes, but some legislative candidates are doing it anyway. This November, […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
Republicans allege power grab in rules debate
THE NORMALLY CONGENIAL dealings of the Massachusetts House of Representatives turned into a scene of vituperative charges and countercharges being hurled across the partisan divide on Wednesday as lawmakers struggled […]
Posted inPolitics
Baker tries to nudge House and Senate toward agreement
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER has seen House Speaker Robert DeLeo’s offer of a barebones closeout budget deal to break a logjam on Beacon Hill and, like any confident poker player, raised […]
Posted inPolitics
Kaufman: ‘No diversity of opinion’ in DeLeo’s inner circle
FORMER REP. JAY KAUFMAN continued his recent lambasting of House Speaker Robert DeLeo during a panel discussion Wednesday about the lack of racial and gender diversity in Massachusetts government. The […]
Posted inPolitics
Former rep backs up Kaufman’s account
FORMER STATE REP Cleon Turner remembers it well. Jay Kaufman was in an aisle of the House chamber in 2013 venting about how Speaker Robert DeLeo had told him that […]
Posted inPolitics
DeLeo to seek yet another term as speaker
HOUSE SPEAKER Robert DeLeo, who four years ago oversaw the scuttling of term limits on his reign, said he doesn’t plan to leave anytime soon and intends to seek another […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Families want to end prison phone call charges
AYANA AUBOURG MET her father Winchel Aubourg as an infant while he was behind bars for a drug-related crime. For the next 17 years, she spoke with him over the […]
Posted inOpinion
A resolution for Legislature: Finish last year’s work
IN A FEW short days, the next legislative session in the Massachusetts State House will begin. New legislators will be sworn in. The governor will give his State of the […]
Posted inOpinion
Do no harm on health care spending
WHEN THE LEGISLATURE reconvenes and takes up the unresolved challenge of shoring up the bottom lines of financially stressed community hospitals, lawmakers would do well to keep in mind the […]
Posted inHealth Care
Past time to get serious about health care costs
LAST SEPTEMBER, Pioneer observed that Massachusetts had dodged a federal bullet when the US Senate failed by one vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Had they succeeded, the Commonwealth […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
Communities seek change on pot opt-out
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE UNCERTAINTY OVER THE PROCESS cities and towns must follow to opt out of the sprouting legal marijuana market has sparked confusion across the state and needs […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
For marijuana law, now the ‘Grown-Up’s Hour’
MANY OF US have listened to Longfellow’s poem that reminds us that there “Comes a pause in the day’s occupations, that is known as the Children’s Hour.” Now that democracy […]
Posted inPolitics
Not the usual faces in state Senate race
FOR DECADES, AN East Boston resident has held the state Senate seat representing the First Suffolk and Middlesex District, which extends north from the neighborhood to Revere and reaches west […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Criminal justice reform bill stalls
A BILL TO end the mandatory suspension of the driver’s license of any drug offender, which looked like it was sailing through the State House as a consensus-winning, early step […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Transportation
On ride-sharing, Legislature must embrace innovation
MASSACHUSETTS HAS BEEN the cradle of innovation since our country’s birth. Big ideas, groundbreaking solutions and global advances in technology, medicine, government and education have been launched in our Commonwealth. […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
Earned sick time is good for workers — and businesses
MASSACHUSETTS VOTERS PASSED the earned sick time ballot question by an overwhelming margin last November and the Commonwealth’s new earned sick time law is scheduled to begin on July 1. […]
Posted inPolitics
Senate ups ante in battle with House
IN A SHARP escalation of the infighting gripping Beacon Hill, the Senate took a major step Wednesday toward remaking the legislative process by ending the longstanding system of joint committees […]
Posted inPolitics
Beacon Hill showdown looming
AN INCREASINGLY ACRIMONIOUS battle between the House and Senate over legislative rules is heading toward a breaking point, as Senate President Stan Rosenberg said on Tuesday afternoon that the Senate […]
Posted inPolitics
President-in-waiting
IF LIFE HAD taken a different turn, Stan Rosenberg might be an Orthodox Jewish rabbi today. That was his ambition while studying for his bar mitzvah in the early 1960s […]
