THE STATE’S HEALTH POLICY COMMISSION on Wednesday said it is time for Massachusetts policymakers to address the glaring disparity between what hospitals charge for services even when there is no […]
Massachusetts politics
Posted inEconomy, Politics
ML Strategies scores win with GE
GENERAL ELECTRIC’S DECISION to relocate its headquarters and 800 jobs to Boston was a big victory for Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker, but it was also another […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
DeLeo rips Globe for ‘painful’ analogy
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE HOUSE SPEAKER ROBERT DELEO lashed out at the Boston Globe Friday afternoon, asking for an apology after the broadsheet likened the House to a plantation. The […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, State House News Service
Massachusetts seeing population growth
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE POPULATION OF MASSACHUSETTS is growing at a rate about three times more rapid than surrounding states, a good sign for the state’s economy and its […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Hefner causing unwelcome laughs
It’s hard to say who is the punch line in the saga of Bryon Hefner, the 28-year-old fiancé of Senate President Stan Rosenberg, whose loose-cannon persona is causing headaches for the […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Rosenberg’s fiance says he may run for Senate
This is awkward. Byron Hefner says he is “strongly considering” running for a seat in the Massachusetts Senate, which is led by his fiance, Senate President Stanley Rosenberg. The 28-year-old […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Baker vs Moulton: Preview of a heavyweight fight?
It has all the markings of a heavyweight match-up: The stare-downs, the accusations, the well-defined contrast in style, and the loyal camps for each side. The spat between Gov. Charlie […]
Posted inPolitics
All bases covered at ML Strategies
(Updated October 20, 2015. A correction was added to the chart of leading lobbying firms.) Photographs by Frank Curran IT WAS CRUNCH TIME in the battle for a Greater Boston casino […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Reform through destruction
JERRY MILLER DIED in August in Virginia after a long illness. He was 83. Few people in Massachusetts now remember his name, but for several years in the early 1970s […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Baker gets a pass from Dems
If the state’s Republican governor — he of the sky-high poll numbers, the cabinet littered with Democrats, and a bromantic attachment to Boston’s union-bred mayor — was going to get […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Political gab hour hits Hub
Think of them as falling somewhere between Meet the Press and The Late Show. This week saw the third installment of the Boston Globe’s Political Happy Hour as Boston Mayor […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Voting, for a change
On the upside, the number of people who voted in yesterday’s preliminaries in Boston and other cities was higher than the usual poll sampling. On the other hand, that ain’t […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Majority rules
While it didn’t start with its passage in 1980, Proposition 2½ opened the eyes of activists to what could be done through the ballot to change the laws in Massachusetts. […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Rivera: Pushing for change creates enemies
A group in Lawrence is mounting a campaign to recall Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera from office. What follows is the mayor’s response to that effort. His mention of landlords “looking […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Raising a stink at Boston City Council
Resolved: There is no good time and it never looks good for elected officials to propose and vote on their own raises. But, really, doesn’t City Councilor Bill Linehan, in rejecting […]
Posted inOpinion, Transportation
Funds are there for North-South Rail Link
THE NEXT TIME you decide to write about a major transportation project that two former governors strongly support and in which they were deeply involved during their terms in the corner […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Instant runoff voting could improve Boston elections
ACROSS THE COUNTRY, voter turnout in local elections has steadily dropped. Electorates for local elections are a shell of what they once were — and of what they could be, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion, The Back Story
Fact-checking the state’s incarceration rate
In the debate over mandatory minimum sentences and corrections reform, those resisting major changes say there is little need for wholesale reform because the state incarceration rate is so low. […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Another education storm brewing
It is, like a tropical depression, nothing to be concerned about yet but it has the potential to develop into a full-blown hurricane, the likes of which haven’t been seen in […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
Tom Brady’s politics
Ever since Tom Brady skipped the New England Patriots’ White House visit late last month, there has been endless speculation on talk radio and in print about why the team […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Rosenberg and DeLeo at odds — again
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE ANOTHER RIFT has opened between the House and Senate, this time over whether senators can consider changes in tax policy when they debate their annual state […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Deval Patrick gains with Bain
Deval Patrick never made any secret of his desire to return to the private sector after leaving the governor’s office. After toe dipping in academia at MIT and a false […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Opinion
Lessons from Ferguson
FOR MONTHS WE’VE all watched the travesty in Ferguson, Missouri, unfold from the death of Michael Brown, to the militarized police response to public protest, to the Department of Justice […]
Posted inPolitics, The Back Story
The price of leadership
CORRECTION: Several corrections were made to the original version of this story, all of them dealing with the pay of leadership positions in the House. Specifically, Rep. Jonathan Hecht’s leadership […]