LEADERS IN THE Massachusetts Senate are vowing to overhaul the pay structure for Senate staff, after a confidential report found that the Senate lacks transparency in how salaries are set and has no consistency in job titles and roles. The Senate’s struggles to ensure fair pay for its own staff come despite Senate leadership in […]
Massachusetts Senate
Posted inHealth Care
Senate misfires with prescription drug bill
ON THURSDAY, the Massachusetts Senate passed another ill-considered piece of legislation, Senate Bill 2651, that would impose price controls on one of Massachusetts most important economic sectors, biopharmaceuticals. The bill is ill-considered because its authors assume, as they say in their press release, that the legislation is necessary because of “rapidly rising prescription drug costs.” This […]
Posted inHealth Care
Senate passes mental health bill
SEN. JULIAN CYR has struggled with anxiety and depression since childhood. As a boy who was gay, he was bullied in school, had panic attacks and developed an eating disorder. Therapy helped him manage his anxiety. But Cyr still cannot get his health insurance to cover his outpatient mental health care. “I’m a pretty savvy […]
Posted inEconomy
Senate goes light on short-term rental regs
THE MASSACHUSETTS SENATE has passed its bill for short-term-rentals, a stripped-down version of the House measure that simplifies the tax on hosts and eliminates any tiered structure so that people offering a single room in their home are treated the same as the investor with scores of units for rent. The Senate bill, passed on […]
Posted inPolitics
Chaos in the Senate?
THE AWKWARD TRANSITION from Senate President Harriette Chandler to Senate president-elect Karen Spilka makes for great copy, but it doesn’t seem to be having a huge impact on the chamber’s legislative output. Senators are still processing legislation. (Criminal justice reform emerged from a conference committee a little over a week ago.) Votes are being taken. […]
Posted inThe Download
Chaos in the Senate?
The awkward transition from Senate President Harriette Chandler to Senate president-elect Karen Spilka makes for great copy, but it doesn’t seem to be having a huge impact on the chamber’s legislative output. Senators are still processing legislation. (Criminal justice reform emerged from a conference committee a little over a week ago.) Votes are being taken. […]
Posted inThe Back Story
Spilka followed Rosenberg playbook
Sen. Karen Spilka of Ashland appears to have followed the playbook of the former Senate president, Stan Rosenberg, in pulling together the votes she needed to become the chamber’s next president. At a meeting with reporters outside the Senate president’s office on Thursday, Spilka offered little in the way of a personal vision for what […]
Posted inThe Back Story
Special elections ready-made for insiders
THE CANDIDATES ARE off and running in the short sprint to the April 3 special election primary to fill the state Senate seat vacated in late January by Linda Forry. The race is sure to generate some excitement for political junkies, but it could also be seen as grounds for some unease and misgivings about […]
Posted inPolitics
Chandler no longer “acting”
SENATE DEMOCRATS AGREED to remove the “acting” title from Senate President Harriette Chandler for the remainder of the year before holding an election for a new president, deciding the storm clouds hovering over Sen. Stan Rosenberg were overwhelming the chamber’s business and precluding any comeback by the former president at least this year and maybe […]
Posted inThe Download
Sharp elbows in fight to replace Rosenberg
It’s pretty much a given now that former Senate President Stan Rosenberg will remain just that – former – and the possibility exists he may not even remain in the Senate. There’s blood in the water and the sharks are circling and word could come as soon as today that the Democrats in the chamber will […]