A ballot question aiming to reform the Legislature’s controversial system of stipends would reach beyond capping the value or number available. It would also require legislative committees to follow new review and voting procedures as a prerequisite to earning bigger paychecks.
Ron Mariano
Posted inEnvironment
Ratepayer revolt: Has the affordability debate soured Mass. on climate commitments?
Fighting climate change was once a badge of honor in Massachusetts, embraced by virtually all Democrats and even a lot of Republicans. But as households grapple with soaring energy bills, elected officials have become much more squeamish about the topic.
Posted inState Government
Mariano weighs in on energy bill savings, audit preferences
“Mariano described the House energy bill as an attempt to strip away some of the public policy charges that have accumulated on electric and gas bills over the last two decades as Massachusetts sought to incentivize a transition away from fossil fuels.”
Posted inPolitics
Often at odds, Mariano and Spilka united by ballot question frustration
As the Legislature prepares to review 11 ballot questions with major policymaking implications, the top two Democrats came together to complain that the process is “fraught with peril.”
Posted inEnergy
House energy chair must be removed from post over his controversial climate bill, Mass. Sierra Club says
The move kicks the already-high tension around energy issues in Massachusetts up a notch and offers somewhat of a finer point on the political fallout from Cusack’s proposal last year.
Posted inState Government
What to expect when you’re expecting (legislative action)
Major policy issues like housing affordability, primary care access, and utility bills loom over Beacon Hill in 2026, when voters could also decide a dozen ballot questions and pick statewide elected officials.
Posted inHousing
Beacon Hill clears hurdle for Weymouth naval air base redevelopment
After a series of stops and starts stretching back 15-plus years, Beacon Hill is on the verge of removing one of the last remaining obstacles to redevelopment of the former naval air base in Weymouth.
Posted inState Government
Legislature downshifts into holiday mode after short burst of activity
What reached Gov. Maura Healey’s desk, and what’s still on hold until 2026 now that the Legislature is done with major business for the year?
Posted inEnergy
House punts on sweeping energy bill that would dial back state climate commitments
After intense blowback to a draft House bill to weaken the state’s 2030 clean energy target, the chamber’s budget chief says the topic is on hold until next year.
Posted inPublic Records
DiZoglio’s effort to audit the Legislature remains stalled. So she wants voters to change the law, again.
The nascent ballot question campaign seeking to subject the Legislature and the governor’s office to the public records law has a new leader: Auditor Diana DiZoglio, who views the measure as a way to circumvent opposition to her effort to audit the House and Senate.
Posted inEnergy
House moves forward with bill to weaken 2030 climate goals
The plan reverberating around Beacon Hill, as first reported by CommonWealth Beacon last week, is sure to put lawmakers in a politically difficult position and test their willingness to defend the climate commitments enacted just four years ago.
Posted inEnergy
‘We will fill the State House’: Advocates gird for a showdown over House plan to dial back climate commitments
The effort is bound to divide the Democratic supermajority on Beacon Hill and test officials’ willingness to defend the state’s climate policies just as winter hits and Healey mounts a reelection bid.
Posted inEnergy
House energy chair signals effort to dial back 2030 climate commitments
Rep. Mark Cusack, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, said he is pushing for his redraft of Gov. Maura Healey’s energy affordability bill to receive a floor vote before lawmakers break for the year on November 19.
Posted inOpinion
Why the Democratic supermajority on Beacon Hill won’t pass Democratic bills
Sooner or later, enough people will learn how democracy in Massachusetts is a lie. When they do, leadership’s iron grip will crack, not because those in power wanted to change, but because voters finally forced them to.
Posted inState House News Service
Senate president says federal government ‘working against us’
During an interview televised Sunday morning, Spilka echoed comments made earlier in the year by House Speaker Ron Mariano, who said Massachusetts had “lost our federal partner.”
Posted inState Government
Keenan’s stand for transparency
State Sen. John Keenan is hardly a rabble-rousing bomb thrower, a point that underscores how uncontroversial one might think it is to call for legislators to be given time to read bills before they come to the floor and for their votes on legislation to be recorded for their constituents and others to see.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Ron Mariano, media critic | First lady or first partner?
“I mean, you guys have an obligation to write what’s really gonna happen,” House Speaker Ron Mariano huffed.
Posted inHousing
House Democrats outline $6.2 billion housing plan
With sky-high sale prices and rents suffocating residents, the House will try to shift the tide by pumping more money into existing housing programs and rolling out a few new strategies.
Posted inHealth Care
House votes to strengthen control of health system expansions
FIRING A SHOT across the bow of the state’s leading hospital networks, the House voted nearly unanimously on Wednesday to give a state health commission more authority to scrutinize expansion […]
Posted inPolitics
In-person meetings could reset relations between Baker, lawmakers
COULD THE RETURN of the “stale cookies” improve relations between Gov. Charlie Baker and legislative leaders? For most of his two terms in office, the Republican governor appeared to have […]
Posted inEnvironment
How to build an industry to support offshore wind
AFTER SIGNING the climate change bill into law on Friday, Gov. Charlie Baker and House Speaker Ron Mariano began an interesting discussion about how the state should go about building […]