THE PREDOMINANCE OF white male politicians in positions of power in Massachusetts may be a symptom of the way elections are run, according to a report released Wednesday entitled MassForward. The report recommends addressing the lack of minority representation in state and local government through reforms big and small, from relieving legislative staffers from the often […]
Andy Metzger
Andy Metzger is currently studying law at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously, he joined CommonWealth Magazine as a reporter in January 2019. He has covered news in Massachusetts since 2007. For more than six years starting in May 2012 he wrote about state politics and government for the State House News Service. At the News Service, he followed three criminal trials from opening statements to verdicts, tracked bills through the flumes and eddies of the Legislature, and sounded out the governor’s point of view on a host of issues – from the proposed Olympics bid to federal politics.
Before that, Metzger worked at the Chelmsford Independent, The Arlington Advocate, the Somerville Journal and the Cambridge Chronicle, weekly community newspapers that cover an array of local topics. Metzger graduated from UMass Boston in 2006. In addition to his written journalism, Metzger produced a work of illustrated journalism about Gov. Charlie Baker’s record regarding the MBTA. He lives in Somerville and commutes mainly by bicycle.
Posted inTransportation
Fed review of I-90 project begins with a blackout
RECONFIGURING THE MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE in Allston and building a new transit station there will create construction disruption approaching the scale required for the Big Dig, so it was either inauspicious or fitting that the first federal public comment meeting Thursday night ended early because of a power outage. The meeting was nearing its final phase […]
Posted inPolitics
New Methuen mayor has tall task
IT WAS the most explosive Massachusetts mayoral election north of the Taunton River. In Methuen, political newcomer Neil Perry trounced City Council Chairwoman Jennifer Kannan to take over a city still reeling from a decision made years ago under a previous mayor. Consternation over a police contract that would have given astronomic raises to superior […]
Posted inTransportation
Lime riders traverse dangerous roadways
PEOPLE RENTING BIKES through an app often travel down dangerous roadways, such as Revere Beach Parkway, according to a planning agency that is hoping to sift the travel patterns of those cyclists to inform future decisions about transportation infrastructure. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council facilitated contracts between multiple Boston suburbs and Lime, a bike-sharing company, […]
Posted inTransportation
Spilka won’t commit to take up tax bill
WHILE HOUSE SPEAKER ROBERT DELEO plans to advance a transportation revenue bill within the next few weeks, Senate President Karen Spilka is taking a more cautious approach, and might not follow suit if the House does act on a tax bill. After meeting with DeLeo and Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday, Spilka would not commit […]
Posted inPolitics
Trahan changes tune on campaign cash
CONGRESSWOMAN LORI TRAHAN wouldn’t look as bad right now if she had accurately explained the source of a last minute campaign-cash infusion soon after she was first asked about it. From the time the Boston Globe’s Andrea Estes first started poking around about it earlier this year, there was strong suggestion that her husband, businessman David […]
Posted inPolitics
Senate chair knocks House handling of tax break
AT A STANDSTILL over a corporate tax break, the Legislature on Thursday recessed for the remainder of the week without completing work on a bill wrapping up budgetary matters for the fiscal year that ended in June. An arcane tax policy has become a divisive policy issue, in part because of the potential cost of […]
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 if he didn’t vote for a controversial tax proposal, he would lose his chairmanship of the Revenue Committee. “The speaker let him know: ‘Well, we […]
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 two-year term as leader of the chamber. The 69-year-old Winthrop Democrat who first joined the House in 1991 told the State House News Service on […]
Posted inPolitics
Ex-rep: DeLeo told me, vote for transpo bill or lose chairmanship
JAY KAUFMAN, THE former state rep from Lexington, remembers a conversation he had with House Speaker Robert DeLeo the last time the Legislature considered raising taxes to pay for transportation. It was 2013, the morning before the House vote on a bill that would raise the gas tax 3 cents, index that tax to inflation […]