THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE primary on September 1 is now less than 100 days away. If we want to avoid the horror stories we’ve seen from states like Wisconsin and Florida, then the Legislature needs to take action — and fast — to ensure we can have a high-participation election while protecting public health. So what does […]
Jonathan Cohn
Posted inEconomy
A stronger state safety net is part of the cure
LIFE UNDER QUARANTINE can easily cause many of us to lose track of time. But one date we should remember is this: Today marks one month since Gov. Charlie Baker issued a declaration of emergency. Have our state policymakers been responding with the needed urgency? Not really. The Legislature, now rightfully in remote function, has waived […]
Posted inOpinion
A New Year’s resolution for the Mass. House
THERE WAS SOMETHING different about the start of this legislative session in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. It wasn’t the composition: Yes, Democrats did manage to flip two seats, but a slightly more overwhelming super-majority isn’t much of a sea change. It was that Democrats were actually willing to stand up and demand a recorded […]
Posted inOpinion
Election Day voter registration is good for democracy
TODAY — THE FOURTH Tuesday of September—is National Voter Registration Day. It’s also the day that Boston voters will go to the polls for hotly contested preliminary elections for City Council. If the past is any guide, turnout will be low (we’ll be lucky if it passes 10 percent), a product of both apathy and […]
Posted inOpinion
Don’t let corporations limit our policy ambitions
LAST SESSION, one of the only significant bills that Massachusetts legislators passed before budget season was sweeping legislation to raise their own pay. By contrast, this year, the Legislature has already passed important bills to lift a retrograde welfare cap and ban the homophobic and abusive practice of conversion therapy. This could be a sign […]
Posted inOpinion
Beware of Rodrigues’s ‘boring middle’
OVER THE PAST few legislative sessions, progressives have looked to the Massachusetts Senate as a beacon of progressive policymaking. Across a range of issues, the Senate has been willing to pass bold and expansive bills that end up watered down—or dead on arrival—in the more conservative, top-down House. However, Senate President Karen Spilka’s choice of […]
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 State address. The mad dash to file bills and secure co-sponsorships will start—and end—in the blink of an eye. But we’re not there yet. Now […]
Posted inOpinion
House’s Trump working group hasn’t done much
LAST MARCH, a self-described “deeply worried” Speaker Robert DeLeo created a nine-member working group to guide responses to the “unprecedented actions” of the Trump administration. The group, led by House Majority Leader Ron Mariano of Quincy and House Speaker Pro Tempore Pat Haddad of Somerset, consisted of Assistant Majority Leader Byron Rushing of Boston, Ways […]
Posted inOpinion
Fiscal irresponsibility from Mass Fiscal Alliance
IN DECEMBER, when you open your mailbox, you’re used to the usual flow of holiday cards from relatives and old friends, as well as end-of-year fundraising solicitations. However, residents of towns from Pittsfield to Hull recently got something else: an incendiary mailer attacking select legislators for their support of the Safe Communities Act and warning […]
Posted inOpinion
Make National Voter Registration Day worth celebrating
TODAY IS National Voter Registration Day. It also happens to be the day of Boston’s preliminary election. But there’s one way that Boston residents won’t be able to celebrate today’s holiday: registering at the polls. That’s because Massachusetts remains an outlier in New England in not embracing same day registration. Maine has allowed people to […]