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CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
"Budget gap" has "easy fixes"
for those honestly seeking them
|
Beacon Hill is bracing for a round of state
budget cuts from Governor Charlie Baker. Again.
Just weeks after the Republican signed a $39
billion state budget into law, Democratic legislators say
they expect him to use his executive authority — as he did
this year — to chop programs they support, but he says the
state can’t afford.
The fiscal tug of war comes amid relatively
good economic times, raising a confounding question: Why
does Massachusetts, which has been in an economic recovery
for seven years, constantly careen from one budget gap to
another, with officials announcing, again and again, that
money coming in won’t cover expenses?
Conservatives insist spending is out of
control. Liberals blame a series of tax cuts instituted
around 2000. And Baker and the House of Representatives,
which is controlled by Democrats, have effectively blocked
any increase in taxes.
But several budget analysts and a Globe
review of state data paint a more complicated picture, with
three notable root causes of the enduring budget crisis:
ballooning health care costs, weaker tax revenue increases
than in every other economic recovery in the modern era, and
policy makers’ addiction to fiscal gimmicks that allow them
to avoid hard choices....
State spending on Medicaid, the health
program for the poor and disabled, has skyrocketed —
generally outpacing inflation, personal income, and tax
revenue growth. The program eats up an increasingly large
portion of the budget pie, constraining the cash available
for everything else, from education to support for cities
and towns. Medicaid now makes up more than a third of state
spending, up from less than a fifth in 2000....
And policy makers have, budget after budget,
used quick fixes instead of making tough choices. They’ve
diverted and drained billions meant for the state’s
emergency savings account. They’ve put off until next year
bills that were meant to be paid this year. They’ve used
money meant for pensions and retiree health care to plug
short-term budget holes. And they’ve repeatedly made
unrealistically optimistic projections that allow them to
balance budgets at the cost of burdening future lawmakers.
“Now, we’re running out of gimmicks,” said
Eileen McAnneny, president of the business-backed
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
In the fiscal year that ended last summer,
policy makers used $1.2 billion in one-time revenues and
savings to balance the budget, according to the state’s
independent financial report. They used $621 million in
tax revenue meant for the state’s emergency rainy day fund,
pension fund, and retiree benefits fund. They put off
payment of $170 million in Medicaid bills until the next
year. They relied on hundreds of millions of dollars from
one-time maneuvers, such as selling a state office
building....
In total, the various budget maneuvers are
the equivalent of a family balancing its budget by draining
the savings account, racking up credit card debt, diverting
money meant for retirement, selling a car, and expecting
there will be unrealistically low medical costs for a sick
child in the year ahead....
Spending on Medicaid, called MassHealth in
Massachusetts, rose almost 15 percent from the fiscal year
that ended in June 2014 to the one that ended last summer.
But over the same period tax revenue grew just over 6
percent.
“The biggest difficulty the state faces in
closing the circle on the state budget is health care
costs,” said Jim Stergios, who directs the
conservative-leaning Pioneer Institute.
Stergios points to the climb in the number
of people enrolled in Medicaid as part of the reason for
rapidly rising costs for the state. In the fiscal year that
ended in 2001, there were 998,000 people enrolled in the
program. Last fiscal year, officials estimate there were
1.85 million members....
Ultimately, the state’s decision to spend so
much on health care for the poor and disabled is a moral
choice, said Dr. Stuart Altman, chairman of the state’s
independent Health Policy Commission, which monitors
costs....
Asked if the current trajectory for Medicaid
spending is sustainable in Massachusetts, Altman was quick
to answer.
“Sure, it’s sustainable — as a state, we can
afford it,” he said, noting that taxes could be raised,
money shifted from other programs, priorities rearranged.
“It’s just a question of whether we want to or not.”
The Boston Globe
Monday, August 29, 2016
Mass. budget gap has no easy fixes
Every election year we wonder how
Republicans can slip any lower on the political power scale
in Massachusetts only to wonder again two years later.
Of course at the moment, the GOP holds the
critical governor’s office, and that has enormous value.
But in races for the House (160 seats) and
Senate (40 seats), for Congress (nine seats) and even for
Governor’s Council, sheriff and county commissioner, there
is a grand total of only five contested Republican primaries
this year. It’s a sad statement that the hottest contested
primary may be for Essex County sheriff.
But more problematic — at least in terms of
promoting a healthy democracy — is that the overwhelming
majority of legislative races will be entirely uncontested
in the general election. Republicans have managed to field a
candidate in only one-third of House races, and in fewer
than half the races for the state Senate....
Meanwhile, rather than waging an internal
battle within the state party between the Trumpians and
everyone else, Bay State Republicans ought to consider
coming together to boost their party’s participation in
legislative elections. They can’t win if they don’t play.
A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, August 29, 2016
Whither the Mass. GOP?
A top ally of Senate President Stanley C.
Rosenberg is urging supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders to
“take over” the state Democratic Party and unseat sitting
legislators, a rare break in State House decorum that
deepens the growing rift within the party.
“There are plenty of conservative Democrats
who have been elected, unchallenged, for years if not
decades, including at the local and legislative level,”
wrote state Senator Jamie Eldridge, a liberal stalwart whom
Rosenberg appointed Senate chairman of the financial
services committee.
E-mailing a group of Sanders supporters, the
Acton Democrat also contemplated the creation of a third,
progressive party. But he focused on a reform-from-within
approach to push the party to the left.
I personally think the time is ripe … for
Sanders supporters/progressives to ‘take over’ the
Massachusetts Democratic Party, and have a serious influence
on its platform, candidates, and policies,” he wrote....
But urging candidates to challenge
legislative colleagues in one’s own party is widely
considered a serious breach of intraparty politesse. In the
past, lawmakers have even protested when Republican
governors, such as Mitt Romney, sought to field GOP
challengers to incumbent Democrats.
“As a member of House leadership, I would
never seek an opponent for a Democratic colleague in either
branch,” said state Representative Michael J. Moran, a
Brighton Democrat who serves on DeLeo’s leadership team.
“It’s just something that isn’t good for the inner workings
of the Legislature, long-term.” ...
The House-Senate acrimony comes as
Democrats, who run the Legislature with vast majorities, are
still learning to deal with Governor Charlie Baker, the
Republican who ended eight years of Democratic hegemony with
his 2014 victory. Over the past two years, Baker has lined
up more frequently with DeLeo than Rosenberg on policy
issues.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, August 15, 2016
State lawmaker wants to go after conservative Dems
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Just a month into the new fiscal year and already "Beacon
Hill is bracing for a round of state budget cuts from Governor Charlie Baker.
Again."The Boston Globe reported "Just
weeks after the Republican signed a $39 billion state budget into law,
Democratic legislators say they expect him to use his executive authority — as
he did this year — to chop programs they support, but he says the state can’t
afford."
This is how budgeting works in the Legislature with a Republican governor.
The Legislature passes a bloated budget that everyone recognizes is not
affordable. The governor vetoes as much of the over-spending as he thinks
he can get away with, only to have his vetoes overridden by the Democrat
Legislature. Legislators run back to their districts to crow about what a
wonderful job they did bringing home the bacon. They know they've
overspent when they send out their self-congratulatory press releases, but most
constituents won't until too late, if at all. When and if the voters
realize the budget had to be cut, the Beacon Hill big-spenders will blame the
"heartless" governor.
This scheme was exposed on August 9 in a Boston Herald editorial ("More
budget roulette"):
. .
. Responding to a slowdown in expected revenues for
the fiscal year that began July 1, Baker had trimmed
$265 million in spending from the $39.1 billion
budget. The administration’s analysis determined
that the budget was underfunded in several areas,
prompting Baker to get out the red pen.
Always thinking optimistically about revenues — it
makes spending easier — lawmakers restored nearly
all of that spending in the final days of the
legislative session, including hundreds of earmarks.
Then they headed off to the campaign trail, where
they can crow about the funds they managed to secure
for the local harvest festival or gazebo repair.
And
Baker will be left to make the numbers add up.
The
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, in its budget
analysis, said “the extent of this year’s spending
overrides increases the likelihood of midyear budget
cuts.”
And
rest assured many lawmakers will be front-and-center
complaining about those cuts, should they come to
pass. . . .
The Boston Globe report points out the biggest budget-buster is Medicaid:
State spending on
Medicaid, the health program for the poor and disabled, has skyrocketed
— generally outpacing inflation, personal income, and tax revenue
growth. The program eats up an increasingly large portion of the budget
pie, constraining the cash available for everything else, from education
to support for cities and towns. Medicaid now makes up more than a third
of state spending, up from less than a fifth in 2000....
Spending on Medicaid, called MassHealth in Massachusetts, rose
almost 15 percent from the fiscal year that ended in June 2014 to the
one that ended last summer. But over the same period tax revenue grew
just over 6 percent.
“The biggest difficulty the state faces in closing the circle on the
state budget is health care costs,” said Jim Stergios, who directs the
conservative-leaning Pioneer Institute.
Stergios points to the climb in the number of people enrolled in
Medicaid as part of the reason for rapidly rising costs for the state.
In the fiscal year that ended in 2001, there were 998,000 people
enrolled in the program. Last fiscal year, officials estimate there were
1.85 million members.
In the CLT Update of Nov. 2, 2011 ("$93M
for illegals' health care — "the tip of the iceberg") we learned how much
the state was paying in increased healthcare costs for illegal aliens, and it
was an eye-opening shocker. According to the Boston Herald on Oct. 29,
2011:
A dogged freshman
lawmaker [Rep. Jim Lyons, R-Andover] who refused to budge from the House
chambers earlier this month until the Patrick administration came clean
on how much taxpayers coughed up last year for free health care to
illegal aliens finally got his answer yesterday: a whopping $93
million....The 58-year-old Andover Republican — who bucked Beacon Hill
by holding a sit-in in the House chambers two weeks ago — pried the
shocking report from state officials. It showed that nearly 55,000
illegal immigrants received more than $93 million in MassHealth benefits
for emergency medical services last year.
That was five years ago. Do you suppose that number has decreased since
then — or increased? Providing taxpayer-funded
state healthcare for tens of thousands of illegal aliens certainly adds to the
number of enrolled recipients and explains the skyrocketing cost of the state's
biggest budget-buster. How hard would it be to control that spiraling cost
— if that was the actual goal?
Monday's Boston Globe report also noted:
Policy makers also
engaged in another frequent Beacon Hill gimmick: projecting
unrealistically low costs for services such as housing homeless
families, funding sheriffs, and lawyers who defend indigent defendants.
(They had to supplement those areas with more money later in the year.)
The CLT Update of June 22, 2016 ("More
to give away, nothing for taxpayers?") included a June 20 report by the
Boston Globe, "Costs
at heart of emergency shelter eligibility debate," which noted:
In the fiscal year that
ends on June 30, the state is projected to spend almost $200 million on
housing for homeless families, and tens of millions of dollars more on a
program that provides up to $8,000 to help pay for rent, utilities, and
other expenses so families can stay in their homes, or defray the costs
of staying with a friend or relative....
Massachusetts is the country’s only right-to-shelter state.
In
my commentary I wrote:
I can't help but wonder
what the qualifications are for "emergency housing" that in reality
amounts to a free motel room for months and months. My first question
is: Must a recipient of "our largesse" be a citizen of Massachusetts, or
even a citizen of the United States? My money is on "no" — that
perceived "need" is the only requirement. As the only state in the
nation with a "right-to-shelter" (signed into law in 1983 by Gov.
Michael Dukakis), and with the state Senate now trying to ease its
eligibility requirements, I suspect this would make Massachusetts an
even greater magnet for illegal immigration and an attraction for
residents of other states, along with other attendant "public
assistance" costs.
This is the government we get in a state with one party dominating the
Legislature. Maybe that's not the government you and I deserve, but
we're in the minority — and apparently there's
bleak hope of that situation changing anytime soon. The opposition
Republican party isn't offering voters much of a choice this November, with very
few Republicans even on the ballot. There are only a third of state House
races where incumbents will be challenged, and less than half in the Senate will
face any opposition.
There does appear to be a growing appetite for challenging incumbents
nonetheless — among Democrats! For
some Democrats, their party isn't liberal enough, so there is a growing
movement to oust what passes for "conservative" Democrats, replace them with
socialist Sandernistas.
Just when you thought things couldn't get much worse in these parts . . .
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
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|
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The Boston Globe
Monday, August 29, 2016
Mass. budget gap has no easy fixes
By Joshua Miller
Beacon Hill is bracing for a round of state
budget cuts from Governor Charlie Baker. Again.
Just weeks after the Republican signed a $39
billion state budget into law, Democratic
legislators say they expect him to use his
executive authority — as he did this year — to
chop programs they support, but he says the
state can’t afford.
The fiscal tug of war comes amid relatively good
economic times, raising a confounding question:
Why does Massachusetts, which has been in an
economic recovery for seven years, constantly
careen from one budget gap to another, with
officials announcing, again and again, that
money coming in won’t cover expenses?
Conservatives insist spending is out of control.
Liberals blame a series of tax cuts instituted
around 2000. And Baker and the House of
Representatives, which is controlled by
Democrats, have effectively blocked any increase
in taxes.
But several budget analysts and a Globe review
of state data paint a more complicated picture,
with three notable root causes of the enduring
budget crisis: ballooning health care costs,
weaker tax revenue increases than in every other
economic recovery in the modern era, and policy
makers’ addiction to fiscal gimmicks that allow
them to avoid hard choices.
Specifically:
■ State spending on
Medicaid, the health program for the poor and
disabled, has skyrocketed — generally outpacing
inflation, personal income, and tax revenue
growth. The program eats up an increasingly
large portion of the budget pie, constraining
the cash available for everything else, from
education to support for cities and towns.
Medicaid now makes up more than a third of state
spending, up from less than a fifth in 2000.
■ Tax revenue growth
since the Great Recession has been slower than
in every other economic recovery going back to
the 1970s, crimping available money for
expanding programs. Beacon Hill budget makers,
who could count on 7 percent growth in tax
revenue in the mid-’00s, now must make do with
more modest annual boosts — just 2 percent for
the most recent fiscal year.
■ And policy makers
have, budget after budget, used quick fixes
instead of making tough choices. They’ve
diverted and drained billions meant for the
state’s emergency savings account. They’ve put
off until next year bills that were meant to be
paid this year. They’ve used money meant for
pensions and retiree health care to plug
short-term budget holes. And they’ve repeatedly
made unrealistically optimistic projections that
allow them to balance budgets at the cost of
burdening future lawmakers.
“Now, we’re running out of gimmicks,” said
Eileen McAnneny, president of the
business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation.
In the fiscal year that ended last summer,
policy makers used $1.2 billion in one-time
revenues and savings to balance the budget,
according to the state’s
independent financial report. They used $621
million in tax revenue meant for the state’s
emergency rainy day fund, pension fund, and
retiree benefits fund. They put off payment of
$170 million in Medicaid bills until the next
year. They relied on hundreds of millions of
dollars from one-time maneuvers, such as selling
a state office building.
Policy makers also engaged in another frequent
Beacon Hill gimmick: projecting unrealistically
low costs for services such as housing homeless
families, funding sheriffs, and lawyers who
defend indigent defendants. (They had to
supplement those areas with more money later in
the year.)
In total, the various budget maneuvers are the
equivalent of a family balancing its budget by
draining the savings account, racking up credit
card debt, diverting money meant for retirement,
selling a car, and expecting there will be
unrealistically low medical costs for a sick
child in the year ahead.
Such strategies can get the state through a few
years and allow policy makers to avoid cutting
programs that residents care about. But the
strategies are increasingly difficult to sustain
and could mean that cuts avoided in the past are
inevitable in the future when the economy takes
a turn for the worse.
One budget-pinching trend that is out of policy
makers’ hands is how much tax revenue increases.
In the late 1970s and early ’80s, Massachusetts
could count on an average of 11 percent annual
revenue growth, outpacing even the high
inflation of that era, according to the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. In the ’90s,
annual growth averaged 6.5 percent. And between
fiscal 2004 and 2008, tax revenue grew, on
average, 7 percent every year, the foundation
found.
But Massachusetts, like many other states, is
seeing slower growth now, which constrains how
much new money is available to spend. Current
Baker administration projections anticipate just
under 4 percent growth this year, but that
number could drop as new information comes in.
Economists are split on why this recovery —
across the country — has been so anemic.
Perhaps the easiest problem to diagnose and the
hardest one to solve is rising health care
costs. Massachusetts — and the federal
government — have tried to slow that growth. But
health care costs have, year after year,
outpaced inflation and tax revenue growth.
Spending on Medicaid, called MassHealth in
Massachusetts, rose almost 15 percent from the
fiscal year that ended in June 2014 to the one
that ended last summer. But over the same period
tax revenue grew just over 6 percent.
“The biggest difficulty the state faces in
closing the circle on the state budget is health
care costs,” said Jim Stergios, who directs the
conservative-leaning Pioneer Institute.
Stergios points to the climb in the number of
people enrolled in Medicaid as part of the
reason for rapidly rising costs for the state.
In the fiscal year that ended in 2001, there
were 998,000 people enrolled in the program.
Last fiscal year, officials estimate there were
1.85 million members.
Part of the expansion of Medicaid, for which the
state receives federal reimbursement, has been
intentional and has helped make Massachusetts
the state with lowest percentage of uninsured
residents. The 2006 Massachusetts health care
law and the president’s 2010 health care
overhaul both aimed to insure more people,
including through expansions of Medicaid.
Some budget analysts say having more than a
quarter of the state’s population enrolled in
Medicaid is not sustainable, given that
providing them health care costs more and more
each year.
One underlying cause, said Jonathan Gruber, an
MIT economist who helped craft the state and
federal health care laws, is the cost of taking
care of older people. Nationally, he said, the
disabled and elderly are 30 percent of the
Medicaid program population, but account for
two-thirds of its spending.
Ultimately, the state’s decision to spend so
much on health care for the poor and disabled is
a moral choice, said Dr. Stuart Altman, chairman
of the state’s independent Health Policy
Commission, which monitors costs.
Altman said Massachusetts has made several
decisions that are expensive: to cover the
health care of the state’s “most vulnerable”
residents and have a wider definition for who
those people are than most other states; to
cover a broader array of services for them; and
to allow Medicaid recipients to go to any
institution that will take them, including
highly ranked facilities like Massachusetts
General Hospital.
To tackle Medicaid costs, he said, would
probably require lowering the
already-below-market rates the state pays
providers, limiting eligibility, reducing
benefits, or narrowing access to doctors and
facilities for almost 2 million poor and
disabled adults and children.
Asked if the current trajectory for Medicaid
spending is sustainable in Massachusetts, Altman
was quick to answer.
“Sure, it’s sustainable — as a state, we can
afford it,” he said, noting that taxes could be
raised, money shifted from other programs,
priorities rearranged. “It’s just a question of
whether we want to or not.”
The Boston Herald
Monday, August 29, 2016
A Boston Herald editorial
Whither the Mass. GOP?
Every election year we wonder how Republicans
can slip any lower on the political power scale
in Massachusetts only to wonder again two years
later.
Of course at the moment, the GOP holds the
critical governor’s office, and that has
enormous value.
But in races for the House (160 seats) and
Senate (40 seats), for Congress (nine seats) and
even for Governor’s Council, sheriff and county
commissioner, there is a grand total of only
five contested Republican primaries this year.
It’s a sad statement that the hottest contested
primary may be for Essex County sheriff.
But more problematic — at least in terms of
promoting a healthy democracy — is that the
overwhelming majority of legislative races will
be entirely uncontested in the general election.
Republicans have managed to field a candidate in
only one-third of House races, and in fewer than
half the races for the state Senate.
And in one of the few contested primaries, one
of the two Republicans in the race is actually
trying to get his name taken off the
ballot.
Incumbent Sen. Patrick O’Connor of Weymouth won
the seat vacated by Robert Hedlund in a special
election earlier this year, and is now running
for a full term. Technically he has a Republican
challenger in Stephen Gill of Marshfield.
But as the Herald reported last week, Gill has
sued Secretary of State William Galvin for the
right to run not as a Republican but as an
independent. He’s challenging party registration
deadlines for candidates that he says kept him
from running unaffiliated.
Of course there’s an easy way to settle the
issue. Voters in the Plymouth and Norfolk
district can simply choose Patrick O’Connor when
they show up on Sept. 8. He’s been a decent
successor to Hedlund anyway, and the Herald is
pleased to endorse his candidacy.
Meanwhile, rather than waging an internal battle
within the state party between the Trumpians and
everyone else, Bay State Republicans ought to
consider coming together to boost their party’s
participation in legislative elections. They
can’t win if they don’t play.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, August 15, 2016
State lawmaker wants to go after conservative
Dems
By Jim O’Sullivan
A top ally of Senate President Stanley C.
Rosenberg is urging supporters of Senator Bernie
Sanders to “take over” the state Democratic
Party and unseat sitting legislators, a rare
break in State House decorum that deepens the
growing rift within the party.
“There are plenty of conservative Democrats who
have been elected, unchallenged, for years if
not decades, including at the local and
legislative level,” wrote state Senator Jamie
Eldridge, a liberal stalwart whom Rosenberg
appointed Senate chairman of the financial
services committee.
E-mailing a group of Sanders supporters, the
Acton Democrat also contemplated the creation of
a third, progressive party. But he focused on a
reform-from-within approach to push the party to
the left.
“I personally think the time is ripe … for
Sanders supporters/progressives to ‘take over’
the Massachusetts Democratic Party, and have a
serious influence on its platform, candidates,
and policies,” he wrote.
The friction within the state Democratic Party
reflects a national split that emerged during
the party’s presidential primary, when Sanders’
populist message tested former secretary of
state Hillary Clinton for months, before she
ultimately prevailed and secured the nomination.
Clinton eked out a win over Sanders in the
state’s March primary.
Eldridge said in an interview Wednesday that he
did not have specific legislators in mind when
he called for primary challenges. He said his
comments were aimed at Democrats frustrated that
the Legislature is not as liberal as they’d like
— despite the state’s left-leaning national
reputation.
“If activists are unhappy with how they’re being
represented … then, yeah, they should consider
running for office,” he said. “I think it’s good
in a democracy for there to be more
competition.”
Eldridge’s e-mail drew a stern rebuke from state
party officials. “Jamie’s divisive rhetoric in
calling for a third party, or to ‘take over’ the
party we all work hard for, is an insult to
every elected Democrat and to the hundreds of
activists and volunteers who have worked to
promote our shared values,” executive director
Jason Cincotti said in a statement.
Eldridge’s push also marks the latest wedge in a
deepening schism between the state Senate, which
has swung to the left since Rosenberg took the
reins last year, and the House, a more
deliberate, ideologically conservative chamber.
Last month’s end of the two-year legislative
cycle produced unusually acidic recriminations
between top House and Senate members — all
Democrats. The party has an overwhelming
majority in both chambers.
In the days after the session expired, two
senators ripped House leaders, including Speaker
Robert DeLeo, characterizing them as puppets of
big-business groups. Top House members responded
that Senate efforts, led by Rosenberg, to assert
additional control over the parliamentary
process smacked of political naivete.
And Democrats in both chambers raised eyebrows
last week when Rosenberg’s communications
director Mara Dolan tweeted an unusually pointed
critique of other Democrats after a state party
committee voted to condemn a charter school
expansion. “This just in: Democrats in
Massachusetts turn out to be real Democrats
after all, vote to oppose increasing charter
schools,” she said.
But urging candidates to challenge legislative
colleagues in one’s own party is widely
considered a serious breach of intraparty
politesse. In the past, lawmakers have even
protested when Republican governors, such as
Mitt Romney, sought to field GOP challengers to
incumbent Democrats.
“As a member of House leadership, I would never
seek an opponent for a Democratic colleague in
either branch,” said state Representative
Michael J. Moran, a Brighton Democrat who serves
on DeLeo’s leadership team. “It’s just something
that isn’t good for the inner workings of the
Legislature, long-term.”
Moran, who supported Sanders and was one of
several lawmakers to receive the e-mail, added,
“I know that Bob DeLeo would never condone or
sanction one of his members of leadership
seeking an opponent for another Democrat in the
Senate or the House.”
Eldridge, who served three terms in the House
before winning election to the Senate, ran
unsuccessfully for Congress in 2007. He is
facing a challenge this fall from Republican Ted
Busiek, whom GOP strategists consider an
underdog.
Eldridge’s Aug. 8 e-mail — whose recipients
included several legislators, State House
staffers, and a former state party chairman —
was penned in response to a thread in which
activists pondered the consequences of either
joining or starting a third party. Several
respondents indicated that they prefer to reform
the Democratic Party from the inside.
In his note, Eldridge wrote of “a hybrid
approach,” pointing to the Working Families
Party operating in New York and Connecticut,
where the WFP runs its own candidates but also
backs candidates from other parties who back its
agenda.
Eldridge called it “an effective way to move
especially Democrats to the left,” citing the
party’s role in electing Bill de Blasio mayor of
New York in 2013.
Eldridge — whose Senate colleague, Thomas McGee
of Lynn, chairs the state party — added, “There
is absolutely plenty of room to move Democratic
politicians to the left, or run for yourselves.”
Philip W. Johnston, a former state Democratic
Party chairman who endorsed Sanders during the
primary, said he “love[s] Jamie,” but disagreed
with his suggestions.
“I don’t think we need another party,” Johnston
said Wednesday. “I think we need to do
everything we can to make sure Democrats are
acting like Democrats, but I don’t think we
should be running against other Democrats.”
“I think that progressives should focus on
working within the Democratic Party,” Johnston
said. “That’s where the action is. Clearly, the
fact that Bernie Sanders attracted 46 percent of
the vote during the primary season demonstrates
that there’s a split within the Democratic
Party, and that means that progressives have a
chance to have an influence in the coming
years.”
The House-Senate acrimony comes as Democrats,
who run the Legislature with vast majorities,
are still learning to deal with Governor Charlie
Baker, the Republican who ended eight years of
Democratic hegemony with his 2014 victory. Over
the past two years, Baker has lined up more
frequently with DeLeo than Rosenberg on policy
issues.
A Rosenberg spokeswoman said Wednesday that he
was unavailable for comment. |
| |
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