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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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46 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Sunday, September 13, 2020
His Royal Majesty's
Edicts Now Stand Before the Highest Court
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
|
Most Relevant News Excerpts
(Full news reports follow
Commentary)
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Baker’s March 10
declaration was followed by dozens of emergency orders
affecting virtually every aspect of life in the Bay State.
His decrees shut down Massachusetts businesses, houses of
worship, and schools; banned elective surgery; restricted
travel; closed beaches and theaters; prohibited sporting
events; and limited weddings and funerals to 10 people.
Almost overnight, they plunged Massachusetts into a
recession. Unemployment rose to 17.4 percent, the highest
rate in America. The state began gradually reopening in late
May, but for some businesses the shutdown proved fatal.
One-fifth of Massachusetts restaurants, for example, have
permanently closed their doors.
The purpose of
Baker’s orders was irreproachable: to slow the spread of the
coronavirus, which has now killed nearly 190,000 people in
the United States and more than 9,000 in Massachusetts.
Whether the decrees were the best way to address the
pandemic is a question that epidemiologists and other
experts will be debating for some time. But the matter
before the state’s highest court isn’t whether Baker’s
unilateral orders — which can be enforced with fines and
imprisonment — were wise or well intended. It is whether he
had the legal authority to issue them....
Massachusetts has
experienced multiple epidemics in the decades since the
Legislature enacted the Civil Defense Act, yet Baker is the
first governor to invoke the act to fight the spread of
disease. There’s a reason that hasn’t been done before, the
challengers argue: A rapidly spreading disease is not a
civil defense emergency. It is a public health
emergency — and for that, the Legislature enacted the Public
Health Act, which has been on the books for more than a
century. That is the law intended to govern the
state’s response to COVID-19, the plaintiffs assert.
“Governor Baker simply cannot substitute the inapposite
Civil Defense Act to ignore or suspend the very statute the
[Legislature] wrote to protect Massachusetts from
pandemics.”
This isn’t merely
a wonky dispute over legislative interpretation. Nothing in
the Public Health Act authorizes the kind of comprehensive
economic shutdown that the governor imposed on
Massachusetts. That law delegates considerable power to
local health officials, not the governor. If Baker issued
orders by relying on a statute that doesn’t actually grant
him that power, those orders were, in legalese, “ultra vires”
— beyond the scope of his authority. Until and unless
lawmakers empower Baker to issue emergency orders to address
a pandemic, the plaintiffs argue, he may not do so. So far,
lawmakers haven’t acted.
Courts are
typically reluctant to overturn emergency measures designed
for public protection. But such deference has its limits.
Defeating the coronavirus is a crucial public good.
Upholding the rule of law is too.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Baker’s pandemic orders were tough. Were they lawful?
The state’s highest court must decide whether the governor
overstepped his authority.
By Jeff Jacoby
Six months into
the COVID-19 pandemic, the state's highest court is poised
to decide whether Gov. Charlie Baker's string of executive
orders were a legally appropriate response to contain the
highly infectious virus or if he overstepped the authority
outlined in law.
An attorney
representing business owners and religious leaders who sued
the Baker administration argued in court Friday that Baker
has "turned the government upside down" by taking
significant individual action, rather than executing laws
passed by the Legislature, during the public health crisis.
"At this point,
the Legislature is left to approve or disapprove of the
governor's policy choices," Michael DeGrandis, a lawyer with
the New Civil Liberties Alliance, told justices. "That's not
how it's supposed to work. The governor is merely supposed
to execute the policy choices of the Legislature. For the
Legislature to make a change, the Legislature would also
have to have a veto-proof majority to do so. That is
standing the government on its head. That's not a republican
form of government." ...
At the core of the
plaintiffs' case is the Civil Defense Act, a 1950 law
covering emergency preparedness on which the administration
based its response. The statute outlines allowable causes
for emergency declarations, including acts of war, natural
disasters and "other natural causes," but does not
explicitly name a pandemic.
DeGrandis argued
that, because pandemics are not listed, Baker overstepped
his legal authority. The Public Health Act, which directs
the main responsibility for disease control to local boards
of health, should instead govern the state's COVID-19
response, he said.
"The petitioners
have been doing their part. They will always do their part.
They have abided by the governor's orders as best as they
could understand the governor's orders and will continue to
do so as long as this court decides these are lawful
orders," DeGrandis said. "This is an issue of process and
what is the character of Massachusetts government. Is it a
government of laws or a government of men?"
State officials
have contended that Baker was well within his authority to
lean on the Civil Defense Act. While it may not use the word
"pandemic," they argue it grants broad authority for
response to crises stemming from natural causes....
The Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance, which has been critical of Baker's pandemic
response, has vocally supported the lawsuit, though it is
not a plaintiff in the case.
"Massachusetts
residents and businesses that have fallen victim to the
Governor's orders, either by closing their small business
for good or having their freedoms and liberties limited,
should feel a sense of relief that their side of the
argument was finally heard by the public and the state's
highest court," Fiscal Alliance spokesman Paul Craney said
Friday. "We hope the justices will rule in favor of those in
Massachusetts who are suffering and do not have a voice due
to these orders."
Judges asked
several questions from attorneys on both sides, but did not
offer an indication of which way they lean on the case nor
when they plan to issue a ruling.
State House News
Service
Friday, September 11, 2020
Attorney: Legislature Consented to Baker’s Pandemic Orders
Oral Arguments Aired Before State's High Court
Did Gov. Charlie
Baker have the legal authority to destroy Massachusetts?
That’s the only
question pending before the Supreme Judicial Court this
morning.
The unprecedented
damage done to the Commonwealth by the governor Joe Biden
calls “Charlie Parker” is no longer even in question.
Tall Deval’s
ghastly record speaks for itself: Massachusetts now has the
worst unemployment rate in the nation (16.1%) and,
simultaneously, the third highest rate of death (behind only
N.J. and N.Y.) during the Panic of 2020.
Great job, Charlie
Parker! You’ve decimated the Commonwealth in every way
imaginable. Mission accomplished.
But did Tall Deval
have the authority to create this catastrophe, with his
high-handed, imperious, utterly wrongheaded orders? ...
It’s too late to
file an amicus brief, so I would just like to add an exhibit
in the court of public opinion, and let the justices decide
whether they believe that this is what the Founding Fathers
would have considered a just and equitable use of
governmental authority.
If it pleases the
court, I would insert into the record at this time a report
dated Aug. 26 from a Barnstable County health inspector
named “Spanky.” (That’s his email handle – Spankysyl.) ...
This is Charlie
Parker’s Maskachusetts. A middle-aged layabout named Spanky
sitting in a pickup truck watching young women coming from
the beach in bathing suits change into street clothes… and
the state is paying him to do it!
No wonder the
hacks are refusing to turn over either the logs from their
multiple snitch lines, or the incident reports the ABCC has
been filing against bars trying to hang on until the Parker
insanity ends.
Can you imagine
how much of this Charlie Parker-sanctioned BS has been going
on, as the state’s economy descends into a second
Depression?
The Woodshed was
ordered shut down for the entire month of September.
Speaking to the
servile Boston press Wednesday, Gov. Parker claimed that
“the vast majority of our economy is open.”
In Charlie’s
world, it’s true. That same day, he nominated for a district
court judgeship a lawyer from Braintree named Robert W.
Harnais.
Harnais is
eminently qualified: according to the Office of Campaign and
Political Finance, he has duked $3,500 to Tall Deval and
$5,000 to the lieutenant governor, Karyn “Pay to Play”
Polito.
This is Charlie
Parker’s economy, the only one the hack’s hack has ever
“worked” in. The waitresses at the Woodshed are unemployed,
but Spanky the health inspector is still hacking around the
Cape, getting paid.
Your Honor, I
would close with what Thomas Jefferson said of King George
III, because it applies so perfectly to the actions of
Charlie Parker over the last six months:
“He has erected a
multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers
to harass our people and eat out their substances.”
The plaintiffs
rest.
The Boston Herald
Friday, September 11, 2020
Tales of ‘Spanky’ the Cape Cod COVID inspector
By Howie Carr
With unemployment
soaring, state lawmakers are considering ways to soften the
blow from a major impending increase in the taxes employers
pay toward the state's unemployment system, a jump in costs
that one business group described as a "pretty staggering."
With the
unemployment insurance trust fund suddenly facing a
multibillion-dollar deficit over the next four years, the
contributions required from Massachusetts businesses are set
to increase nearly 60 percent when the calendar turns to
2021 and then continue growing at a smaller rate through
2024.
Those higher taxes
-- estimated at an average of $319 more per qualifying
employee next year -- will be due starting in April, raising
concerns that the sharp uptick will put a drag on the
economic recovery from the ongoing COVID-prompted recession
and make it more difficult for employers to bring back jobs
they cut.
Christopher
Carlozzi, state director for the National Federation of
Independent Business Massachusetts, said his group and the
employers with which it works view the projected increases
as "a looming crisis."
"It's almost a
Catch-22," Carlozzi said in an interview. "You want these
businesses creating jobs. Now you're making it prohibitively
more expensive to create a new job by increasing the tax on
employers simply to employ people." ...
Over the first six
months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Massachusetts -- like many
other states -- faced an unprecedented level of demand for
joblessness benefits and demand remains high. The state paid
more than $4 billion in aid between January and July,
compared to just $812 million over the same period in 2019.
The account used
to pay those claims was not equipped for the sudden surge.
At the end of July, it was already $748 million in the red,
and the Baker administration projected in an August
quarterly report that the shortfall will grow to nearly $2.5
billion by the end of the year.
Each of the
following four years will also run negative, officials
estimate, pushing the five-year total to a roughly $20
billion net deficit -- an outlook that is somewhat better
than the $27 billion net deficit projected in the previous
quarterly update issued in May.
To help prevent
the fund from becoming insolvent, the average cost per
employee is estimated to increase from $539 in 2020 at rate
schedule E to $858 in 2021 at rate schedule G. Officials
expect to remain at the highest rate schedule through 2024,
topping out at an average cost per employee of $925 in the
final year of projections....
The current
outlook has revived broader debate about the state's
unemployment system and whether its eligibility and benefit
levels need to be reformed.
Carlozzi, whose
group has been pushing for changes to UI infrastructure for
years, said the forthcoming strain makes a clear case that
Beacon Hill should consider raising the bar for benefits and
lowering the requirements on employers.
He pointed to a
December 2019 report from The Tax Foundation, a think tank
that broadly supports lower tax burdens, that placed
Massachusetts dead last among states in a nationwide ranking
based on its rates and its $15,000 taxable wage base.
"It is something
lawmakers may want to consider at this point because it's
going to be a difficult tax to pay for employers, especially
those looking to get people back working again under very
difficult circumstances," Carlozzi said. "They really
haven't had an appetite to do it, but it might be the time."
Labor
organizations have often resisted calls to restructure the
system, describing unemployment benefits as a key crutch to
keep workers afloat during challenging times and promote
economic development....
States with
stronger performance qualify for interest-free advances from
the federal government. In 2019, Massachusetts needed a
trust fund balance of $3.93 billion to meet that threshold,
but the account totaled only $1 billion at the end of the
year....
With more than 1.7
million claims for standard or expanded unemployment
insurance since the start of the pandemic, Massachusetts
residents have leaned heavily on the system. The state has
topped national rankings in unemployment rate for each of
the past two months, at 17.7 percent in June and 16.1
percent in July.
The higher
assessments are also scheduled to kick in at the same time
that workers gain access to paid family and medical leave
under a 2018 law. Payroll taxes of 0.75 percent to fund
those forthcoming benefits started on Oct. 1.
State House News
Service
Sunday, September 6, 2020
Employers Face “Staggering” Hike in Unemployment Taxes
Relief Mulled as Rates to Rise $319 Per Employee
A second round of
extra unemployment benefits will pad the pockets of
Massachusetts claimants with an additional $1,500, Gov.
Charlie Baker announced Wednesday.
Claimants will
earn an extra $300 for five weeks retroactive to Aug. 1,
Baker said, speaking at the State House.
About $200 million
in extra payments have already landed in the accounts of
claimants receiving benefits through the Pandemic
Unemployment Assistance program, a federal program created
to help out-of-work gig and freelance workers amid the
coronavirus crisis.
People receiving
traditional unemployment will get it “in the next few days,”
Baker said.
Anyone who already
received a payment will get the remainder of the balance in
their next benefits check, Baker said.
Baker called the
added benefits “an important step in making sure we sustain
enough relief for people who are out of work here in MA” but
warned it “should not be considered and isn’t a permanent or
sustainable solution” as it relies on FEMA funds.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Massachusetts unemployed get $1,500 boost as extra benefits
get disbursed
With the drama of
ballot counting in the Fourth Congressional District behind
him, Secretary of State William Galvin called the state's
first foray into widespread mail-in voting a "great
success," but said he will need additional funding to ensure
that the November election goes off smoothly.
Applications for
mail-in ballots will begin to go out to registered voters by
the end of the week, Galvin said. And the state's chief
elections officer anticipates an online portal required by
the Legislature for voters to request early and absentee
ballots to be operational by the end of the month.
But some things
will need to change before November, when turnout and the
volume of mail-in ballots is expected to be even higher than
it was for the primaries.
Galvin told the
News Service Tuesday he has already spoken to the Baker
administration about his need for additional funding to
cover the cost of mailing applications and ballots to
registered voters interested in voting by mail in the
general election.
Asked how much
would be required, Galvin said, "More than a million."
"I'm optimistic
that they'll be cooperative," he said of the administration.
Galvin said he
wished he had even more money to help local election clerks
hire staff to run the polls and process ballots, and said he
was discouraged by reports that Senate Republicans in
Congress had rolled out a pared back stimulus bill Tuesday
that did not contain funding for election operations.
Local officials
may need help, Galvin said, and "it would be great if I had
the resources to help them pay for personnel and staff, but
I don't." ...
Unlike in the
primary when mail-in or early ballots had to be received by
8 p.m. on election night to count, the new law allows for
ballots to arrive up until 5 p.m. on the Friday after the
election, or Nov. 6, as long as they were postmarked by
election day. A town or city's books will also remain open
for 10 days for military and overseas ballots to arrive....
Close to 1.6
million people voted in the state primaries on Tuesday,
according to preliminary numbers, which would be a record
for raw votes cast, and Galvin credited not just voting by
mail, but also the work local officials did to make
in-person voting a safe experience.
"I think it's also
pretty clear we had a successful in person, as well," he
said.
But Galvin wasn't
quite ready Tuesday to say mail-in voting should be here to
stay.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, September 8, 2020
Galvin: More Money Needed for Mail-in Voting
Primary Lessons Can Help With General Election
Worried that the
U.S. Census Bureau is undercounting certain populations in
Massachusetts, Secretary of State William Galvin said
Thursday he would challenge any final population total that
comes in "significantly below" the state's own estimates,
and offered up state data that could be used to fill holes
in the count.
Galvin, in a new
letter to Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham, said he
did not think Massachusetts communities were being surveyed
"adequately," and that harder-to-count populations might
wind up being omitted from the final tally....
"I am willing to
provide whatever resources we have available to the Census
Bureau to ensure that everyone is counted in Massachusetts,"
Galvin said. "Because the Census Bureau has failed to answer
many questions about the progress they are making with
counting in our residents, I am suspicious of the data that
is being collected, and I am prepared to challenge any final
census numbers that are significantly below our own
population estimates." ...
"From the limited
information provided by the Census Bureau and the unknowns
of how the daily percentages are being calculated, I do not
believe that our municipalities, specifically our cities,
have been adequately surveyed, and I believe that many hard
to count populations are being omitted," Galvin wrote to
Dillingham.
The count affects
state representation in Congress, and influences federal
funding allocations over the next decade. Galvin said that
in the next few weeks he would also be submitting the
state's population data estimates.
State House News
Service
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Galvin Doubts Census Efforts in Mass. Cities
What lessons have
been learned? What lessons will be taught? What past
experiences can be put to good use to prepare for what's
down the road?
All these
questions and more were on the minds of leaders this week as
they returned to work after the extended Labor Day weekend,
staring at the reality of time and the fact that the dreaded
"fall resurgence" could actually be right around the
corner....
Secretary of State
William Galvin too said he learned a few things from the
first go-around with mail-in voting that he hopes to apply
in November, including the need for more uniform ballot
counting procedures, but he won't be asking legislators for
any changes to the law. What he has asked the administration
for is more than $1 million to cover the cost of mailing
another round of applications and ballots.
The unofficial end
of summer also meant rethinking how some of the creative
steps taken to allow the economy to begin to recover in the
warm weather can be extended to chillier autumn days and
night.
Baker visited
Medford's Bistro 5 on Thursday to announce that he was
doubling the size of the Shared Streets and Spaces grant
program from $5 million to $10 million to help restaurant
owners like Vittorio Ettore afford modifications like heat
lamps to extend the life of their new outdoor patios.
The governor also
said that while the going was good he was prepared to allow
outdoor and indoor arcades to reopen starting next week, a
change to the reopening plan that came after the owner of
the Salem arcade Bit Bar sued the administration,
questioning why his business was being treated differently
than casinos.
That's not to say
that's the whole reason Baker decided to open arcades. But
the courts are starting to become that player off the bench
who just may have an outsized impact on the final outcome of
the game.
U.S. District
Court Judge Mark Wolf declined to intervene after a group of
landlords sued over the state's moratorium on evictions and
foreclosures on Constitutional grounds. But the judge gave
Baker more to think about over the next month when,
according to the lawyer for the plaintiffs, he indicated
that the ban's shelf life may be coming to an end.
The landlord's
attorney Richard Vetstein said Wolf made clear that the
ban's utility as a measure to control the spread of COVID-19
is not indefinite, especially if the state continues to
succeed in driving down infection rates. Baker faces a
decision over whether to extend the moratorium beyond Oct.
17, and he'll have to factor the court's into his
thinking....
The Supreme
Judicial Court also sat this week to hear arguments in a
variety of cases, including one involving prisoners seeking
release because of the threat of COVID-19 in incarceration.
The
must-see-court-TV had to wait until Friday, though, when the
SJC heard oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by small
business owners, church leaders and educators that put
Baker's entire body of work during the pandemic up for
judgment. The plaintiffs say Baker's executive orders aimed
at controlling the spread of COVID-19 overstepped his
authority under the Civil Defense Act, and a ruling in their
favor could negate everything from forced business closures
to gathering size-limits.
Needless to say,
the outcome of the case will have broad implications for
executive power beyond this pandemic, including any future
public health crises.
State House News
Service
Friday, September 11, 2020
Weekly Roundup - Pac-Man and the Plaintiffs
Six months after
Gov. Baker declared a COVID-19 state of emergency,
Massachusetts remains in the vigilant mode of Phase 3 of its
reopening plan, with everyone hoping the state can in the
coming months move to Phase 4, when an effective virus
treatment or vaccine would enable the fullest reopening of
businesses and activities.
Students haven't
seen the inside of their schools since March and under state
rules districts have been allowed to reduce the 180-day
student learning time requirement for the 2020-2021 school
year to 170 days, as long as they begin providing
instruction to students no later than Wednesday, Sept. 16,
with waivers available if districts are unable to meet that
requirement....
The shift back to
school buildings will create challenges for parents and
extended family members, who need to bend work-life
schedules to accommodate novel academic schedules and take
new transmission risks into consideration with more people
mingling. School is also starting with a growing
number of unemployed parents, who are receiving enhanced
jobless benefits authorized by President Donald Trump while
talks on a stimulus bill remain in flux. . . .
State House News
Service
Friday, September 11, 2020
Advances - Week of Sept. 13, 2020
A state labor
board ruled Tuesday night that Andover teachers had taken
part in an illegal strike last week when they refused to
enter school buildings and classrooms for professional
development, ordering the local union to notify its members
of their duty to return to school.
The Andover School
Committee last Tuesday filed a complaint after the Andover
Education Association and its members refused to take part
in special preparations related to COVID-19 safety measures
for the reopening of school.
The union argued
that teachers should have been allowed to participate in the
training outside of school buildings and classrooms.
The Commonwealth
Employment Relations Board, in a 35-page ruling, found the
union and its members engaged in an unlawful strike on Aug.
31, rejecting the union's argument that it should be allowed
to "dictate where they perform their work."
The board, chaired
by Marjorie Wittner, ordered the union and its employees to
cease any further strikes or work stoppages or slowdowns,
and told union leaders to stop encouraging work stoppages or
the withholding of services and to inform its members of
their obligation to work.
"In an era where
many employees can perform some or all of their work
remotely as long as they have a computer and reliable
internet connection, and to the extent this is not already
self-evident, we hold that the phrase 'report to duty' in
Section 19 of the Law means reporting not only when but
where the employer has ordered its employees to report," the
board concluded.
"In this case,
that means inside the school buildings, including inside
classrooms," the ruling said.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Board Rules Andover Teachers Participated in Illegal Strike
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
The most interesting news on Beacon Hill
this week is the lawsuit brought before the state Supreme Judicial Court
by a number of people and businesses affected by Gov. Baker's unilateral
shutdown of the entire state by his magisterial decrees. The court
is being asked to rule on whether he has this power that many find
unconstitutional, and if so where it comes from.
On Wednesday The Boston Globe's columnist,
Jeff Jacoby, wrote ("Baker’s pandemic orders were tough. Were they
lawful?"):
.
. . But the matter before the state’s highest court
isn’t whether Baker’s unilateral orders — which can
be enforced with fines and imprisonment — were wise
or well intended. It is whether he had the
legal authority to issue them....
Massachusetts has experienced multiple epidemics in
the decades since the Legislature enacted the Civil
Defense Act, yet Baker is the first governor to
invoke the act to fight the spread of disease.
There’s a reason that hasn’t been done before, the
challengers argue: A rapidly spreading disease
is not a civil defense emergency. It is a
public health emergency — and for that, the
Legislature enacted the Public Health Act, which has
been on the books for more than a century. That
is the law intended to govern the state’s response
to COVID-19, the plaintiffs assert. “Governor
Baker simply cannot substitute the inapposite Civil
Defense Act to ignore or suspend the very statute
the [Legislature] wrote to protect Massachusetts
from pandemics.”
This isn’t merely a wonky dispute over legislative
interpretation. Nothing in the Public Health
Act authorizes the kind of comprehensive economic
shutdown that the governor imposed on Massachusetts.
That law delegates considerable power to local
health officials, not the governor. If Baker
issued orders by relying on a statute that doesn’t
actually grant him that power, those orders were, in
legalese, “ultra vires” — beyond the scope of
his authority. Until and unless lawmakers
empower Baker to issue emergency orders to address a
pandemic, the plaintiffs argue, he may not do so.
So far, lawmakers haven’t acted.
Courts are typically reluctant to overturn emergency
measures designed for public protection. But
such deference has its limits. Defeating the
coronavirus is a crucial public good.
Upholding the rule of law is too.
On Friday the State House
News Service reported ("Attorney: Legislature Consented
to Baker’s Pandemic Orders -- Oral Arguments Aired
Before State's High Court"):
Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the state's
highest court is poised to decide whether Gov.
Charlie Baker's string of executive orders were a
legally appropriate response to contain the highly
infectious virus or if he overstepped the authority
outlined in law.
An
attorney representing business owners and religious
leaders who sued the Baker administration argued in
court Friday that Baker has "turned the government
upside down" by taking significant individual
action, rather than executing laws passed by the
Legislature, during the public health crisis.
"At this point, the Legislature is left to approve
or disapprove of the governor's policy choices,"
Michael DeGrandis, a lawyer with the New Civil
Liberties Alliance, told justices. "That's not
how it's supposed to work. The governor is
merely supposed to execute the policy choices of the
Legislature. For the Legislature to make a
change, the Legislature would also have to have a
veto-proof majority to do so. That is standing
the government on its head. That's not a
republican form of government." ...
At
the core of the plaintiffs' case is the Civil
Defense Act, a 1950 law covering emergency
preparedness on which the administration based its
response. The statute outlines allowable
causes for emergency declarations, including acts of
war, natural disasters and "other natural causes,"
but does not explicitly name a pandemic.
DeGrandis argued that, because pandemics are not
listed, Baker overstepped his legal authority.
The Public Health Act, which directs the main
responsibility for disease control to local boards
of health, should instead govern the state's
COVID-19 response, he said.
Boston Herald columnist and
WRKO talk show host Howie Carr opined on Friday ("Tales
of ‘Spanky’ the Cape Cod COVID inspector"):
Did Gov. Charlie Baker have the legal authority to
destroy Massachusetts?
That’s the only question pending before the Supreme
Judicial Court this morning.
The unprecedented damage done to the Commonwealth by
the governor Joe Biden calls “Charlie Parker” is no
longer even in question.
Tall Deval’s ghastly record speaks for itself:
Massachusetts now has the worst unemployment rate in
the nation (16.1%) and, simultaneously, the third
highest rate of death (behind only N.J. and N.Y.)
during the Panic of 2020.
Great job, Charlie Parker! You’ve decimated
the Commonwealth in every way imaginable.
Mission accomplished.
But did Tall Deval have the authority to create this
catastrophe, with his high-handed, imperious,
utterly wrongheaded orders? . . .
Your Honor, I would close with what Thomas Jefferson
said of King George III, because it applies so
perfectly to the actions of Charlie Parker over the
last six months:
“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent
hither swarms of officers to harass our people and
eat out their substances.”
The plaintiffs rest.
“He has erected a
multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people and eat out their
substances” was one of the charges in the
Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen United
States which announced the American Revolution to
British monarch King George III and to the world.
It eerily describes the actions of today's
self-appointed Monarch of Massachusetts.
This being the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
— where five of the seven high
court justices have been appointed by Gov. Baker (the
other two by Gov. Deval Patrick) — sadly I expect the
court's decision is pre-ordained. We didn't
decades ago term it "The Supreme Judicial Kangaroo
Court" without good reason. Perhaps we will be
surprised.
If you are interested
in learning more on this lawsuit:
Online Archives: SJC Hearings
https://boston.suffolk.edu/sjc/archive.php
Desrosiers v. Governor - SJC-12983
https://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/docket/SJC-12983
State Representative (R-Norfolk) Shawn Dooley's Amicus Brief
http://cltg.org/cltg/clt2020/docs/SJC-12983_05_Amicus_Dooley_Brief.pdf
As if businesses and
employers aren't being crushed enough, now comes a huge hike in the
unemployment tax they will soon be required to pay — on top of the
"higher assessments are also scheduled to kick in at the same time that
workers gain access to paid family and medical leave under a 2018 law,"
the State House News Service reported last Sunday. "Payroll taxes
of 0.75 percent to fund those forthcoming benefits started on Oct. 1."
In "Employers Face
“Staggering” Hike in Unemployment Taxes" the News Service reported:
With unemployment soaring,
state lawmakers are considering ways to soften the
blow from a major impending increase in the taxes
employers pay toward the state's unemployment
system, a jump in costs that one business group
described as a "pretty staggering."
With the unemployment insurance
trust fund suddenly facing a multibillion-dollar
deficit over the next four years, the contributions
required from Massachusetts businesses are set to
increase nearly 60 percent when the calendar turns
to 2021 and then continue growing at a smaller rate
through 2024.
Those higher taxes -- estimated
at an average of $319 more per qualifying employee
next year -- will be due starting in April, raising
concerns that the sharp uptick will put a drag on
the economic recovery from the ongoing COVID-prompted
recession and make it more difficult for employers
to bring back jobs they cut.
Christopher Carlozzi, state
director for the National Federation of Independent
Business Massachusetts, said his group and the
employers with which it works view the projected
increases as "a looming crisis."
"It's almost a Catch-22,"
Carlozzi said in an interview. "You want these
businesses creating jobs. Now you're making it
prohibitively more expensive to create a new job by
increasing the tax on employers simply to employ
people." ...
The current outlook has revived
broader debate about the state's unemployment system
and whether its eligibility and benefit levels need
to be reformed.
Carlozzi, whose group has been
pushing for changes to UI infrastructure for years,
said the forthcoming strain makes a clear case that
Beacon Hill should consider raising the bar for
benefits and lowering the requirements on employers.
He pointed to a December 2019
report from The Tax Foundation, a think tank that
broadly supports lower tax burdens, that placed
Massachusetts dead last among states in a nationwide
ranking based on its rates and its $15,000 taxable
wage base.
"It is something lawmakers may
want to consider at this point because it's going to
be a difficult tax to pay for employers, especially
those looking to get people back working again under
very difficult circumstances," Carlozzi said. "They
really haven't had an appetite to do it, but it
might be the time."
The impact of
Baker's Shutdown will be with Massachusetts residents
for years if not decades to come, many if not most of
them now irreversible. While the economy is being
slaughtered, The Boston Herald reported on Wednesday
("Massachusetts unemployed get $1,500 boost as extra
benefits get disbursed"):
A second round of extra
unemployment benefits will pad the pockets of
Massachusetts claimants with an additional $1,500,
Gov. Charlie Baker announced Wednesday.
Claimants will earn an extra
$300 for five weeks retroactive to Aug. 1, Baker
said, speaking at the State House.
About $200 million in extra
payments have already landed in the accounts of
claimants receiving benefits through the Pandemic
Unemployment Assistance program, a federal program
created to help out-of-work gig and freelance
workers amid the coronavirus crisis.
People receiving traditional
unemployment will get it “in the next few days,”
Baker said.
Anyone who already received a
payment will get the remainder of the balance in
their next benefits check, Baker said.
Baker called the added benefits
“an important step in making sure we sustain enough
relief for people who are out of work here in MA”
but warned it “should not be considered and isn’t a
permanent or sustainable solution” as it relies on
FEMA funds. . . .
Bay State unemployment was down
from 17.4% in June but still far above July’s
national unemployment rate of 10.2%.
The state has already had to
borrow from the federal government to cover jobless
claims amid the pandemic that has emptied its
unemployment trust fund. With deficits projected to
reach into the billions, tax increases to businesses
could be “staggering,” the Baker administration
warned earlier this week.
What's really
strange is that the state is still sitting on an
untapped, untouched $3.5 Billion "rainy day fund."
I wonder when the umbrellas will be opened? Looks
like not before Noah sails off
aboard his Ark. I still think our masters
on Beacon Hill must be awaiting a monster asteroid to
strike Planet Earth before breaking into the state's
piggy bank.
Secretary of State William
Galvin has been a busy guy these days. On one hand he's racing to
get out mail-in ballots in time for the November election. On the
other he's scrambling to boost the state's census numbers. It's
quite a juggling act to behold.
On Tuesday the State House
News Service reported ("Galvin: More Money Needed for Mail-in Voting"):
With the drama of ballot
counting in the Fourth Congressional District behind
him, Secretary of State William Galvin called the
state's first foray into widespread mail-in voting a
"great success," but said he will need additional
funding to ensure that the November election goes
off smoothly.
Applications for mail-in
ballots will begin to go out to registered voters by
the end of the week, Galvin said. And the
state's chief elections officer anticipates an
online portal required by the Legislature for voters
to request early and absentee ballots to be
operational by the end of the month.
But some things will need to
change before November, when turnout and the volume
of mail-in ballots is expected to be even higher
than it was for the primaries.
Galvin told the News Service
Tuesday he has already spoken to the Baker
administration about his need for additional funding
to cover the cost of mailing applications and
ballots to registered voters interested in voting by
mail in the general election.
Asked how much would be
required, Galvin said, "More than a million." . . .
Unlike in the primary when
mail-in or early ballots had to be received by 8
p.m. on election night to count, the new law allows
for ballots to arrive up until 5 p.m. on the Friday
after the election, or Nov. 6, as long as they were
postmarked by election day. A town or city's
books will also remain open for 10 days for military
and overseas ballots to arrive....
Close to 1.6 million people
voted in the state primaries on Tuesday, according
to preliminary numbers, which would be a record for
raw votes cast, and Galvin credited not just voting
by mail, but also the work local officials did to
make in-person voting a safe experience.
On Thursday
the News Service reported ("Galvin Doubts Census Efforts
in Mass. Cities"):
Worried that the U.S. Census
Bureau is undercounting certain populations in
Massachusetts, Secretary of State William Galvin
said Thursday he would challenge any final
population total that comes in "significantly below"
the state's own estimates, and offered up state data
that could be used to fill holes in the count.
Galvin, in a new letter to
Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham, said he
did not think Massachusetts communities were being
surveyed "adequately," and that harder-to-count
populations might wind up being omitted from the
final tally....
"I am willing to provide
whatever resources we have available to the Census
Bureau to ensure that everyone is counted in
Massachusetts," Galvin said. "Because the Census
Bureau has failed to answer many questions about the
progress they are making with counting in our
residents, I am suspicious of the data that is being
collected, and I am prepared to challenge any final
census numbers that are significantly below our own
population estimates." ...
"From the limited information
provided by the Census Bureau and the unknowns of
how the daily percentages are being calculated, I do
not believe that our municipalities, specifically
our cities, have been adequately surveyed, and I
believe that many hard to count populations are
being omitted," Galvin wrote to Dillingham.
The count affects state
representation in Congress, and influences federal
funding allocations over the next decade. Galvin
said that in the next few weeks he would also be
submitting the state's population data estimates.
All Galvin
needs to do to make sure every resident is counted is
— to count them.
What's any census-taker supposed to do if many if them
are "in the shadows" and don't want to be counted?
Some of the most important
takeaways from Friday's State House News Service
Advances for the week ahead:
Six months after Gov.
Baker declared a COVID-19 state of emergency, Massachusetts remains
in the vigilant mode of Phase 3 of its reopening plan, with everyone
hoping the state can in the coming months move to Phase 4, when an
effective virus treatment or vaccine would enable the fullest
reopening of businesses and activities.
Students haven't seen the
inside of their schools since March and under state rules districts
have been allowed to reduce the 180-day student learning time
requirement for the 2020-2021 school year to 170 days, as long as
they begin providing instruction to students no later than
Wednesday, Sept. 16, with waivers available if districts are unable
to meet that requirement....
The shift back to school
buildings will create challenges for parents and extended family
members, who need to bend work-life schedules to accommodate novel
academic schedules and take new transmission risks into
consideration with more people mingling. School is also
starting with a growing number of unemployed parents, who are
receiving enhanced jobless benefits authorized by President Donald
Trump while talks on a stimulus bill remain in flux. . . .
HOUSE AND SENATE:
The two branches resume informal sessions at 11 a.m. The House
and Senate continue to meet in lightly attended sessions where
lawmakers deal with mostly non-controversial, local bills.
Five major pieces of legislation pertaining to police reform,
climate change, health care, transportation funding, and economic
development remain in conference committee, where legislators
negotiate differences behind closed doors. . . .
BALLOT APPLICATIONS
MAILED: Secretary of State William Galvin must send
applications for mail-in general election ballots by Monday to
registered voters who have not already received them. All voters are
eligible to request and submit ballots by mail this year under the
state's COVID-era elections reform law, and Galvin's office said
Friday that those who have not yet filed applications should "keep
an eye on their mailbox in the coming days." Voters who
already requested general election ballots during the primary
election cycle will not need to re-apply. Those who are unsure
of their status can check the online portal, which will list
"pending" for anyone who has an application for a November ballot
already on file. The United States Postal Service recommends
voters send in their applications by Oct. 20 -- if not earlier --
and Galvin's office will start mailing ballots out by the first week
of October.
STATE HOUSE CLOSED FOR SIX
MONTHS: Wednesday marks half a year since Senate President
Spilka and House Speaker DeLeo closed the State House to the public
amid the flaring COVID-19 pandemic. . . .
There's been no word out of
any of the five conference committees each sitting on major legislation.
I spoke with a Republican state representative this week who agreed with
my view that nothing will be coming out of any of them until after the
November election and when anything does it'll be quickly voted on by
the House and Senate, rubber-stamped and sent on to the governor.
Any changes to either of the
below bills needs to happen before it is released by the
committees.
Thanks to the many who have
contacted the Transportation Bond Bill Committee members
and encouraged each of them to strip Section 5 from the
bill before returning it to the full Legislature, and
notified me that they did. There is still time to
contact the committee members. Whatever comes out
of the committee will quickly become law. A
radical tax policy change does not belong in a bond
bill, and a sneak attack on our and the voters' Prop
2˝ is both unnecessary and
ill-advised.
The
Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) — which would empower the
governor to unilaterally increase the tax on gas and diesel fuel by
decree, without legislative oversight — is still sitting in the Climate
Change Conference Committee as well. You can read more about it at "Critics
warn of cost of climate change bills".
You still can and should contact them as
well, tell them to drop TCI from the bill. It
there is to be a gas tax hike it should be done by our
elected representatives
—
state representatives and senators
—
by a vote
in the Legislature. Not by an arrogant edict of
this Royal Governor or the next. Here are the six members of
the Climate Change Conference Committee who are deciding
its fate and your future:
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Full News Reports Follow
(excerpted above) |
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The Boston
Globe
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Baker’s pandemic orders were tough. Were they lawful?
The state’s highest court must decide whether the governor
overstepped his authority.
By Jeff Jacoby
On Friday, six months after Governor Charlie Baker declared
a state of emergency and began issuing shutdown orders in
response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court takes up a threshold question: Were the
governor’s commands lawful?
Baker’s March 10 declaration was followed by dozens of
emergency orders affecting virtually every aspect of life in
the Bay State. His decrees shut down Massachusetts
businesses, houses of worship, and schools; banned elective
surgery; restricted travel; closed beaches and theaters;
prohibited sporting events; and limited weddings and
funerals to 10 people. Almost overnight, they plunged
Massachusetts into a recession. Unemployment rose to 17.4
percent, the highest rate in America. The state began
gradually reopening in late May, but for some businesses the
shutdown proved fatal. One-fifth of Massachusetts
restaurants, for example, have permanently closed their
doors.
The purpose of Baker’s orders was irreproachable: to slow
the spread of the coronavirus, which has now killed nearly
190,000 people in the United States and more than 9,000 in
Massachusetts. Whether the decrees were the best way to
address the pandemic is a question that epidemiologists and
other experts will be debating for some time. But the matter
before the state’s highest court isn’t whether Baker’s
unilateral orders — which can be enforced with fines and
imprisonment — were wise or well intended. It is whether he
had the legal authority to issue them.
The lawsuit was brought by a group of small-business owners,
pastors, and a private school headmaster. They argue that
Baker’s orders should be deemed invalid because they were
issued under the state’s 1950 Civil Defense Act — a law,
they say, that does not apply to the coronavirus pandemic.
That statute was enacted by the Legislature to empower
governors “to defend Massachusetts from foreign invasions,
armed insurrections, and similar catastrophic events,” the
plaintiffs contend, and it specifies in detail the types of
crises that can trigger its provisions — war or enemy
attack; riots or civil disturbance; severe drought; an
escape of radiation from a nuclear plant; and “fire, flood,
earthquake or other natural causes.” Those, say the
plaintiffs, are all “sudden cataclysmic events of limited
time, place, and duration.” The law makes no reference to
disease because it was never intended to apply to disease.
By contrast, the governor points to the phrase “other
natural causes” and insists that the 1950 act gives him all
the authority he needs. “Like fires, floods, and
earthquakes, COVID-19 is a natural phenomenon,” he observes
in a brief prepared by the attorney general’s office. He
also points to the law’s preamble, which described the act
as “an emergency law, necessary for the immediate
preservation of the public health, safety, and convenience.”
Far from overstepping his lawful authority, Baker maintains,
he is “discharging his constitutional prerogative, as well
as his constitutional duty,” by issuing orders under the
Civil Defense Act.
If so, why has no governor ever done what Baker has done?
Massachusetts has experienced multiple epidemics in the
decades since the Legislature enacted the Civil Defense Act,
yet Baker is the first governor to invoke the act to fight
the spread of disease. There’s a reason that hasn’t been
done before, the challengers argue: A rapidly spreading
disease is not a civil defense emergency. It is a public
health emergency — and for that, the Legislature enacted
the Public Health Act, which has been on the books for more
than a century. That is the law intended to govern
the state’s response to COVID-19, the plaintiffs assert.
“Governor Baker simply cannot substitute the inapposite
Civil Defense Act to ignore or suspend the very statute the
[Legislature] wrote to protect Massachusetts from
pandemics.”
This isn’t merely a wonky dispute over legislative
interpretation. Nothing in the Public Health Act authorizes
the kind of comprehensive economic shutdown that the
governor imposed on Massachusetts. That law delegates
considerable power to local health officials, not the
governor. If Baker issued orders by relying on a statute
that doesn’t actually grant him that power, those orders
were, in legalese, “ultra vires” — beyond the scope of his
authority. Until and unless lawmakers empower Baker to issue
emergency orders to address a pandemic, the plaintiffs
argue, he may not do so. So far, lawmakers haven’t acted.
Courts are typically reluctant to overturn emergency
measures designed for public protection. But such deference
has its limits. Defeating the coronavirus is a crucial
public good. Upholding the rule of law is too.
State House
News Service
Friday, September 11, 2020
Attorney: Legislature Consented to Baker’s Pandemic Orders
Oral Arguments Aired Before State's High Court
By Chris Lisinski
Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the state's highest
court is poised to decide whether Gov. Charlie Baker's
string of executive orders were a legally appropriate
response to contain the highly infectious virus or if he
overstepped the authority outlined in law.
An attorney representing business owners and religious
leaders who sued the Baker administration argued in court
Friday that Baker has "turned the government upside down" by
taking significant individual action, rather than executing
laws passed by the Legislature, during the public health
crisis.
"At this point, the Legislature is left to approve or
disapprove of the governor's policy choices," Michael
DeGrandis, a lawyer with the New Civil Liberties Alliance,
told justices. "That's not how it's supposed to work. The
governor is merely supposed to execute the policy choices of
the Legislature. For the Legislature to make a change, the
Legislature would also have to have a veto-proof majority to
do so. That is standing the government on its head. That's
not a republican form of government."
Baker declared a state of emergency on March 10, and has
issued numerous executive orders charting a course for
Massachusetts through the pandemic. His orders ranged from
ordering businesses deemed non-essential to shutter physical
operations to closing K-12 schools to limiting how many
people can gather in one place.
The alliance, a national non-profit that describes itself as
fighting the "unconstitutional administrative state," filed
a lawsuit against Massachusetts on June 1 on behalf of
several plaintiffs who own businesses or represent religious
institutions impacted by forced shutdowns and mandatory
operational changes during the pandemic.
At the core of the plaintiffs' case is the Civil Defense
Act, a 1950 law covering emergency preparedness on which the
administration based its response. The statute outlines
allowable causes for emergency declarations, including acts
of war, natural disasters and "other natural causes," but
does not explicitly name a pandemic.
DeGrandis argued that, because pandemics are not listed,
Baker overstepped his legal authority. The Public Health
Act, which directs the main responsibility for disease
control to local boards of health, should instead govern the
state's COVID-19 response, he said.
"The petitioners have been doing their part. They will
always do their part. They have abided by the governor's
orders as best as they could understand the governor's
orders and will continue to do so as long as this court
decides these are lawful orders," DeGrandis said. "This is
an issue of process and what is the character of
Massachusetts government. Is it a government of laws or a
government of men?"
State officials have contended that Baker was well within
his authority to lean on the Civil Defense Act. While it may
not use the word "pandemic," they argue it grants broad
authority for response to crises stemming from natural
causes.
"The pandemic clearly falls within that: it arises from a
natural cause, a fact that's undisputed in this case, and it
is causing a disaster of massive proportion within the
commonwealth and across the country," Assistant Attorney
General Doug Martland told justices.
The Legislature spent the first several months of the crisis
on uncertain ground, meeting only in lightly attended
informal sessions where a single lawmaker's dissent could
stall any bill. During that period, the governor took
numerous executive actions enacting binding rules to govern
life in Massachusetts.
Both branches now have processes in place to hold formal
sessions with remote voting, and they have generally worked
with the administration on a range of COVID-era responses,
such as a more than $1 billion supplemental budget, a
temporary ban on evictions and foreclosures, and an
expansion of mail-in voting.
Martland said Friday that the Legislature could have amended
the Civil Defense Act any time since March to make it clear
that it does not apply to pandemics, but lawmakers have not
done so.
"We have the Legislature confirming and ratifying the
governor's decisions in a host of legislation," Martland
said. "That includes the declaration of emergency being a
contingency for the operation of the statute. We also have
the Legislature appropriating over $1 billion in funds to
the commonwealth's COVID relief response, and if the
Legislature had any indication of disapproving, certainly
this court can conclude they would have done something more
than that."
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which has been critical
of Baker's pandemic response, has vocally supported the
lawsuit, though it is not a plaintiff in the case.
"Massachusetts residents and businesses that have fallen
victim to the Governor's orders, either by closing their
small business for good or having their freedoms and
liberties limited, should feel a sense of relief that their
side of the argument was finally heard by the public and the
state's highest court," Fiscal Alliance spokesman Paul
Craney said Friday. "We hope the justices will rule in favor
of those in Massachusetts who are suffering and do not have
a voice due to these orders."
Judges asked several questions from attorneys on both sides,
but did not offer an indication of which way they lean on
the case nor when they plan to issue a ruling.
Judges probed the plaintiffs' attorney on why a pandemic did
not fall into the "natural causes" definition and how the
Legislature could respond if they found Baker's actions
excessive, and asked the state's attorney how long an
emergency authorization should last. Martland said "it
depends on the circumstances."
Asked by Justice Elspeth Cypher whether local public health
boards have the capacity to manage a global pandemic,
DeGrandis replied that it was not for him to decide but that
lawmakers effectively ruled that by placing authority with
cities and towns in the Public Health Act.
At the start of the hearing, Justice Frank Gaziano said that
Chief Justice Ralph Gants -- who underwent surgery following
a heart attack one week ago -- would follow the proceedings
and planned to participate in the final decision.
The Boston
Herald
Friday, September 11, 2020
Tales of ‘Spanky’ the Cape Cod COVID inspector
By Howie Carr
Did Gov. Charlie Baker have the legal authority to destroy
Massachusetts?
That’s the only question pending before the Supreme Judicial
Court this morning.
The unprecedented damage done to the Commonwealth by the
governor Joe Biden calls “Charlie Parker” is no longer even
in question.
Tall Deval’s ghastly record speaks for itself: Massachusetts
now has the worst unemployment rate in the nation (16.1%)
and, simultaneously, the third highest rate of death (behind
only N.J. and N.Y.) during the Panic of 2020.
Great job, Charlie Parker! You’ve decimated the Commonwealth
in every way imaginable. Mission accomplished.
But did Tall Deval have the authority to create this
catastrophe, with his high-handed, imperious, utterly
wrongheaded orders?
It’s too late to file an amicus brief, so I would just like
to add an exhibit in the court of public opinion, and let
the justices decide whether they believe that this is what
the Founding Fathers would have considered a just and
equitable use of governmental authority.
If it pleases the court, I would insert into the record at
this time a report dated Aug. 26 from a Barnstable County
health inspector named “Spanky.” (That’s his email handle –
Spankysyl.)
You probably didn’t know counties had health inspectors –
neither did I. And Barnstable didn’t have one before the
panic began.
Spanky is the alias of one Norman Sylvester Jr., the former
fire chief in Bourne.
Perhaps you recall the headlines a few months back about
Chief Spanky:
“Union casts vote of ‘no confidence’ in fire chief … Chief
Fights Back Against Union Accusations … Chief Sylvester
Announces Retirement … Again.”
Bottom line: the new hack job needed Spanky, and Spanky
needed a job, even a part-time job.
Like a good German, Spanky was only following orders when he
was instructed to take down a bar in Brewster called the
Woodshed. It’s a prototypical townie gin mill, attached to
the Brewster Inn and Chowder House.
The Woodshed stood accused of allowing fun on the premises –
a capital offense in Charlie Parker’s Fourth Reich.
On Saturday, Aug. 22, Spanky was assigned to reconnoiter the
perimeter, namely, the barroom’s back porch, where local
bands play, as well as the large, shaded parking lot behind
the licensed establishment.
For his surveillance mission on behalf of the Karens of
Brewster, Spanky was cleverly disguised as a
multiple-chinned, bald fat guy in a pickup truck. Everyone
he writes about was outside.
“While there I watch a couple drinking on the deck at a
small table.” Notice the use of the present tense. Spanky is
a regular Damon Runyon.
“A second customer w/a beard, hat and ponytail moved a table
and chairs around the lower lot and positioned himself so he
could see the band that was setting up… No one from the band
was wearing mask (sic) and continuously walked between the
vehicle and the customer.
“I moved my vehicle to the other side of the parking lot to
evaluate the staff assisting the band setting up.”
And then came the moment Spanky had been waiting for:
“While parked there the 4 additional staff members arrived
at 15:55, 3 females and 1 male arrived. All three females
had no mask on, and 2 of them changed in their vehicles
prior to entering the building.”
This is Charlie Parker’s Maskachusetts. A middle-aged
layabout named Spanky sitting in a pickup truck watching
young women coming from the beach in bathing suits change
into street clothes… and the state is paying him to do it!
No wonder the hacks are refusing to turn over either the
logs from their multiple snitch lines, or the incident
reports the ABCC has been filing against bars trying to hang
on until the Parker insanity ends.
Can you imagine how much of this Charlie Parker-sanctioned
BS has been going on, as the state’s economy descends into a
second Depression?
The Woodshed was ordered shut down for the entire month of
September.
Speaking to the servile Boston press Wednesday, Gov. Parker
claimed that “the vast majority of our economy is open.”
In Charlie’s world, it’s true. That same day, he nominated
for a district court judgeship a lawyer from Braintree named
Robert W. Harnais.
Harnais is eminently qualified: according to the Office of
Campaign and Political Finance, he has duked $3,500 to Tall
Deval and $5,000 to the lieutenant governor, Karyn “Pay to
Play” Polito.
This is Charlie Parker’s economy, the only one the hack’s
hack has ever “worked” in. The waitresses at the Woodshed
are unemployed, but Spanky the health inspector is still
hacking around the Cape, getting paid.
Your Honor, I would close with what Thomas Jefferson said of
King George III, because it applies so perfectly to the
actions of Charlie Parker over the last six months:
“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither
swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their
substances.”
The plaintiffs rest.
State House
News Service
Sunday, September 6, 2020
Employers Face “Staggering” Hike in Unemployment Taxes
Relief Mulled as Rates to Rise $319 Per Employee
By Chris Lisinski
With unemployment soaring, state lawmakers are considering
ways to soften the blow from a major impending increase in
the taxes employers pay toward the state's unemployment
system, a jump in costs that one business group described as
a "pretty staggering."
With the unemployment insurance trust fund suddenly facing a
multibillion-dollar deficit over the next four years, the
contributions required from Massachusetts businesses are set
to increase nearly 60 percent when the calendar turns to
2021 and then continue growing at a smaller rate through
2024.
Those higher taxes -- estimated at an average of $319 more
per qualifying employee next year -- will be due starting in
April, raising concerns that the sharp uptick will put a
drag on the economic recovery from the ongoing COVID-prompted
recession and make it more difficult for employers to bring
back jobs they cut.
Christopher Carlozzi, state director for the National
Federation of Independent Business Massachusetts, said his
group and the employers with which it works view the
projected increases as "a looming crisis."
"It's almost a Catch-22," Carlozzi said in an interview.
"You want these businesses creating jobs. Now you're making
it prohibitively more expensive to create a new job by
increasing the tax on employers simply to employ people."
The Legislature has on occasion stepped in to prevent a
significant increase from hitting employers, but it's
unclear if it will do so this year. Lawmakers continue to
weigh ideas to accelerate economic growth.
During the Great Recession, lawmakers and former Gov. Deval
Patrick agreed to several consecutive years of unemployment
insurance rate freezes amid projections that the rate
schedule would climb to the highest allowable level.
A key lawmaker said this week that the anticipated increase
in 2021 might not come to pass.
Sen. Patricia Jehlen, who co-chairs the Labor and Workforce
Development Committee, told the News Service she believes
the Legislature will look to freeze rates on employers to
limit the additional strain, but stressed that because of
the size of the shortfall, the federal government will need
to play a role in any solution.
"Traditionally, and I think we would want to do this again,
we would need to freeze," Jehlen said. "We would love to
freeze rather than allowing it to go up during a recovery
because so many businesses are in trouble. But we really
need help from the feds to make that possible."
"Like everything else, we're just totally dependent on the
federal government in this situation," she added.
Over the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Massachusetts -- like many other states -- faced an
unprecedented level of demand for joblessness benefits and
demand remains high. The state paid more than $4 billion in
aid between January and July, compared to just $812 million
over the same period in 2019.
The account used to pay those claims was not equipped for
the sudden surge. At the end of July, it was already $748
million in the red, and the Baker administration projected
in an August quarterly report that the shortfall will grow
to nearly $2.5 billion by the end of the year.
Each of the following four years will also run negative,
officials estimate, pushing the five-year total to a roughly
$20 billion net deficit -- an outlook that is somewhat
better than the $27 billion net deficit projected in the
previous quarterly update issued in May.
To help prevent the fund from becoming insolvent, the
average cost per employee is estimated to increase from $539
in 2020 at rate schedule E to $858 in 2021 at rate schedule
G. Officials expect to remain at the highest rate schedule
through 2024, topping out at an average cost per employee of
$925 in the final year of projections.
Carolyn Ryan, senior vice president of policy and research
for the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, said her group's
members are also worried about the impact of the higher
contributions amid a recession.
She and other business leaders are weighing possible
advocacy efforts, but Ryan warned that the unemployment
taxes are "probably the first of many bills" from the
pandemic -- an economic crisis she said will likely surpass
the Great Recession -- that Massachusetts will need to pay.
Lawmakers have yet to even embark on debate over an annual
budget with a four-month interim spending plan currently in
place, and while tax collections are holding up early in
fiscal 2021 experts previously said the state could fall
billions of dollars short of pre-pandemic tax revenue
estimates.
"There's going to have to be shared pain. It's probably some
budget cuts, probably some borrowing, probably some revenue
raisers in the mix of those," Ryan said. "It's going to be
painful no matter what. That's the really sobering part of
this. It's stuff that, if I were in charge, would keep me up
at night."
The current outlook has revived broader debate about the
state's unemployment system and whether its eligibility and
benefit levels need to be reformed.
Carlozzi, whose group has been pushing for changes to UI
infrastructure for years, said the forthcoming strain makes
a clear case that Beacon Hill should consider raising the
bar for benefits and lowering the requirements on employers.
He pointed to a December 2019 report from The Tax
Foundation, a think tank that broadly supports lower tax
burdens, that placed Massachusetts dead last among states in
a nationwide ranking based on its rates and its $15,000
taxable wage base.
"It is something lawmakers may want to consider at this
point because it's going to be a difficult tax to pay for
employers, especially those looking to get people back
working again under very difficult circumstances," Carlozzi
said. "They really haven't had an appetite to do it, but it
might be the time."
Labor organizations have often resisted calls to restructure
the system, describing unemployment benefits as a key crutch
to keep workers afloat during challenging times and promote
economic development.
Phineas Baxandall, a senior analyst at the left-leaning
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, argued that agreeing
to scale back the system would only set the state up to fall
short at protecting its residents from future economic harm.
"To me, one of the real lessons from the last months is how
the unemployment system has saved the Massachusetts economy
from freefall," Baxandall said. "It has saved us from a
chain reaction in which layoffs erase consumer demand and
even workers with jobs cease spending because they're just a
pink slip away from destitution."
A key factor in the current situation, he said, is that the
trust fund did not build up stronger reserves during years
of growth following the most recent recession -- something
he tied directly to advocacy by business-friendly groups.
Massachusetts for years has fallen short of a ratio between
benefit costs and wages, referred to as the average high
cost multiple, phased in by federal regulations.
"We're coming off of the longest-ever recorded economic
expansion, and yet our reserves were not particularly
strong," Baxandall said. "That's not because the system that
was created was flawed. It was because the system that was
created was not allowed to work. Time after time, these same
kinds of business organizations suspended the smaller
increases in the payroll tax that were meant to keep our
unemployment trust fund well-funded."
States with stronger performance qualify for interest-free
advances from the federal government. In 2019, Massachusetts
needed a trust fund balance of $3.93 billion to meet that
threshold, but the account totaled only $1 billion at the
end of the year.
That carries further cost implications during the COVID
recession: according to U.S. Treasury data, Massachusetts
has already received nearly $1.3 billion in loans from the
federal government to cover the trust fund as of Friday,
which will eventually incur interest. The current interest
is 2.4 percent, according to the Treasury.
The state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce
Development anticipates interest payments on any unpaid
federal advances would be due starting in September 2021.
"The Department of Unemployment Assistance continues to
monitor the latest trust fund projections and will continue
to work with state and federal partners to ensure that
financial benefits are delivered and funded during these
unprecedented circumstances," EOLWD spokesperson Charles
Pearce said in a brief statement.
As lawmakers look toward the federal government for help,
Ryan cautioned against overreliance on dollars that
Massachusetts will need to pay back.
"While it's helpful to have (the federal government) fill in
and the magnitude of some of these expenses can only be
filled by the federal government, it's not free money," she
said.
With more than 1.7 million claims for standard or expanded
unemployment insurance since the start of the pandemic,
Massachusetts residents have leaned heavily on the system.
The state has topped national rankings in unemployment rate
for each of the past two months, at 17.7 percent in June and
16.1 percent in July.
The higher assessments are also scheduled to kick in at the
same time that workers gain access to paid family and
medical leave under a 2018 law. Payroll taxes of 0.75
percent to fund those forthcoming benefits started on Oct.
1.
The Boston
Herald
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Massachusetts unemployed get $1,500 boost as extra benefits
get disbursed
By Erin Tiernan
A second round of extra unemployment benefits will pad the
pockets of Massachusetts claimants with an additional
$1,500, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Wednesday.
Claimants will earn an extra $300 for five weeks retroactive
to Aug. 1, Baker said, speaking at the State House.
About $200 million in extra payments have already landed in
the accounts of claimants receiving benefits through the
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, a federal program
created to help out-of-work gig and freelance workers amid
the coronavirus crisis.
People receiving traditional unemployment will get it “in
the next few days,” Baker said.
Anyone who already received a payment will get the remainder
of the balance in their next benefits check, Baker said.
Baker called the added benefits “an important step in making
sure we sustain enough relief for people who are out of work
here in MA” but warned it “should not be considered and
isn’t a permanent or sustainable solution” as it relies on
FEMA funds.
The Republican governor called on federal legislators on
both sides of the aisle “to step up and do what they said
they were going to do this summer and come up with a
COVID-19 relief package… it’s the right thing to do for
workers who lost there jobs… and it’s critically important
for cities and towns,” he said.
For the second month in a row, Massachusetts had the
nation’s highest unemployment rate in July at 16.1%,
according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
Bay State unemployment was down from 17.4% in June but still
far above July’s national unemployment rate of 10.2%.
The state has already had to borrow from the federal
government to cover jobless claims amid the pandemic that
has emptied its unemployment trust fund. With deficits
projected to reach into the billions, tax increases to
businesses could be “staggering,” the Baker administration
warned earlier this week.
State House
News Service
Tuesday, September 8, 2020
Galvin: More Money Needed for Mail-in Voting
Primary Lessons Can Help With General Election
By Matt Murphy
With the drama of ballot counting in the Fourth
Congressional District behind him, Secretary of State
William Galvin called the state's first foray into
widespread mail-in voting a "great success," but said he
will need additional funding to ensure that the November
election goes off smoothly.
Applications for mail-in ballots will begin to go out to
registered voters by the end of the week, Galvin said. And
the state's chief elections officer anticipates an online
portal required by the Legislature for voters to request
early and absentee ballots to be operational by the end of
the month.
But some things will need to change before November, when
turnout and the volume of mail-in ballots is expected to be
even higher than it was for the primaries.
Galvin told the News Service Tuesday he has already spoken
to the Baker administration about his need for additional
funding to cover the cost of mailing applications and
ballots to registered voters interested in voting by mail in
the general election.
Asked how much would be required, Galvin said, "More than a
million."
"I'm optimistic that they'll be cooperative," he said of the
administration.
Galvin said he wished he had even more money to help local
election clerks hire staff to run the polls and process
ballots, and said he was discouraged by reports that Senate
Republicans in Congress had rolled out a pared back stimulus
bill Tuesday that did not contain funding for election
operations.
Local officials may need help, Galvin said, and "it would be
great if I had the resources to help them pay for personnel
and staff, but I don't."
Galvin discussed his preparations for the November election
days after concluding the late counting of thousands of
mail-in ballots in Newton, Wellesley and Franklin, three of
the communities where there was a tightly contested primary
for Congress eventually won by Newton City Councilor Jake
Auchincloss.
Local officials in those towns, especially Franklin, had
difficulty getting all their ballots delivered on election
night to precincts for counting, especially those that
arrived late on election day by mail.
Galvin said he would not be seeking any legislative changes
to the vote-by-mail process, but would be making some
procedural adjustments and talking with local clerks about
best practices and lessons learned from the primary.
"Even if I had a wish list, it would be impractical. There's
not enough time," Galvin said about seeking legislative
remedies. "The changes we're thinking about are more
procedural and will be accomplished administratively, some
uniformity in terms of counting practices. Fortunately
November we will have three additional days to receive and
count ballots."
Unlike in the primary when mail-in or early ballots had to
be received by 8 p.m. on election night to count, the new
law allows for ballots to arrive up until 5 p.m. on the
Friday after the election, or Nov. 6, as long as they were
postmarked by election day. A town or city's books will also
remain open for 10 days for military and overseas ballots to
arrive.
"We also don't have the pressure to prepare another ballot,"
Galvin said.
Newton City Clerk David Olson told the News Service last
week that more than 3,100 ballots arrived on election day,
including the 751 ballots that arrived after 5 p.m. and
weren't counted until Thursday after Galvin secured a court
order to keep counting.
"I think it went really well," Olson said of mail-in voting
overall. "It just would have been really nice to have that
extra day."
Close to 1.6 million people voted in the state primaries on
Tuesday, according to preliminary numbers, which would be a
record for raw votes cast, and Galvin credited not just
voting by mail, but also the work local officials did to
make in-person voting a safe experience.
"I think it's also pretty clear we had a successful in
person, as well," he said.
But Galvin wasn't quite ready Tuesday to say mail-in voting
should be here to stay.
"We'll have to discuss where it stands in November. I think
we can say it was a positive experience," he said. "We have
to look at the numbers, but I think we brought a lot more
independent voters into the primary process."
State House
News Service
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Galvin Doubts Census Efforts in Mass. Cities
By Matt Murphy
Worried that the U.S. Census Bureau is undercounting certain
populations in Massachusetts, Secretary of State William
Galvin said Thursday he would challenge any final population
total that comes in "significantly below" the state's own
estimates, and offered up state data that could be used to
fill holes in the count.
Galvin, in a new letter to Census Bureau Director Steven
Dillingham, said he did not think Massachusetts communities
were being surveyed "adequately," and that harder-to-count
populations might wind up being omitted from the final
tally.
The state's liaison to the Census, Galvin said he was
particularly concerned about how COVID-19 and the
disbursement of college students from dorms to off-campus
housing just before the Census forms were mailed in April
might impact the count.
"I am willing to provide whatever resources we have
available to the Census Bureau to ensure that everyone is
counted in Massachusetts," Galvin said. "Because the Census
Bureau has failed to answer many questions about the
progress they are making with counting in our residents, I
am suspicious of the data that is being collected, and I am
prepared to challenge any final census numbers that are
significantly below our own population estimates."
Galvin submitted the state's housing unit address list,
group quarters and transitory location lists, and said the
Census Bureau has historically used this type of information
to augment counting efforts, including helping the bureau
identify new residences and count people living in group
quarters like dormitories. He's asked Dillingham to accept
similar adminstrative records to help with counting students
living in off-campus apartments and student housing.
"From the limited information provided by the Census Bureau
and the unknowns of how the daily percentages are being
calculated, I do not believe that our municipalities,
specifically our cities, have been adequately surveyed, and
I believe that many hard to count populations are being
omitted," Galvin wrote to Dillingham.
The count affects state representation in Congress, and
influences federal funding allocations over the next decade.
Galvin said that in the next few weeks he would also be
submitting the state's population data estimates.
State House
News Service
Friday, September 11, 2020
Weekly Roundup - Pac-Man and the Plaintiffs
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
What lessons have been learned? What lessons will be taught?
What past experiences can be put to good use to prepare for
what's down the road?
All these questions and more were on the minds of leaders
this week as they returned to work after the extended Labor
Day weekend, staring at the reality of time and the fact
that the dreaded "fall resurgence" could actually be right
around the corner.
"There's a lot of scenario planning going on," Baker said
Tuesday, confronted with the possibility that the days of
sub-1-percent positive testing rates may be numbered.
Those scenarios include making sure hospitals that survived
the first wave of coronavirus without getting overrun are
prepared again. And that the state's testing labs are ready
to handle the increased volume that could come from more
college and grade school students getting tested, as well as
people confusing symptoms from fall colds and the
old-fashioned flu with COVID-19.
CommonWealth magazine reported that Partners in Health,
which runs the state's contact tracing program, is staffing
up for the fall, and some outbreaks cropped up on campuses
like Boston College's.
But for now, the trends remain positive, even if the number
of communities in the highest risk "red" category climbed by
five to 13 this week. Some of that was explained by a
cluster of restaurant staff in Chatham. And high schoolers
in Dedham getting together to watch the Bruins playoff run.
But even those isolated cases can have consequences. Just
look at the spread from one wedding in Millinocket, Maine.
The puck party in Dedham was enough to force that town to
cancel its plan to begin phasing in students for in-person
learning on Sept. 21 after a remote start next week.
Secretary of State William Galvin too said he learned a few
things from the first go-around with mail-in voting that he
hopes to apply in November, including the need for more
uniform ballot counting procedures, but he won't be asking
legislators for any changes to the law. What he has asked
the administration for is more than $1 million to cover the
cost of mailing another round of applications and ballots.
The unofficial end of summer also meant rethinking how some
of the creative steps taken to allow the economy to begin to
recover in the warm weather can be extended to chillier
autumn days and night.
Baker visited Medford's Bistro 5 on Thursday to announce
that he was doubling the size of the Shared Streets and
Spaces grant program from $5 million to $10 million to help
restaurant owners like Vittorio Ettore afford modifications
like heat lamps to extend the life of their new outdoor
patios.
The governor also said that while the going was good he was
prepared to allow outdoor and indoor arcades to reopen
starting next week, a change to the reopening plan that came
after the owner of the Salem arcade Bit Bar sued the
administration, questioning why his business was being
treated differently than casinos.
That's not to say that's the whole reason Baker decided to
open arcades. But the courts are starting to become that
player off the bench who just may have an outsized impact on
the final outcome of the game.
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf declined to intervene
after a group of landlords sued over the state's moratorium
on evictions and foreclosures on Constitutional grounds. But
the judge gave Baker more to think about over the next month
when, according to the lawyer for the plaintiffs, he
indicated that the ban's shelf life may be coming to an end.
The landlord's attorney Richard Vetstein said Wolf made
clear that the ban's utility as a measure to control the
spread of COVID-19 is not indefinite, especially if the
state continues to succeed in driving down infection rates.
Baker faces a decision over whether to extend the moratorium
beyond Oct. 17, and he'll have to factor the court's into
his thinking.
With a possible return to Housing Court on the horizon for
landlords and renters, a group of major health care
providers and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh amplified calls to
guarantee tenants facing eviction the right to counsel. Hard
to see Michelle Wu argue against that, if as Walsh said
Monday to great controversy, the popular city councilor is
planning to run for mayor next year.
The Supreme Judicial Court also sat this week to hear
arguments in a variety of cases, including one involving
prisoners seeking release because of the threat of COVID-19
in incarceration.
The must-see-court-TV had to wait until Friday, though, when
the SJC heard oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by small
business owners, church leaders and educators that put
Baker's entire body of work during the pandemic up for
judgement. The plaintiffs say Baker's executive orders aimed
at controlling the spread of COVID-19 overstepped his
authority under the Civil Defense Act, and a ruling in their
favor could negate everything from forced business closures
to gathering size-limits.
Needless to say, the outcome of the case will have broad
implications for executive power beyond this pandemic,
including any future public health crises.
A week before that case was heard, Chief Justice Ralph
Gants, 65, suffered a heart attack. He announced the health
scare himself on Tuesday in a statement released by the
court, indicating that he expected to make a full recovery
after a surgery to insert two stents, but would be limited
in his ability to judge cases for a time.
Justice Frank Gaziano on Friday said that while Gants would
not be participating in oral arguments, he would be
following the proceedings and helping to decide the case.
While not a court, per se, the Commonwealth Employment
Relations Board also fired a shot across the bow of
teachers' unions when it ruled against the Andover Education
Association, finding that teachers who refused to enter
school buildings and classrooms on Aug. 31 for
back-to-school safety training had participated in an
illegal strike.
It didn't matter, the board said, that teachers deemed the
school buildings unsafe and set up in school yards outside
with laptops and prepared to work. They don't have the
authority, the CERB decided, to decide where they report for
duty.
Baker said he agreed with the decision, and that there was
nothing unsafe about returning to a "basically empty" school
building for professional development.
But Massachusetts Teachers Association President Merrie
Najimy lit into the governor and his administration for not
starting school remotely this fall, and said the ruling
would not stop teachers in other communities from doing what
they needed to do to protect themselves.
With students in many communities prepared to either return
to the classroom or fire up their Zoom rooms next week, the
back-and-forth between local unions, school committees and
the administration all point to a tense week to come and
uncertainty about how much learning will actually be taking
place.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Mourning summer.
State House
News Service
Friday, September 11, 2020
Advances - Week of Sept. 13, 2020
Teachers in Massachusetts have been setting up classrooms
and learning about best practices for educating children
during a pandemic, and next week they will be joined by
students in some districts, marking the latest big step in
the state's long, slow climb toward a new normal.
Six months after Gov. Baker declared a COVID-19 state of
emergency, Massachusetts remains in the vigilant mode of
Phase 3 of its reopening plan, with everyone hoping the
state can in the coming months move to Phase 4, when an
effective virus treatment or vaccine would enable the
fullest reopening of businesses and activities.
Students haven't seen the inside of their schools since
March and under state rules districts have been allowed to
reduce the 180-day student learning time requirement for the
2020-2021 school year to 170 days, as long as they begin
providing instruction to students no later than Wednesday,
Sept. 16, with waivers available if districts are unable to
meet that requirement.
Some districts are resuming the fully remote mode that they
implemented to finish the last school year, but most have
adopted a hybrid approach, with students learning some days
at school and other days from home to minimize in-person
class sizes and guard against COVID-19 spread.
The shift back to school buildings will create challenges
for parents and extended family members, who need to bend
work-life schedules to accommodate novel academic schedules
and take new transmission risks into consideration with more
people mingling. School is also starting with a growing
number of unemployed parents, who are receiving enhanced
jobless benefits authorized by President Donald Trump while
talks on a stimulus bill remain in flux....
HOUSE AND SENATE: The two branches resume
informal sessions at 11 a.m. The House and Senate continue
to meet in lightly attended sessions where lawmakers deal
with mostly non-controversial, local bills. Five major
pieces of legislation pertaining to police reform, climate
change, health care, transportation funding, and economic
development remain in conference committee, where
legislators negotiate differences behind closed doors....
BALLOT APPLICATIONS MAILED: Secretary of State
William Galvin must send applications for mail-in general
election ballots by Monday to registered voters who have not
already received them. All voters are eligible to request
and submit ballots by mail this year under the state's COVID-era
elections reform law, and Galvin's office said Friday that
those who have not yet filed applications should "keep an
eye on their mailbox in the coming days." Voters who already
requested general election ballots during the primary
election cycle will not need to re-apply. Those who are
unsure of their status can check the online portal, which
will list "pending" for anyone who has an application for a
November ballot already on file. The United States Postal
Service recommends voters send in their applications by Oct.
20 -- if not earlier -- and Galvin's office will start
mailing ballots out by the first week of October....
STATE HOUSE CLOSED FOR SIX MONTHS: Wednesday
marks half a year since Senate President Spilka and House
Speaker DeLeo closed the State House to the public amid the
flaring COVID-19 pandemic. The two announced March 16 that
the building would be closed starting that evening, and
Spilka said it would remain closed "through the duration of
the state of emergency." Earlier that day, the Senate
conducted its business before a largely empty chamber and a
virtual audience -- broadcasting an informal session on the
Internet for the first time. Rumors have periodically
swirled under the Golden Dome about when the doors might
reopen to members of the public, but Gov. Baker, DeLeo, and
Spilka have pretty much stayed mum on the subject. Baker
said earlier this summer that the building is under the
Legislature's control, while legislative leaders have
deferred to the administration on the building's status. The
Bureau of the State House website initially said that events
scheduled to take place this spring inside the building
could be rescheduled for the fall, but the site now simply
states, "The Massachusetts State House is closed to the
public until further notice." In the meantime, rallies that
once might have gathered in front of the House or Senate
chambers have been held on the Beacon Street sidewalk,
advocacy days have digitized as Zoom meetings, and
protesters who would normally have marched the marble
corridors have turned into car parades circling the State
House and snarling traffic.
State House
News Service
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Board Rules Andover Teachers Participated in Illegal Strike
By Matt Murphy
A state labor board ruled Tuesday night that Andover
teachers had taken part in an illegal strike last week when
they refused to enter school buildings and classrooms for
professional development, ordering the local union to notify
its members of their duty to return to school.
The Andover School Committee last Tuesday filed a complaint
after the Andover Education Association and its members
refused to take part in special preparations related to
COVID-19 safety measures for the reopening of school.
The union argued that teachers should have been allowed to
participate in the training outside of school buildings and
classrooms.
The Commonwealth Employment Relations Board, in a 35-page
ruling, found the union and its members engaged in an
unlawful strike on Aug. 31, rejecting the union's argument
that it should be allowed to "dictate where they perform
their work."
The board, chaired by Marjorie Wittner, ordered the union
and its employees to cease any further strikes or work
stoppages or slowdowns, and told union leaders to stop
encouraging work stoppages or the withholding of services
and to inform its members of their obligation to work.
"In an era where many employees can perform some or all of
their work remotely as long as they have a computer and
reliable internet connection, and to the extent this is not
already self-evident, we hold that the phrase 'report to
duty' in Section 19 of the Law means reporting not only when
but where the employer has ordered its employees to report,"
the board concluded.
"In this case, that means inside the school buildings,
including inside classrooms," the ruling said.
Many teachers and their local unions around the state have
been hesitant about returning to the classroom as some
schools have opted for fully in-person or hybrid models of
teaching to start the new school year. The state shortened
the required duration of the school year by 10 days to give
districts extra time for professional development to become
familiar with new curricula and COVID-19 safety rules for
teachers, students and staff. |
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