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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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CLT UPDATE
Sunday, November 8, 2020
Election Week In
Review
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
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Most Relevant News Excerpts
(Full news reports follow
Commentary)
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Democrats appeared
headed into the next lawmaking session with two more seats
on Beacon Hill than they held when polls opened Tuesday, a
slight expansion to their veto-proof majorities in both
chambers amid national election currents that might have
pushed the party to aim higher.
Voters in two
Republican-held House districts and one Republican-held
Senate district selected Democratic candidates in the
general elections, while the GOP flipped a House seat
recently represented by a Democrat, leaving a net gain
of two for Democrats who already control more than
three-quarters of the state Legislature.
The election
night shift is smaller than two years ago, when
Democrats added three seats, despite occurring in an
election where Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden
rolled up big numbers over President Donald Trump, who
is unpopular in Massachusetts and remains locked in the
tight national race with Biden for the presidency.
However,
Democrats had already flipped three other seats -- one
House, two Senate -- in special elections earlier this
year to replace lawmakers who resigned for other
opportunities, so their projected ranks for the
2021-2022 session are five members larger than the start
of the current session....
After the 2018
elections, the House started the current two-year
session with 127 Democrats, 32 Republicans and one
independent, Rep. Susannah Whipps of Athol. Its balance
is set to shift to 129 Democrats and 30 Republicans,
plus Whipps, after the special and general elections.
In the Senate,
a chamber that had 34 Democrat and six Republican
members after the 2018 elections is poised to start the
next session with 37 Democrats and just three
Republicans.
State House
News Service
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Shrinking GOP Minority Shed Five
Seats in 2020
Massachusetts
Democrats appear to have been unable to capitalize on
having a deeply unpopular Republican president at the
top of the ticket this fall and will not likely emerge
from Election Day with substantially greater
supermajorities in the Legislature.
Votes were
still being counted in many municipalities across
Massachusetts late Tuesday night, but preliminary
results indicated the balance of power in the state
Legislature will be changed only slightly, in large part
because only one-quarter of the 200 seats up for grabs
every two years drew contested races.
Democrats
picked up a Senate seat, but several House races were
too close to call late in the night, muddying the
outlook on whether either party will net a gain in that
branch.
The headlining
victory for the Democrats on Tuesday could be Lunenburg
Democrat John Cronin's toppling of incumbent Republican
Sen. Dean Tran in northern central Massachusetts....
With Tran's
defeat, the GOP caucus in the 40-seat Senate is poised
to shrink to three members. That level of representation
is the fewest seats the party has won in a biennial
general election since at least 1970, though the
minority caucus dropped to three as recently as 2013 due
to a mid-session resignation.
The GOP did
flip a Westfield-based House seat last held by a
Democrat and defended a handful of incumbents in
contested contests....
Democrats have
wielded super-majorities in both chambers for nearly
three decades, margins large enough to ensure they could
override any gubernatorial veto, which they generally
have done over the years.
The last time
Republicans held at least a third of either branch,
enough to block a veto override, was in the 1991-1992
session in the Senate....
Coming into
Election Day, the Democrats' 36-4 grip on Massachusetts
Senate seats made it the second-most lopsided state
Senate in the country, tied with Wyoming, according to
the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only
Hawaii, where Democrats controlled 24 of 25 Senate seats
as of April, or 96 percent, has a more uneven party
split among its Senate.
In
Massachusetts and Wyoming, one party controls 90 percent
of state Senate seats. In Massachusetts, Democrats hold
36 seats to the Republican Party's four seats, but in
Wyoming, the partisanship is reversed and the GOP
controls 27 of 30 filled seats, according to the NCSL.
The
Massachusetts House is less lopsided than the Senate but
still ranks as having the seventh most uneven political
party distribution of any state House of Representatives
in the country, according to NCSL. Bay State Democrats
hold 127 of the chamber's 160 seats, or 79.4 percent.
As of Aug. 1,
there were 7,383 total state legislative seats in
America, according to NCSL. If every legislative chamber
were combined into one nationwide Legislature,
Republicans would be in the majority with control of
almost 52 percent of the seats. The balance of power
would be 3,820 Republicans, 3,436 Democrats, and 127
independents, other party or vacant seats.
State House
News Service
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Dems Build Senate Advantage to 37
of 40 Seats
Voters of
Massachusetts said no Tuesday night to a reform that
would have dramatically altered the way voters choose
their elected leaders, rejecting a ballot question
backed by a who's who of current and former political
leaders from both parties that would have allowed voters
in future statewide elections to rank candidates in
races with three or more choices on the ballot.
Voters
approved the other ballot question, breaking in favor of
giving independent mechanics access to wireless vehicle
data to repair cars by a three-to-one margin, according
to incomplete and unofficial returns....
Unofficial
results showed voters favoring Question 1 by a
three-to-one margin with over 65 percent of precincts
reporting, according to the Associated Press.
"It's your
car. You paid for it. You should be able to get it fixed
where you want," said Tommy Hickey, the campaign
director for the Yes on 1 campaign.
The verdict on
ranked-choice voting, also known as Question 2, took
longer, but proponents conceded their campaign not long
after midnight after waiting to see if votes from some
of the larger cities in Massachusetts could turn the
early momentum against the initiative back in its
favor....
With 80
percent of precincts reporting, the ranked choice voting
question trailed with 45.5 percent supporting the
initiative and 54.5 percent opposed, despite proponents
raising nearly $10 million and vastly outspending
opponent who raised just over $3,500....
The [Question
1] ad war between the two sides was paid for with huge
sums of outside money that flowed into Massachusetts,
with parts manufacturers like Auto Zone helping to fund
a more than $24 million campaign to pass the ballot
question, and car manufacturers like General Motors,
Ford and Toyota financing the $26 million opposition
campaign.
Ranked-choice
voting [Question 2] also enjoyed deep-pockets support
from out of state, with major contributions coming from
wealthy proponents of ranked-choice voting such as the
Houston-based Action Now Initiative.
The list of
wealthy donors backing the question also included
Kathryn Murdoch, the president of Quadrivium and
daughter-in-law of media mogul Rupert Murdoch; Eton Park
Capital Management CEO Eric Mindich, and Jonathan Soros,
the CEO of JS Capital Management and son of billionaire
philanthropist George Soros.
State House
News Service
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Mass. Voters Embrace Auto Repair
Question, Reject Voting Reform
The House
unanimously passed a $423 million spending bill Thursday
to close out the books on fiscal 2020 more than four
months after the new fiscal year began. House Ways and
Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz touted the fact that the
legislation wraps up fiscal 2020 without tapping into
the stabilization fund....
Over the
course of about two hours, House legislators withdrew
nearly all of the 39 amendments to the bill -- only
three were adopted.
State House
News Service
Thursday, November 5, 2020
House Session Summary - Thursday, Nov.
5, 2020
Plans Friday Session to Finish Work on $423 Mil Closeout
Budget
The Senate
gaveled into a Friday afternoon session to take final
votes on a $423 million supplemental budget wrapping up
fiscal 2020, the fiscal year that ended on June 30.
Calling it
"bill-paying exercise" with significant MassHealth
spending and $1.1 million for early voting costs from
last spring's presidential primary, the bill would also
retroactively extend the statute of limitations related
to a lawsuit against OxyContin manufacturer Purdue
Pharma, budget chief Sen. Michael Rodrigues said.
State House
News Service
Friday, November 6, 2020
Senate Session Summary - Friday, Nov.
6, 2020
Sends $423 Mil Bill to Baker Closing Out Fiscal 2020
It has never
been easier for businesses and jobs to flee
Massachusetts in droves and the House and Senate should
think long and hard about that possibility before
considering new or higher taxes on companies, some of
the most influential industry groups this week warned
Democratic leaders.
A giant chunk
of the Massachusetts business community sent a letter
Monday to House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate
President Karen Spilka reminding them that "barriers to
exit for Massachusetts employers and employees has never
been lower" given the way the COVID-19 pandemic has
fundamentally changed work for millions of people, and
that the fragile economy "requires a go-slow approach to
new taxes on business."
The letter was
sent as the House was preparing to release its fiscal
year 2021 budget for debate next week. The House budget
does not call for higher taxes....
"Employers of
all sizes, across the Commonwealth, are wary of the
fragile economy, growing and crippling cost pressures,
and the very real impacts of remote work on both
employee and employer behavior. In this environment of
great uncertainty, significant changes to tax policy
will exacerbate these considerations and slow the
recovery that we are collectively working so hard to
achieve," the groups, including Associated Industries of
Massachusetts, Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, Mass.
Retailers Association, Mass. High Technology Council,
Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce and more than a
dozen others, wrote.
The group's
letter does not explicitly say the organizations
strictly oppose any and all tax increases, but calls
raising taxes at this point "akin to shooting at a
moving target with the potential for dramatic long term
impacts for the Massachusetts economy." The groups have
a powerful ally in Gov. Charlie Baker, who has said
raising taxes doesn't "seem like the right thing to do."
And while some lawmakers back higher taxes, the
Democrats who run both chambers have not been vocally
advocating this year for tax increases....
House Ways and
Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz said Thursday that the
House budget does not include any "broad-based" or
"targeted" tax increase to balance out spending.
"We didn't
have any broad-based tax increases in this budget,"
Michlewitz told reporters. "I think we tried to create a
budget that addressed the immediate needs that we see
are important during this COVID world that we're living
in, but also didn't burden forever our constituents in
this difficult time."
Michlewitz,
however, did not rule out revisiting tax increases in
fiscal year 2022, planning for which will begin as soon
as the budget for fiscal year 2021 is complete.
State House
News Service
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Mass. Employers Urge Caution on Tax
Front
Survey: Employers Weighing Moves, Smaller Office
Footprints
House leaders
put forward a $46 billion state budget on Thursday that
top Democrats said has no "drastic cuts" or broad-based
tax increases, but does rely heavily on one-time funding
from the federal government and state reserves to
protect services during the ongoing pandemic.
The House
budget, which is usually debated in April, proposes to
spend about $188 million more than Gov. Charlie Baker
has recommended, in areas like education, food security
and substance addiction services. Leaders said they will
open debate on the bill next Tuesday, and Speaker Robert
DeLeo said he hopes to work with the Senate to deliver a
budget for fiscal 2021 to the governor by the end of the
month. That would be a record turnaround time for the
branches, which have been known to haggle for months
over budget details.
"This is a
budget that pays bills by concentrating on those who are
most in need of our help," DeLeo said.
Like Baker,
the House's fiscal 2021 budget assumes a $2 billion
reduction in tax revenues from fiscal 2020 due to the
pandemic. The House proposes a 5.3 percent spending
increase over the $43.6 billion fiscal '20 budget....
The budget
does delay a charitable giving tax deduction that was
set to become available for tax year 2021. And the
Boston Democrat did not rule out revisiting tax
increases in fiscal year 2022, planning for which will
begin as soon as the budget for fiscal year 2021 is
complete.
"It was
something that we obviously considered but being able to
do these one-time revenue fixes allowed us to get
through this fiscal year. We'll have to see where we go
in FY 22 because we're not out of the woods just by
getting through FY21, that's for sure," Michlewitz
said....
For the first
time in many years, House leaders are also recommending
a substantial withdrawal of $1.5 billion from the
state's "rainy day" fund," which would draw down the
$3.5 billion reserve by 43 percent and leave nearly $2
billion for future years. Baker recommended using $1.35
billion from the stabilization fund in his budget plan.
State House
News Service
Thursday, November 5, 2020
House Budget Raids Reserves to Push
Spending to $46 Bil
The House will
begin debating a budget for the fiscal year that began
in July next week but don't expect it to be the same
kind of vehicle for policy proposals that the annual
spending plan can sometimes turn into.
House
leadership is sending the message that it wants to see
its $46 billion spending bill stay fairly narrow in
scope, with House Speaker Robert DeLeo making that point
clear Friday.
In an address
to the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, DeLeo
said the House believes "that the budget is not an
appropriate place for major policy reform."
"Basically,
we've felt that that should go through the committee
process in terms of the usual debate in the House and in
the Senate before it goes on to the governor," DeLeo
said. "Especially during these very challenging times,
these policy proposals, I think, deserve more review and
input from stakeholders more than ever before because of
this unusual budget process that we're going through
right now." ...
The House also
tweaked its rules related to the budget and the
amendment process this week, removing requirements that
representatives have the budget for seven days before
debate starts and have three days to file amendments,
and instead giving members until 8 p.m. Friday to file
amendments to the budget released around midday Thursday
for debate beginning Tuesday.
State House
News Service
Friday, November 6, 2020
DeLeo: Policy Proposals Not Welcome in
House Budget Process
Is it over
yet?
By the time
you read this, America may know whether to call Joe
Biden president-elect or if Donald Trump will have four
more years in the White House. Or maybe not.
Chances are
strong that even if enough votes have been counted for
someone (most likely Biden) to declare victory, it won't
be that simple. President Trump has already asked for
recounts and filed lawsuits to challenge the results in
certain states, and there's no reason to think he'll go
quietly if he loses....
Baker didn't
vote for Trump. But it turned out he also didn't vote
for Biden.
"I blanked
it," Baker said Tuesday, the same day he announced
Appeals Court Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt as his
latest nominee for the Supreme Judicial Court. If
confirmed to the post by the Governor's Council,
Wendlandt would be the first Latina to serve on the
state's high court.
The SJC pick
won Baker widespread plaudits, while the "blank" ballot
for president helped his critics draw immediate contrast
with Republican Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont, who, like
Baker, doesn't like Trump, but voted for Biden....
Blanking a
ballot is one option for voters who don't like any of
the choices for a specific office, but the people of the
state made clear they don't want the option of ranking
candidates in the event that they actually like more
than one.
The ballot
question that would have made Massachusetts just the
second state to adopt ranked-choice voting, after Maine,
failed, despite the campaign raising $10 million and
vastly outspending the fragmented opposition, which
barely raised any money at all.
It's
impossible to know why voters said no to the reform that
was backed by so many prominent past and present elected
officials from both parties, but the best-guess,
post-race analysis was voters simply found it too
complicated and were hesitant to check the "yes" box for
big change at a time of great political uncertainty.
The other
ballot question this year dealing with access to
wireless vehicle data fared much better. By a roughly
three-to-one margin, voters said they wanted to control
access to the telematics systems in their cars and to be
able to share that access with independent mechanics if
they wish, even if opponents continue to say it's
unnecessary and potentially dangerous from the
cybersecurity standpoint....
October tax
revenues released this week continued to hold strong,
and Michlewitz said circumstances had actually allowed
for something "unthinkable" back in April and May when
the Legislature should have been debating a budget: The
$46 billion budget released by House leaders avoids
"drastic cuts" to services, and uses one-time federal
aid and $1.5 billion in state reserves to cover spending
without major tax increases.
The House
budget actually proposes to spend about $188 million
more than Baker recommended, and uses about $155 million
more from the state's $3.5 billion reserve fund, which
would leave just under $2 billion for future years....
House Speaker
Robert DeLeo said his goal is to see the budget get to
the governor's desk by the end of November, or shortly
thereafter, but that would require a Herculean display
of comity between the House and Senate unseen in these
parts for years. But anything's possible.
Legislative
leaders are attempting to warn members off seeking major
policy reforms in the budget or loading it with earmarks
to be negotiated with their Senate counterparts.
So for anyone
hoping for a post-election breather, the Legislature had
other ideas.
The debate
starts Tuesday in what will be the first lame duck
session since the 1990s....
While it's
hard to criticize the leadership of a party that in
January will have a 129-30 majority in the House and a
37-3 grip on the Senate, the governor's office is the
prize and what it will take to win that in 2022 is the
party's newest unanswered question.
State House
News Service
Friday, November 6, 2020
Weekly Roundup - Counting Every Vote
While the
campaign that just ended was unfolding, the House and
Senate in August, September and October avoided any
serious legislating that might have opened them up to
charges of pre-election opportunism, and in doing so
left a significant workload for the first lame duck
sessions since 1994.
On Thursday,
two days after the election, the House rushed through an
overdue fiscal 2020 closeout spending bill, which
cleared the Senate on Friday and is now on Gov. Charlie
Baker's desk. The House simultaneously rolled out a $46
billion fiscal 2021 budget, which beginning on Tuesday
will become the first-ever annual state spending bill to
be processed at sessions where most representatives will
participate remotely.
The budget is
more than four months late and there's pressure on
lawmakers to pass it quickly, and start fiscal 2022
budget deliberations on time by avoiding the kinds of
disagreements that often drag out budget talks for
months. Baker wants a budget by Thanksgiving, which is
in 20 days, and lawmakers will need a record turnaround
time to meet that goal.
Eighteen
lawmakers who will participate in the high-stakes
upcoming formal sessions will not be returning in 2021.
Lame Duck
Session Outlook
In a normal
election year, legislative activity would decelerate
substantially in the time between the election and the
end of the legislative session in January. In 2020, that
dynamic is upside-down and activity on Beacon Hill is
ramping up, starting with Tuesday's launch of House
budget deliberations, the passage of a final fiscal 2020
spending bill, and an expectation that at least some of
the five major conference committees in place since the
summer will be able to reach compromises to send to the
branches for up-or-down votes.
Those bills
include scores of major changes in state laws governing
police conduct (S 2820/H 4886), climate change (S 2500/H
4933), economic development (S 2874/H 4887),
transportation spending (H 4547/S 2836) and health care
(S 2796/H 4916).
In addition to
decisions on sports betting, housing production, and
beer distribution rights, which are components of the
economic development bills, lawmakers in the coming two
months may also tackle proposals dealing with access to
abortion (H 3320/S 1209), and sexual assaults on college
campuses.
State House
News Service
Friday, November 6, 2020
Advances - Week of Nov. 8, 2020
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
What a week, hey?
What a past few weeks it's been here at
CLT headquarters. I spent the past two or three weeks chasing
down the visionaries who forty years ago dreamed up and created
Citizens for Limited Taxation and its Proposition 2½,
collected the signatures and got the question onto the 1980 ballot,
campaigned hard for it, and won its adoption with an overwhelming
59%-41% vote. Since that heroic crusade to benefit desperate
taxpayers four decades ago it's been our responsibility to protect
and defend what Barbara Anderson called "now an institution" from
relentless assaults perpetrated that continue to this day (and in
the immediate days ahead). After contacting and finally
getting all the quotations from CLT's and Prop 2½'s founders then
spending last weekend to the exclusion of all else composing the
news release celebrating its
40th anniversary, it went out on Wednesday. Just in time
for the election results drama.
As I began
writing this morning the network and cable news "projected"
(declared) that Joe Biden has defeated Donald Trump and will become
the 46th President of the United States. My first thought was
to remember how often it was pointed out that had Hillary Clinton
won in 2016 we never would have known about the widespread 2016
election corruption that had occurred to insure her election.
Remember the
investigation handed off to Connecticut U.S. Attorney John
Durham by Attorney General William Barr back in May of 2019?
The sainted Durham is another public servant deified as above
reproach, a paragon of integrity — as were so many of those
"honorable" appointees preceding him (James Comey, Robert Mueller,
et cetera). Four years after revelations of FBI/Justice
Department/Intelligence agencies corruption were initially exposed
and steadily metastasized only one cabal participant has been
charged and pleaded guilty (ex-FBI
lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith), and there has been zero prosecutions
never mind a conviction.
After almost four
years of the perpetually embattled Trump administration, barring
some miracle, it appears it's game-set-match for the permanent
Washington establishment; the Deep State will win a total victory.
Where's Hunter? Apparently we will never get those answers or
any others. If anyone after January who cares about the rule
of law or justice remains, what can they do? China is
celebrating. Quite a foreboding situation, I'm afraid.
There was no
much-touted "Blue Wave" nationally. The U.S. Senate is
currently tied at 48-48 with four seats and still up for grabs
(Alaska, North Carolina — and two open Senate seats in Georgia that
face run-offs in early January). Control of the Senate could
go either way. U.S. House Democrats as of today have lost four
seats; currently down to 212 compared with the Republicans at 194.
29 races have yet to be called though Republicans are expected to
pick up more seats.
In Massachusetts
legislative races things turned dimmer. The State House News
Service reported on Wednesday ("Shrinking GOP Minority Shed Five
Seats in 2020"):
Democrats appeared
headed into the next lawmaking session with two more seats on
Beacon Hill than they held when polls opened Tuesday, a slight
expansion to their veto-proof majorities in both chambers amid
national election currents that might have pushed the party to
aim higher.
Voters in two
Republican-held House districts and one Republican-held Senate
district selected Democratic candidates in the general
elections, while the GOP flipped a House seat recently
represented by a Democrat, leaving a net gain of two for
Democrats who already control more than three-quarters of the
state Legislature.
The election night
shift is smaller than two years ago, when Democrats added three
seats, despite occurring in an election where Democratic
presidential nominee Joe Biden rolled up big numbers over
President Donald Trump, who is unpopular in Massachusetts and
remains locked in the tight national race with Biden for the
presidency.
However, Democrats
had already flipped three other seats -- one House, two Senate
-- in special elections earlier this year to replace lawmakers
who resigned for other opportunities, so their projected ranks
for the 2021-2022 session are five members larger than the start
of the current session....
After the 2018
elections, the House started the current two-year session with
127 Democrats, 32 Republicans and one independent, Rep. Susannah
Whipps of Athol. Its balance is set to shift to 129 Democrats
and 30 Republicans, plus Whipps, after the special and general
elections.
In the Senate, a
chamber that had 34 Democrat and six Republican members after
the 2018 elections is poised to start the next session with 37
Democrats and just three Republicans.
The News Service
added ("Dems Build Senate Advantage to 37 of 40 Seats"):
The last time
Republicans held at least a third of either branch, enough to
block a veto override, was in the 1991-1992 session in the
Senate.
Two years ago,
Democrats nabbed three seats from Republicans to expand their
supermajorities, and they padded their margins even further
during mid-session special elections.
Five seats in the
Legislature opened up partway through the two-year term when
lawmakers departed for other opportunities, and Democrats swept
each of the races, flipping one House district and two Senate
districts previously held by the GOP.
Coming into
Election Day, the Democrats' 36-4 grip on Massachusetts Senate
seats made it the second-most lopsided state Senate in the
country, tied with Wyoming, according to the National Conference
of State Legislatures. Only Hawaii, where Democrats controlled
24 of 25 Senate seats as of April, or 96 percent, has a more
uneven party split among its Senate.
In Massachusetts
and Wyoming, one party controls 90 percent of state Senate
seats. In Massachusetts, Democrats hold 36 seats to the
Republican Party's four seats, but in Wyoming, the partisanship
is reversed and the GOP controls 27 of 30 filled seats,
according to the NCSL.
The Massachusetts
House is less lopsided than the Senate but still ranks as having
the seventh most uneven political party distribution of any
state House of Representatives in the country, according to NCSL.
Bay State Democrats hold 127 of the chamber's 160 seats, or 79.4
percent.
As of Aug. 1, there
were 7,383 total state legislative seats in America, according
to NCSL. If every legislative chamber were combined into one
nationwide Legislature, Republicans would be in the majority
with control of almost 52 percent of the seats. The balance of
power would be 3,820 Republicans, 3,436 Democrats, and 127
independents, other party or vacant seats.
The best news
from Tuesday's election was the defeat of Question 2, Rank-Choice
Voting, by 45.5%-54.5%.
In his Boston
Herald column on Wednesday ("Fear
and loathing, 2020 election edition") Howie Carr noted:
Kudos to Anthony
Amore and the rest of the underfunded No-on-Question-2 campaign,
who with a $5,000 budget defeated a bunch of out-of-state
billionaires pushing ranked-choice voting.
The billionaires
blew through $10 million to get 45% of the vote.
In 2014, it seemed
like a miracle when the anti-automatic-gas tax campaign, led by
then-Rep. Geoff Diehl, turned back Big Asphalt and the hackerama
despite being outspent 30-1.
But the
anti-ranked-choice campaign was outspent … 3,000-to-one … and
still prevailed.
Someone did the
math. The pro-ranked-choice Beautiful People spent $7.41 per
vote. The antis spent less than one cent per vote.
The State House News Service reported
on Wednesday: ("Mass. Voters Embrace Auto Repair Question,
Reject Voting Reform"):
Voters
of Massachusetts said no Tuesday night to a reform that
would have dramatically altered the way voters choose
their elected leaders, rejecting a ballot question
backed by a who's who of current and former political
leaders from both parties that would have allowed voters
in future statewide elections to rank candidates in
races with three or more choices on the ballot.
Voters
approved the other ballot question, breaking in favor of giving
independent mechanics access to wireless vehicle data to repair
cars by a three-to-one margin, according to incomplete and
unofficial returns....
Unofficial
results showed voters favoring Question 1 by a three-to-one
margin with over 65 percent of precincts reporting, according to
the Associated Press.
"It's your
car. You paid for it. You should be able to get it fixed where
you want," said Tommy Hickey, the campaign director for the Yes
on 1 campaign.
The verdict on
ranked-choice voting, also known as Question 2, took longer, but
proponents conceded their campaign not long after midnight after
waiting to see if votes from some of the larger cities in
Massachusetts could turn the early momentum against the
initiative back in its favor....
With 80
percent of precincts reporting, the ranked choice voting
question trailed with 45.5 percent supporting the initiative and
54.5 percent opposed, despite proponents raising nearly $10
million and vastly outspending opponent who raised just over
$3,500....
The [Question
1] ad war between the two sides was paid for with huge sums of
outside money that flowed into Massachusetts, with parts
manufacturers like Auto Zone helping to fund a more than $24
million campaign to pass the ballot question, and car
manufacturers like General Motors, Ford and Toyota financing the
$26 million opposition campaign.
Ranked-choice
voting [Question 2] also enjoyed deep-pockets support from out
of state, with major contributions coming from wealthy
proponents of ranked-choice voting such as the Houston-based
Action Now Initiative.
The list of
wealthy donors backing the question also included Kathryn
Murdoch, the president of Quadrivium and daughter-in-law of
media mogul Rupert Murdoch; Eton Park Capital Management CEO
Eric Mindich, and Jonathan Soros, the CEO of JS Capital
Management and son of billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
Question 1, Right To Repair, passed by a whopping vote
of three-to-one!
Two days after
the election the Massachusetts Legislature got back to business,
banging through a supplemental spending bill. The State House
News Service reported:
The House unanimously passed a $423 million spending
bill Thursday to close out the books on fiscal 2020
more than four months after the new fiscal year
began. House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz
touted the fact that the legislation wraps up fiscal
2020 without tapping into the stabilization fund....
Over the course of about two hours, House
legislators withdrew nearly all of the 39 amendments
to the bill -- only three were adopted.
On Friday the
News Service added:
The Senate gaveled
into a Friday afternoon session to take final votes on a $423
million supplemental budget wrapping up fiscal 2020, the fiscal
year that ended on June 30.
Calling it
"bill-paying exercise" with significant MassHealth spending and
$1.1 million for early voting costs from last spring's
presidential primary, the bill would also retroactively extend
the statute of limitations related to a lawsuit against
OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, budget chief Sen. Michael
Rodrigues said.
And then it moved on to
next fiscal year's budget.
On Thursday a large number of the state
business community sent a letter to legislative leaders warning of
the effect of tax increases. The State House News Service
reported ("Mass. Employers Urge Caution on Tax Front"):
It has never been
easier for businesses and jobs to flee Massachusetts in droves
and the House and Senate should think long and hard about that
possibility before considering new or higher taxes on companies,
some of the most influential industry groups this week warned
Democratic leaders.
A giant chunk of
the Massachusetts business community sent a letter Monday to
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka
reminding them that "barriers to exit for Massachusetts
employers and employees has never been lower" given the way the
COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed work for millions of
people, and that the fragile economy "requires a go-slow
approach to new taxes on business."
The letter was sent
as the House was preparing to release its fiscal year 2021
budget for debate next week. The House budget does not call for
higher taxes....
"Employers of all
sizes, across the Commonwealth, are wary of the fragile economy,
growing and crippling cost pressures, and the very real impacts
of remote work on both employee and employer behavior. In this
environment of great uncertainty, significant changes to tax
policy will exacerbate these considerations and slow the
recovery that we are collectively working so hard to achieve,"
the groups, including Associated Industries of Massachusetts,
Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, Mass. Retailers Association, Mass.
High Technology Council, Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce
and more than a dozen others, wrote.
The group's letter
does not explicitly say the organizations strictly oppose any
and all tax increases, but calls raising taxes at this point
"akin to shooting at a moving target with the potential for
dramatic long term impacts for the Massachusetts economy." The
groups have a powerful ally in Gov. Charlie Baker, who has said
raising taxes doesn't "seem like the right thing to do." And
while some lawmakers back higher taxes, the Democrats who run
both chambers have not been vocally advocating this year for tax
increases. . . .
"We didn't have any
broad-based tax increases in this budget," Michlewitz told
reporters. "I think we tried to create a budget that addressed
the immediate needs that we see are important during this COVID
world that we're living in, but also didn't burden forever our
constituents in this difficult time."
Michlewitz,
however, did not rule out revisiting tax increases in fiscal
year 2022, planning for which will begin as soon as the budget
for fiscal year 2021 is complete.
Later on Thursday the House
Ways and Means Committee released its Fiscal Year 2022
budget. The State House News Service reported
("House Budget Raids Reserves to Push Spending to $46
Bil"):
House leaders put
forward a $46 billion state budget on Thursday that top
Democrats said has no "drastic cuts" or broad-based tax
increases, but does rely heavily on one-time funding from the
federal government and state reserves to protect services during
the ongoing pandemic.
The House budget,
which is usually debated in April, proposes to spend about $188
million more than Gov. Charlie Baker has recommended, in areas
like education, food security and substance addiction services.
Leaders said they will open debate on the bill next Tuesday, and
Speaker Robert DeLeo said he hopes to work with the Senate to
deliver a budget for fiscal 2021 to the governor by the end of
the month. That would be a record turnaround time for the
branches, which have been known to haggle for months over budget
details.
"This is a budget
that pays bills by concentrating on those who are most in need
of our help," DeLeo said.
Like Baker, the
House's fiscal 2021 budget assumes a $2 billion reduction in tax
revenues from fiscal 2020 due to the pandemic. The House
proposes a 5.3 percent spending increase over the $43.6 billion
fiscal '20 budget....
The budget does
delay a charitable giving tax deduction that was set to become
available for tax year 2021. And the Boston Democrat did not
rule out revisiting tax increases in fiscal year 2022, planning
for which will begin as soon as the budget for fiscal year 2021
is complete.
"It was something
that we obviously considered but being able to do these one-time
revenue fixes allowed us to get through this fiscal year. We'll
have to see where we go in FY 22 because we're not out of the
woods just by getting through FY21, that's for sure," Michlewitz
said....
For the first time
in many years, House leaders are also recommending a substantial
withdrawal of $1.5 billion from the state's "rainy day" fund,"
which would draw down the $3.5 billion reserve by 43 percent and
leave nearly $2 billion for future years. Baker recommended
using $1.35 billion from the stabilization fund in his budget
plan.
It’s only sensible that
leaders in the House have avoided tax increases in their
belated budget proposal, instead will tap the state’s
$3.5 Billion "rainy day" fund for $1.5 Billion, leaving
a $2 Billion balance. If it’s not "raining" now,
then what is the fund’s purpose? If tax hikes came
first it would be impossible to justify building such a
large contingency slush fund at the expense of
taxpayers.
On Friday the News Service reported ("DeLeo:
Policy Proposals Not Welcome in House Budget Process"):
The House will
begin debating a budget for the fiscal year that began in July
next week but don't expect it to be the same kind of vehicle for
policy proposals that the annual spending plan can sometimes
turn into.
House leadership is
sending the message that it wants to see its $46 billion
spending bill stay fairly narrow in scope, with House Speaker
Robert DeLeo making that point clear Friday.
In an address to
the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, DeLeo said the
House believes "that the budget is not an appropriate place for
major policy reform." ...
The House also
tweaked its rules related to the budget and the amendment
process this week, removing requirements that representatives
have the budget for seven days before debate starts and have
three days to file amendments, and instead giving members until
8 p.m. Friday to file amendments to the budget released around
midday Thursday for debate beginning Tuesday.
The
election is over and, as we predicted, the rush is on at
the State House to get everything done fast with few
knowing what's fed to them to vote on, and damn the
torpedoes. Out come the rubber stamps. In
its Advances for next week the State House News Service
reported on Friday:
While the campaign
that just ended was unfolding, the House and Senate in August,
September and October avoided any serious legislating that might
have opened them up to charges of pre-election opportunism, and
in doing so left a significant workload for the first lame duck
sessions since 1994.
On Thursday, two
days after the election, the House rushed through an overdue
fiscal 2020 closeout spending bill, which cleared the Senate on
Friday and is now on Gov. Charlie Baker's desk. The House
simultaneously rolled out a $46 billion fiscal 2021 budget,
which beginning on Tuesday will become the first-ever annual
state spending bill to be processed at sessions where most
representatives will participate remotely.
The budget is more
than four months late and there's pressure on lawmakers to pass
it quickly, and start fiscal 2022 budget deliberations on time
by avoiding the kinds of disagreements that often drag out
budget talks for months. Baker wants a budget by Thanksgiving,
which is in 20 days, and lawmakers will need a record turnaround
time to meet that goal.
Eighteen lawmakers
who will participate in the high-stakes upcoming formal sessions
will not be returning in 2021.
Lame Duck Session
Outlook
In a normal
election year, legislative activity would decelerate
substantially in the time between the election and the end of
the legislative session in January. In 2020, that dynamic is
upside-down and activity on Beacon Hill is ramping up, starting
with Tuesday's launch of House budget deliberations, the passage
of a final fiscal 2020 spending bill, and an expectation that at
least some of the five major conference committees in place
since the summer will be able to reach compromises to send to
the branches for up-or-down votes.
Those bills include
scores of major changes in state laws governing police conduct
(S 2820/H 4886), climate change (S 2500/H 4933), economic
development (S 2874/H 4887), transportation spending (H 4547/S
2836) and health care (S 2796/H 4916).
In addition to
decisions on sports betting, housing production, and beer
distribution rights, which are components of the economic
development bills, lawmakers in the coming two months may also
tackle proposals dealing with access to abortion (H 3320/S
1209), and sexual assaults on college campuses.
"Those bills include scores of major changes in state
laws governing police conduct (S 2820/H 4886), climate
change (S 2500/H 4933), economic development (S 2874/H
4887), transportation spending (H 4547/S 2836) and
health care (S 2796/H 4916)."
Remember, the
climate change bill still in conference committee (S 2500/H 4933)
contains empowering Gov. Baker to unilaterally sign on to the
multi-state Transportation Climate Initiative and its perpetual gas
tax increases.
Remember also,
the transportation spending bill still in conference committee (H
4547/S 2836) contains the stealth attack on Proposition 2½.
The State House
News Service noted that House Speaker Robert DeLeo said the House
believes "that the budget is not an appropriate place for major
policy reform."
The stealth
assault on Proposition 2½ was snuck into the $16.9 Billion
Transportation Bond Bill, expected to be released by its conference
committee any day now. A bond bill is strictly a borrowing
authorization, appropriation, and spending bill. If the budget
"is not an appropriate place for major policy reform" as the Speaker
asserted — I hope that carries over to the multi-billion dollar bond
bill, and the attack on Prop 2½ within.
In closing, here
are some noteworthy excerpts from the State House News Service's
Weekly Roundup:
Is it over yet?
By the time you
read this, America may know whether to call Joe Biden
president-elect or if Donald Trump will have four more years in
the White House. Or maybe not.
Chances are strong
that even if enough votes have been counted for someone (most
likely Biden) to declare victory, it won't be that simple.
President Trump has already asked for recounts and filed
lawsuits to challenge the results in certain states, and there's
no reason to think he'll go quietly if he loses....
Baker didn't vote
for Trump. But it turned out he also didn't vote for Biden.
"I blanked it,"
Baker said Tuesday, the same day he announced Appeals Court
Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt as his latest nominee for the
Supreme Judicial Court. If confirmed to the post by the
Governor's Council, Wendlandt would be the first Latina to serve
on the state's high court.
The SJC pick won
Baker widespread plaudits, while the "blank" ballot for
president helped his critics draw immediate contrast with
Republican Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont, who, like Baker, doesn't
like Trump, but voted for Biden....
Blanking a ballot
is one option for voters who don't like any of the choices for a
specific office, but the people of the state made clear they
don't want the option of ranking candidates in the event that
they actually like more than one.
The ballot question
that would have made Massachusetts just the second state to
adopt ranked-choice voting, after Maine, failed, despite the
campaign raising $10 million and vastly outspending the
fragmented opposition, which barely raised any money at all.
It's impossible to
know why voters said no to the reform that was backed by so many
prominent past and present elected officials from both parties,
but the best-guess, post-race analysis was voters simply found
it too complicated and were hesitant to check the "yes" box for
big change at a time of great political uncertainty.
The other ballot
question this year dealing with access to wireless vehicle data
fared much better. By a roughly three-to-one margin, voters said
they wanted to control access to the telematics systems in their
cars and to be able to share that access with independent
mechanics if they wish, even if opponents continue to say it's
unnecessary and potentially dangerous from the cybersecurity
standpoint....
October tax
revenues released this week continued to hold strong, and
Michlewitz said circumstances had actually allowed for something
"unthinkable" back in April and May when the Legislature should
have been debating a budget: The $46 billion budget released by
House leaders avoids "drastic cuts" to services, and uses
one-time federal aid and $1.5 billion in state reserves to cover
spending without major tax increases.
The House budget
actually proposes to spend about $188 million more than Baker
recommended, and uses about $155 million more from the state's
$3.5 billion reserve fund, which would leave just under $2
billion for future years....
House Speaker
Robert DeLeo said his goal is to see the budget get to the
governor's desk by the end of November, or shortly thereafter,
but that would require a Herculean display of comity between the
House and Senate unseen in these parts for years. But anything's
possible.
Legislative leaders
are attempting to warn members off seeking major policy reforms
in the budget or loading it with earmarks to be negotiated with
their Senate counterparts.
So for anyone
hoping for a post-election breather, the Legislature had other
ideas.
The debate starts
Tuesday in what will be the first lame duck session since the
1990s....
While it's hard to
criticize the leadership of a party that in January will have a
129-30 majority in the House and a 37-3 grip on the Senate, the
governor's office is the prize and what it will take to win that
in 2022 is the party's newest unanswered question.
OBSERVATIONS &
PREDICTIONS: The FY 2022 state budget will fly through the
House and Senate in record-breaking time. After token debates
via Zoom video-conference with amendments discouraged by Beacon Hill
leadership, legislators will virtual rubber-stamp passage of
whatever a handful of legislative leaders desire. The governor
will have their budget on his desk by Thanksgiving Day, as he
requested. He will sign whatever he's given with great
fanfare. Ditto whatever the five conference committees decide
to release, soon after the budget "process" is pushed out of the
way. The election is over, no legislator can or will be held
accountable for their votes. A number of legislators who vote
on these bills will not even be in the Legislature after January,
will be replaced. The next Legislature sworn in come January
will include even fewer Republicans.
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Full News Reports Follow
(excerpted above) |
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State House
News Service
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Shrinking GOP Minority Shed Five Seats in 2020
Tran, Crocker Come Up Short in Tuesday's Elections
By Chris Lisinski and Colin A. Young
Democrats appeared headed into the next lawmaking session
with two more seats on Beacon Hill than they held when polls
opened Tuesday, a slight expansion to their veto-proof
majorities in both chambers amid national election currents
that might have pushed the party to aim higher.
Voters in two Republican-held House districts and one
Republican-held Senate district selected Democratic
candidates in the general elections, while the GOP flipped a
House seat recently represented by a Democrat, leaving a net
gain of two for Democrats who already control more than
three-quarters of the state Legislature.
The election night shift is smaller than two years ago, when
Democrats added three seats, despite occurring in an
election where Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden
rolled up big numbers over President Donald Trump, who is
unpopular in Massachusetts and remains locked in the tight
national race with Biden for the presidency.
However, Democrats had already flipped three other seats --
one House, two Senate -- in special elections earlier this
year to replace lawmakers who resigned for other
opportunities, so their projected ranks for the 2021-2022
session are five members larger than the start of the
current session.
Several races were too close to call Tuesday night,
including one of the eight open House seats where incumbent
representatives are not seeking additional terms. On
Wednesday, that seat flipped blue: North Attleborough Town
Councilor Adam Scanlon, the Democratic candidate for the
14th Bristol District, claimed victory and said the race's
GOP candidate, fellow Councilor John Simmons, had called him
to concede.
"While we won't know the absolute final result of our race
for some time due to technical difficulties and late mail in
ballots, we do know that we have won due to current trends
in the results we have so far," Scanlon wrote in a Facebook
post around 9 a.m. "Early this morning I was grateful for
the kind words spoken by Councilor Simmons as he conceded
the race."
His win notches the district for Democrats -- and ensures
that a Poirier will not represent it -- for the first time
in more than four decades. Republican Rep. Elizabeth Poirier
of North Attleborough, who did not seek reelection, has held
the seat since winning a 1999 special election. Her husband,
Kevin, won 11 terms before that, dating back to the 1970s.
The results in one district could remain unresolved, though.
AP vote tallies listed Democrat Jake Oliveira of Ludlow as
the winner by about 130 votes in the 7th Hampden District,
but Republican candidate James "Chip" Harrington said
Wednesday he was speaking with attorneys about potential
disparities in the vote-counting.
Harrington said he had been declared the winner Tuesday
night before Belchertown's town clerk indicated the initial
results were erroneous. He also said that, although the AP's
count says 100 percent of precincts are reporting, there
could be some outstanding mail-in ballots whose results may
not become clear until Saturday and that he might seek a
recount in Belchertown.
"We're going to wait to see what happens with these mail-in
ballots because it's been up, it's been down, this whole
election season has been one for the record books,"
Harrington said.
"I don't know how things will shape out in the end. Jake
Oliveira certainly has the lead right now, and when the time
comes that we have it, I will congratulate Jake and we'll
move on," he said in a video posted to Facebook. "But until
that time comes, we're not ready to make that final
determination right now because we still have some more
outstanding ballots."
Other races whose results were unclear Tuesday all broke in
favor of incumbents. Rep. Kathy LaNatra of Kingston and
Sens. Anne Gobi of Spencer and Becca Rausch of Needham, all
Democrats, held onto victories over Republican challengers,
while Republican Reps. Timothy Whelan of Brewster, Jay
Barrows of Mansfield, Sheila Harrington of Groton, David
DeCoste of Norwell and House Minority Leader Brad Jones of
North Reading all secured additional terms by varying
margins.
After the 2018 elections, the House started the current
two-year session with 127 Democrats, 32 Republicans and one
independent, Rep. Susannah Whipps of Athol. Its balance is
set to shift to 129 Democrats and 30 Republicans, plus
Whipps, after the special and general elections.
In the Senate, a chamber that had 34 Democrat and six
Republican members after the 2018 elections is poised to
start the next session with 37 Democrats and just three
Republicans.
The districts that flipped as a result of Tuesday's voting
were not connected by any clear geographic or political
pattern: one was on Cape Cod, one was along the Rhode Island
border, one was in western Massachusetts, and one was in the
central part of the state.
Scanlon will join the Legislature as one of eight new
representatives who topped contested general elections to
fill open seats where incumbent lawmakers are not seeking
additional terms.
The seven others, including Republican Kelly Pease's victory
for the House seat most recently held by Westfield Democrat
Sen. John Velis, had all been decided late Tuesday night.
Among the House's newcomers will be Kip Diggs, the
Barnstable Democrat who flipped a seat held by Republican
Rep. William Crocker for the last four years. He is in line
to be the first African-American state legislator from Cape
Cod, his campaign and the Democratic Party said.
"I want to be the first African American to go to Beacon
Hill," Diggs told the Barnstable Patriot in September. "My
community has given to me. I need to give back to them. This
isn't a job -- it's personal. I'm tired of being the
underdog. I want everyone to be successful. We need to teach
our children to be winners. Kids are our future. We need to
hear them, we need to listen to them."
In the 1990s, Diggs was a professional boxer who claimed the
North American Boxing Federation and International Boxing
Organization world welterweight title. While boxing, he
started a construction transportation business, his campaign
said, and Diggs now works as a construction inspector for
Barnstable.
Another major shakeup on Tuesday was Lunenburg Democrat John
Cronin's victory over incumbent Republican Sen. Dean Tran in
northern central Massachusetts, a result that ensures the
GOP will swear in only three members -- the fewest at the
start of a two-year session since at least 1970 -- in
January.
The legislative elections were yet another example of the
massive advantage that Beacon Hill incumbents hold.
Three-quarters of the Legislature, totaling 150 lawmakers
across both chambers, sailed to re-election with no
opposition on Tuesday. Excluding the eight open districts,
only two of the 42 representatives and senators who had
general-election challenges - Tran and Crocker - lost their
bids for another term.
Just two incumbents, Sen. James Welch and Rep. David Nangle,
were toppled in the primary.
Nangle lost more than six months after he was indicted on a
range of federal fraud charges, and Tran in March was
stripped of his assistant minority whip position after a
Senate Ethics Committee investigation concluded his State
House staff had been performing campaign work during
legislative business hours.
Rausch, a Needham Democrat, claimed victory at noon
Wednesday over Franklin Republican Matt Kelly, who was
attempting to flip the Senate district that snakes from
Wayland down into Attleboro back to the GOP after Rausch
wrested it from former Republican Sen. Richard Ross two
years ago.
"While we still do not have fully final results, our
internal results tell us that the outcome of this race is
clear. I am deeply honored and truly humbled to be reelected
as state senator," Rausch said during a live Facebook video.
She added, "This victory is a resounding 'yes' for truth,
science, civility and policymaking that uplifts our
individual and collective humanity."
Pro-choice activists like those at NARAL Pro-Choice
Massachusetts celebrated Tuesday's results and said that
every incumbent who has supported the so-called ROE Act
expanding abortion access in Massachusetts won their
contests. The group said the pro-choice contingent on Beacon
Hill will grow with Democrat John Cronin set to unseat
Republican Sen. Dean Tran.
"This morning we woke up, just as we did on Primary Day and
during our special elections, clear that across the
Commonwealth supporting reproductive freedom and the ROE Act
are winning issues," Executive Director Rebecca Hart Holder
said. She added, "Over and over, Bay State voters have made
their support for the ROE Act clear by electing leaders who
are committed to removing politically-motivated barriers to
abortion care ... We look forward to working with the
pro-choice champions in the state legislature to remove
barriers to abortion care by passing the ROE Act."
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka
said in a joint statement this week that they are
"committed" to taking up a bill related to abortion and
reproductive health care at some point in the next two
months, though they did not say whether they intend to
debate the ROE Act, which has been cosponsored by a majority
of members in each branch but has been sitting before the
Judiciary Committee for more than a year.
State House
News Service
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Dems Build Senate Advantage to 37 of 40 Seats
GOP Takes Westfield House Seat, Dems Flip Cape Seat
By Colin A. Young and Chris Lisinski
Massachusetts Democrats appear to have been unable to
capitalize on having a deeply unpopular Republican president
at the top of the ticket this fall and will not likely
emerge from Election Day with substantially greater
supermajorities in the Legislature.
Votes were still being counted in many municipalities across
Massachusetts late Tuesday night, but preliminary results
indicated the balance of power in the state Legislature will
be changed only slightly, in large part because only
one-quarter of the 200 seats up for grabs every two years
drew contested races.
Democrats picked up a Senate seat, but several House races
were too close to call late in the night, muddying the
outlook on whether either party will net a gain in that
branch.
The headlining victory for the Democrats on Tuesday could be
Lunenburg Democrat John Cronin's toppling of incumbent
Republican Sen. Dean Tran in northern central Massachusetts.
Party officials said Cronin was on track to win, Cronin
retweeted a post that congratulated him, and the Sentinel &
Enterprise reported late Tuesday that Cronin's lead was
about 570 votes with 95 percent of ballots counted.
Democrats held the seat from 1993 until Tran won it in a
2017 special election.
With Tran's defeat, the GOP caucus in the 40-seat Senate is
poised to shrink to three members. That level of
representation is the fewest seats the party has won in a
biennial general election since at least 1970, though the
minority caucus dropped to three as recently as 2013 due to
a mid-session resignation.
The GOP did flip a Westfield-based House seat last held by a
Democrat and defended a handful of incumbents in contested
contests.
Kelly Pease, a retired Army Officer who worked as a
legislative aide for former Republican Sen. Donald Humason,
topped the ballot in the Fourth Hampden District by about 9
percentage points. The seat, representing the roughly 41,000
residents of Westfield, has been vacant since Rep. John
Velis resigned in May to join the Senate.
Pease's victory completes a round of political musical
chairs. Humason left mid-term to become Westfield's mayor,
Velis -- who in 2014 became the first Democrat to hold the
Fourth Hampden District in more than three decades --
flipped Humason's Senate seat blue, and then Republicans
took back the House seat Tuesday.
"The biggest thing is I'm humbled by the people of Westfield
who selected me as their representative," Pease said on
Election Night, according to a Springfield Republican
report. "Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or
independent I'm here to represent all of you."
Sen. Patrick O'Connor of Weymouth, one of the three other
Republican senators, was leading Meg Wheeler of Cohasset in
his bid for a fourth term, though votes were still being
counted in that district that winds along the South Shore.
Rep. Tram Nguyen, a North Andover Democrat, won election to
a second term, fending off a challenge from Republican
candidate Jeff Dufour two years after she unseated Rep. Jim
Lyons. After he left office, Lyons took over as chair of the
Massachusetts Republican Party.
Democratic House Speaker Robert DeLeo said Tuesday afternoon
that he had been keeping an eye on the races involving Reps.
Nguyen, Kathy LaNatra of Kingston, Josh Cutler of Duxbury,
and Dave Robertson of Tewksbury.
"So far, what we've been hearing has been good," DeLeo told
the News Service at the State House late Tuesday afternoon.
"We also feel pretty good, with all due respect, because of
the fact of Trump heading up the ticket, the Republican
ticket nationally. We feel, at least here in Massachusetts,
that will help Democrats."
In addition to Nguyen, Robertson was victorious Tuesday,
defeating Republican Alec DiFruscia by more than 3,000
votes, while Cutler won by about 4,800 votes, according to
the Associated Press. LaNatra said late Tuesday that she was
leading by about 2,500 votes with results from two towns
outstanding, and her opponent, Summer Schmaling, said she
was expecting a tight race with results to come Wednesday.
On Cape Cod, Democrats reclaimed the 2nd Barnstable District
seat that Republican Rep. William Crocker has held for the
last four years. Democrat Kip Diggs won by about 2,000 votes
there, according to former Rep. Brian Mannal
Mannal, the last Democrat to hold that House seat, said on
Twitter that he was the first person to tell Diggs that he
had won. According to the Cape Cod Times, Diggs held the
North American Boxing Federation and International Boxing
Organization world welterweight title in the mid-1990s.
Republicans held another Cape seat with Steve Xiarhos's
victory in the 5th Barnstable District, where current Rep.
Randy Hunt is not seeking reelection. Xiarhos, a Barnstable
resident, claimed victory around 10 p.m. with a lead of more
than 1,200 votes over Democrat Jim Dever of Sandwich.
"For over a year, we've been working together, every one of
you, doing our standout and knocking on doors, and you know
what? We did it," Xiarhos told supporters in a Facebook Live
video.
Twenty-three years after she was succeeded by Rep. Theodore
Speliotis, former Rep. Sally Kerans is headed back to the
House to succeed him. Kerans, a Democrat, topped the
five-way race for the 13th Essex District that she
represented for three terms in the 1990s.
Democrat Meg Kilcoyne of Northborough, who has worked as
outgoing Rep. Harold Naughton's legislative director for the
past 10 years, won the race to succeed him, topping
Lancaster Republican Susan Smiley, who previously worked in
the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Xiarhos, Pease, Kerans and Kilcoyne will join four other
newcomers on Beacon Hill after winning elections for open
seats.
Three of those four races appeared decided Tuesday night:
Springfield City Councilor Orlando Ramos topped unenrolled
candidate Robert Underwood with 80 percent of the vote;
Fitchburg City Council President Michael Kushmerek bested
former Fitchburg police officer and businessman Glenn Fossa;
and Ludlow School Committee member Jake Oliveira beat
Republican James "Chip" Harrington.
The final contested general election for an open seat pitted
two North Attleborough town councilors, Democrat Adam
Scanlon and Republican John Simmons, against one another.
Clear results for that race were not available by midnight.
For a second campaign cycle in a row, GOP Rep. Lenny Mirra
of West Newbury fended off a challenge from Democrat
Christina Eckert. Eckert's camp conceded the race late
Tuesday and a Democratic source said the contest had been a
close one.
The House's one independent, Rep. Susannah Whipps, survived
a challenge from Democrat William LaRose.
In seven other districts where sitting lawmakers are
departing, no Republican or independent candidate made the
ballot, leaving the Democratic nominee as the presumptive
winner after the Sept. 1 primary election.
Brandy Fluker Oakley and Rob Consalvo prevailed in
Democratic contests for a pair of Boston seats being vacated
by Reps. Dan Cullinane and Angelo Scaccia, respectively.
Fluker Oakley has worked as a public defender and public
school teacher, and Consalvo served on the Boston City
Council before going to work for the Walsh administration.
Patricia Duffy, a former publishing worker, labor leader and
aide to the outgoing Rep. Aaron Vega, emerged from a
three-way primary in Holyoke for the seat Vega is leaving,
and retiring Rep. Lou Kafka's staff director, Ted Philips,
of Sharon, won the primary and is poised to assume his
boss's seat in the House.
In Watertown, transportation consultant Steven Owens is
poised to take over for the outgoing Rep. Jonathan Hect in
the House, and City Councilor Jessica Giannino of Revere is
set to claim the seat now held by the outgoing Rep. RoseLee
Vincent.
Retiring Rep. Denise Provost's Somerville seat is on track
to be filled by Erika Uyterhoeven, who describes herself as
an antitrust economist and a Democratic Socialist.
Uyterhoeven is a founder of the Act on Mass organization
that has pushed progressive causes on Beacon Hill and
criticized House leadership over transparency issues.
Democrats have wielded super-majorities in both chambers for
nearly three decades, margins large enough to ensure they
could override any gubernatorial veto, which they generally
have done over the years.
The last time Republicans held at least a third of either
branch, enough to block a veto override, was in the
1991-1992 session in the Senate.
Two years ago, Democrats nabbed three seats from Republicans
to expand their supermajorities, and they padded their
margins even further during mid-session special elections.
Five seats in the Legislature opened up partway through the
two-year term when lawmakers departed for other
opportunities, and Democrats swept each of the races,
flipping one House district and two Senate districts
previously held by the GOP.
Coming into Election Day, the Democrats' 36-4 grip on
Massachusetts Senate seats made it the second-most lopsided
state Senate in the country, tied with Wyoming, according to
the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only Hawaii,
where Democrats controlled 24 of 25 Senate seats as of
April, or 96 percent, has a more uneven party split among
its Senate.
In Massachusetts and Wyoming, one party controls 90 percent
of state Senate seats. In Massachusetts, Democrats hold 36
seats to the Republican Party's four seats, but in Wyoming,
the partisanship is reversed and the GOP controls 27 of 30
filled seats, according to the NCSL.
The Massachusetts House is less lopsided than the Senate but
still ranks as having the seventh most uneven political
party distribution of any state House of Representatives in
the country, according to NCSL. Bay State Democrats hold 127
of the chamber's 160 seats, or 79.4 percent.
As of Aug. 1, there were 7,383 total state legislative seats
in America, according to NCSL. If every legislative chamber
were combined into one nationwide Legislature, Republicans
would be in the majority with control of almost 52 percent
of the seats. The balance of power would be 3,820
Republicans, 3,436 Democrats, and 127 independents, other
party or vacant seats.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Mass. Voters Embrace Auto Repair Question, Reject Voting Reform
Anti-Question 1 Ads Fail to Sway Voters
By Matt Murphy
Voters of Massachusetts said no Tuesday night to a reform that
would have dramatically altered the way voters choose their
elected leaders, rejecting a ballot question backed by a who's
who of current and former political leaders from both parties
that would have allowed voters in future statewide elections to
rank candidates in races with three or more choices on the
ballot.
Voters approved the other ballot question, breaking in favor of
giving independent mechanics access to wireless vehicle data to
repair cars by a three-to-one margin, according to incomplete
and unofficial returns.
Supporters of the auto repair question said their win at the
ballot box would ensure that consumers can get their car or
truck repaired wherever they want, but even after conceding
defeat opponents of Question 1 said the Right to Repair
Committee failed to show why the change was necessary.
Unofficial results showed voters favoring Question 1 by a
three-to-one margin with over 65 percent of precincts reporting,
according to the Associated Press.
"It's your car. You paid for it. You should be able to get it
fixed where you want," said Tommy Hickey, the campaign director
for the Yes on 1 campaign.
The verdict on ranked-choice voting, also known as Question 2,
took longer, but proponents conceded their campaign not long
after midnight after waiting to see if votes from some of the
larger cities in Massachusetts could turn the early momentum
against the initiative back in its favor.
"We came up short in this election, and we are obviously deeply
disappointed," said campaign manager Cara Brown McCormick. "But
that's certainly no reflection of the hard work of the thousands
of dedicated volunteers, staff and surrogates of this campaign.
Even amidst a global pandemic, we were able to mobilize a
movement to strengthen our democracy in a time when it's needed
most. We were attempting to do something historic in
Massachusetts and fell short, but the incredible groundswell of
support from volunteers and reformers that assembled behind this
campaign is reason enough to stay optimistic about the future of
our democracy."
With 80 percent of precincts reporting, the ranked choice voting
question trailed with 45.5 percent supporting the initiative and
54.5 percent opposed, despite proponents raising nearly $10
million and vastly outspending opponent who raised just over
$3,500.
The goal of the ballot question was to require the winner of a
political campaign to secure a majority of the votes cast and to
cut down on the influence of "spoiler" candidates by allow
voters to rank their choices rather than vote for just one
candidate. Supporters also said ranked-choice voting, which has
been adopted by just one other state, Maine, would force
candidates to try to appeal to a broader swath of the electorate
and cut down on negative campaigning.
But the opposition, which included Gov. Charlie Baker, worried
that a ranked-choice system, also known as instant runoff, would
inject a degree of complication to the voting process that would
discourage more people from getting involved.
"At a time when we need to be promoting turnout and making it
easier for voters to cast their ballots, we worry that question
two will add an additional layer of complication for both voters
and election officials, while potentially delaying results and
increasing the cost of elections," Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn
Polito said last week as hundreds of thousands of voters were
already casting their ballots.
The ranked-choice ballot question had the support of U.S. Sens.
Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, who won reelection Tuesday, as
well as past governors from both parties like Deval Patrick and
William Weld, and former Secretary of State John Kerry.
The system is designed to avoid situations like the one that
unfolded in the Fourth Congressional District this cycle.
Congressman-elect Jake Auchincloss won a crowded Democratic
primary in September with 22 percent of the vote.
Under a ranked-choice system, the eventual winner of a campaign
would have to earn a majority of the votes cast. If there is not
winner after the first counting of the ballots, the lowest
finisher would be eliminated and their votes redistributed based
on their voters' second choice.
The process would continue to until someone could claim a
majority.
The change would have been one of the most significant election
reforms in generations. In 1966 the term of the governor was
extended to four years and six years later in 1972 voters
lowered the voting age to 18. But in those cases and other
reform over the years, the manner by which voters elected their
public officials remained unchanged.
On the other ballot question of the night, voters approved an
update to the 2013 "right to repair" law, which ensured that
independent auto repair facilities had access to the same
vehicle diagnostic data as manufacturers and dealerships.
The new ballot law will require that the owner of a vehicle be
allowed to give independent repair shops access to the
mechanical data collected and transmitted wirelessly by
computers onboard cars and trucks. The systems, known as
telematics, were not covered by the 2013 law, but have become
more prevalent in newer models.
The history of the auto repair question is a unique one.
In 2012, lawmakers struck a deal over access to diagnostic
information, but it was too late to remove the "right to repair"
question from the ballot, and voters wound up passing a version
different from the compromise. The Legislature a year later
revised the ballot law to better capture what had been
negotiated between mechanic and car manufacturers.
Leaders on Beacon Hill are not ruling out again tinkering with
the newest motor vehicle data ballot law.
Sen. Paul Feeney, who co-chairs the Committee on Consumer
Protection and Professional Licensure, said he has not had any
formal discussion about reviewing the ballot law, but would be
open to hearing suggestions for how it could be improved.
"I felt it was best to respect the process and let the voters
decide before we started discussing hypotheticals," Feeney said
on Tuesday. "I am certainly inclined, however, to meet with all
of the stakeholders and regulators if the ballot initiative
passes, to ensure that it can be implemented effectively with
both consumer protection and public safety in mind."
"I feel strongly that the will of the voters is sacrosanct,
however, and I am extremely reticent to support any major or
substantive changes to the law, if passed at the ballot," he
added.
Hickey, in his post-election remarks, dismissed concerns raised
by some opponents that it would be unworkable to require
manufacturers to outfit vehicles starting with 2022 models with
an open-access data platform compatible with an app for
consumers that would have to be designed for repair information
to be shared.
"The automakers and their army of lobbyists will make noise and
make up stories, saying 'it can't be done,' just like they did
during the campaign," Hickey said. "In fact they said the same
exact thing about implementing the first right to repair in
2012, but you rejected the automakers flimsy arguments with your
votes and the will of the voters matters."
While repair shop owners argued that this information was
necessary to preserve the livelihoods of independent auto
mechanics and give consumers choice in who repairs their
vehicle, opponents said it could expose drivers to data theft
and was not necessary to repair a vehicle.
The Coalition for Safe and Secure Data tapped into the more than
$26.4 million raised to fight the ballot question to run
numerous ads, including ominous spots suggesting that location
data could be stolen, putting victims of domestic violence at
risk.
"As we have said from the beginning, the right to repair and the
ability of local repair shops to access vehicle repair
information are already enshrined in Massachusetts law. Today's
vote will do nothing to enhance that right – it will only grant
real time, two-way access to your vehicle and increase risk. At
no point did the Yes side provide any credible arguments as to
why national auto parts chains need this information to service
your vehicles," the Coalition for Safe and Secure Data said in a
statement.
The ad war between the two sides was paid for with huge sums of
outside money that flowed into Massachusetts, with parts
manufacturers like Auto Zone helping to fund a more than $24
million campaign to pass the ballot question, and car
manufacturers like General Motors, Ford and Toyota financing the
$26 million opposition campaign.
Ranked-choice voting also enjoyed deep-pockets support from out
of state, with major contributions coming from wealthy
proponents of ranked-choice voting such as the Houston-based
Action Now Initiative.
The list of wealthy donors backing the question also included
Kathryn Murdoch, the president of Quadrivium and daughter-in-law
of media mogul Rupert Murdoch; Eton Park Capital Management CEO
Eric Mindich, and Jonathan Soros, the CEO of JS Capital
Management and son of billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
State House News
Service
Thursday, November 5, 2020
House Session Summary - Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020
Plans Friday Session to Finish Work on $423 Mil Closeout Budget
By Chris Van Buskirk
The House unanimously passed a $423 million spending bill
Thursday to close out the books on fiscal 2020 more than four
months after the new fiscal year began. House Ways and Means
Chair Aaron Michlewitz touted the fact that the legislation
wraps up fiscal 2020 without tapping into the stabilization
fund.
Michlewitz said the closeout will also grant the University of
Massachusetts a short-term line of credit for operating
expenses, implement technical changes to unemployment insurance,
and allow the MBTA to use capital funds for employee salaries.
Michlewitz said the MBTA measure was included in both the House
and Senate versions of the transportation bond bill, but with
that legislation tied up in conference negotiations since July
23, it was sewn into the closeout budget to get it done in a
timely manner.
Over the course of about two hours, House legislators withdrew
nearly all of the 39 amendments to the bill -- only three were
adopted.
Among the withdrawals was an amendment from Rep. Mike Connolly
that would have extended an eviction and foreclosure moratorium
until the end of the year. The Cambridge Democrat previously
attempted to force an emergency extension of the ban during a
House informal session in mid-October.
Amendments adopted Thursday include one from Rep. Hannah Kane
that extends the time for the Massachusetts Office of Travel and
Tourism to access funds related to the women's rights history
trail and another from Rep. Kimberly Ferguson extending a
deadline for the Brain Injury Commission to make recommendations
on improving services.
The House meets next on Friday in an informal session. Speaker
Pro Tempore Patricia Haddad told the News Service that the goal
for Friday's session is to finish dealing with the closeout
budget and ideally get it to Gov. Charlie Baker's desk.
State House News
Service
Friday, November 6, 2020
Senate Session Summary - Friday, Nov. 6, 2020
Sends $423 Mil Bill to Baker Closing Out Fiscal 2020
By Sam Doran
The Senate gaveled into a Friday afternoon session to take final
votes on a $423 million supplemental budget wrapping up fiscal
2020, the fiscal year that ended on June 30.
Calling it "bill-paying exercise" with significant MassHealth
spending and $1.1 million for early voting costs from last
spring's presidential primary, the bill would also retroactively
extend the statute of limitations related to a lawsuit against
OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, budget chief Sen. Michael
Rodrigues said.
The Senate meets Monday in an informal session; the House is out
until Tuesday when it starts deliberations on a budget for the
current fiscal year, which began July 1.
State House News
Service
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Mass. Employers Urge Caution on Tax Front
Survey: Employers Weighing Moves, Smaller Office Footprints
By Colin A. Young
It has never been easier for businesses and jobs to flee
Massachusetts in droves and the House and Senate should think
long and hard about that possibility before considering new or
higher taxes on companies, some of the most influential industry
groups this week warned Democratic leaders.
A giant chunk of the Massachusetts business community sent a
letter Monday to House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President
Karen Spilka reminding them that "barriers to exit for
Massachusetts employers and employees has never been lower"
given the way the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed
work for millions of people, and that the fragile economy
"requires a go-slow approach to new taxes on business."
The letter was sent as the House was preparing to release its
fiscal year 2021 budget for debate next week. The House budget
does not call for higher taxes.
Raise Up Massachusetts and other advocates have called on the
Legislature to address looming budget wounds by increasing taxes
levied against corporations, annual household income over $1
million and investment profits -- a plan Raise Up said has
"overwhelming support" among Massachusetts voters but that the
business groups said could imperil the tenuous recovery from the
spring's COVID-19 shockwave.
"Employers of all sizes, across the Commonwealth, are wary of
the fragile economy, growing and crippling cost pressures, and
the very real impacts of remote work on both employee and
employer behavior. In this environment of great uncertainty,
significant changes to tax policy will exacerbate these
considerations and slow the recovery that we are collectively
working so hard to achieve," the groups, including Associated
Industries of Massachusetts, Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, Mass.
Retailers Association, Mass. High Technology Council, Worcester
Regional Chamber of Commerce and more than a dozen others,
wrote.
The group's letter does not explicitly say the organizations
strictly oppose any and all tax increases, but calls raising
taxes at this point "akin to shooting at a moving target with
the potential for dramatic long term impacts for the
Massachusetts economy." The groups have a powerful ally in Gov.
Charlie Baker, who has said raising taxes doesn't "seem like the
right thing to do." And while some lawmakers back higher taxes,
the Democrats who run both chambers have not been vocally
advocating this year for tax increases.
House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz said Thursday
that the House budget does not include any "broad-based" or
"targeted" tax increase to balance out spending.
"We didn't have any broad-based tax increases in this budget,"
Michlewitz told reporters. "I think we tried to create a budget
that addressed the immediate needs that we see are important
during this COVID world that we're living in, but also didn't
burden forever our constituents in this difficult time."
Michlewitz, however, did not rule out revisiting tax increases
in fiscal year 2022, planning for which will begin as soon as
the budget for fiscal year 2021 is complete.
"It was something that we obviously considered but being able to
do these one-time revenue fixes allowed us to get through this
fiscal year. We'll have to see where we go in FY 22 because
we're not out of the woods just by getting through FY21, that's
for sure," Michlewitz said.
While tax receipts have yet to falter, the Baker administration
and House leaders are budgeting for fiscal 2021 with the
expectation that state tax revenues will fall by about $2
billion compared to fiscal 2020, due to impacts of the COVID-19
pandemic. The governor and House leaders are planning to
increase spending in fiscal 2021 largely by relying heavily on
one-time revenue sources like federal aid and state reserves.
The governor and House leaders are budgeting based on the
expectation that fiscal 2021 tax collections will total $27.592
billion, a 6.8 percent reduction from fiscal year 2020. Senate
leaders have yet to outline their budget plans.
Asked whether he would veto tax hikes should be they be embraced
by the Legislature, Baker said last month, "I would, yeah."
In the letter, the business organizations said the Massachusetts
Competitive Partnership surveyed 100 employers and found that 60
are "considering moving or allowing for more work to be done
remotely out-of-state" and 54 are "considering reducing their
overall office footprint in Massachusetts" as a result of the
pandemic.
"The ability of employers and employees to locate anywhere makes
them more sensitive to costs of living and doing business.
Remote working could lead to greater job loss, and a slower
recovery with implications for the state's future
competitiveness," the groups wrote. "The barriers to exit for
Massachusetts employers and employees has never been lower."
Lawmakers should also keep in mind the increasing costs that
many business owners face, the groups wrote in the letter, like
an impending spike in unemployment insurance costs, rising
health care premiums, the new state paid family and medical
leave benefit program, costs related to the pandemic and
protective equipment, and a rising minimum wage. Some of the
business groups that signed onto the letter supported the
so-called Grand Bargain, a multi-faceted 2018 law that set a
schedule for increases in the minimum wage and the establishment
of a paid leave program as part of a broader compromise.
A business with 50 full-time workers earning minimum wage --
$12.75 an hour now, but rising to $13.50 as of Jan. 1, 2021 --
can expect to see its operating costs increase by $142,670 in
2021 as a result of the minimum wage hike, and projected UI and
health care costs, the groups said.
As the Baker administration and Legislature were working to get
a handle on the budget picture last month, a handful of
advocates called for the state to increase certain taxes to
raise additional revenue that will help sustain state programs
and services through the pandemic and recession.
"When private spending falls during a recession ... cutting
public spending only prolongs and deepens the recession,"
Marie-Frances Rivera, president of the Massachusetts Budget and
Policy Center, said. She argued that Massachusetts should
instead raise taxes on "people who have benefited from the
economic growth that we've seen, wealthy individuals, [and]
corporations" as a way to raise money for state programs or
services that "really get money flowing through our local
economies."
Raise Up said in September that the results of a survey showed
that most people in Massachusetts want the state to maintain or
increase spending on public education and health care, and they
want businesses and the wealthy to chip in more to offset the
devastating financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
— Matt Murphy contributed
reporting
State House News
Service
Thursday, November 5, 2020
House Budget Raids Reserves to Push Spending to $46 Bil
Michlewitz: "This is Obviously a Fiscal Emergency"
By Matt Murphy
House leaders put forward a $46 billion state budget on Thursday
that top Democrats said has no "drastic cuts" or broad-based tax
increases, but does rely heavily on one-time funding from the
federal government and state reserves to protect services during
the ongoing pandemic.
The House budget, which is usually debated in April, proposes to
spend about $188 million more than Gov. Charlie Baker has
recommended, in areas like education, food security and
substance addiction services. Leaders said they will open debate
on the bill next Tuesday, and Speaker Robert DeLeo said he hopes
to work with the Senate to deliver a budget for fiscal 2021 to
the governor by the end of the month. That would be a record
turnaround time for the branches, which have been known to
haggle for months over budget details.
"This is a budget that pays bills by concentrating on those who
are most in need of our help," DeLeo said.
Like Baker, the House's fiscal 2021 budget assumes a $2 billion
reduction in tax revenues from fiscal 2020 due to the pandemic.
The House proposes a 5.3 percent spending increase over the
$43.6 billion fiscal '20 budget.
The House budget includes a section that would restrict courts
from finalizing evictions if a tenant has an active application
for rental assistance pending with the administration. As a sort
of middle ground plan between Gov. Baker and those House
Democrats who want to revive the pandemic eviction moratorium,
the budget would put $50 million into the Rental Assistance for
Families in Transition program.
Many progressive groups also have been urging the Legislature to
consider taxes on wealthy businesses and individuals to avoid
cuts to safety net programs during the pandemic, but business
leaders have warned that employers bracing for higher minimum
wage and unemployment insurance costs next year could choose to
leave the state.
House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz said it was
"unthinkable" back in the spring that the House would debate a
fiscal 2021 budget that doesn't propose sharp reductions in
spending or raise taxes, but the spending plan offered Thursday
accomplish that, in part, by tapping into the state's "rainy
day" fund for more than $1.5 billion, or $155 million more than
Gov. Baker recommended.
"I think we tried to create a budget that addressed the
immediate needs that we see are important during this COVID
world that we're living in, but also didn't burden forever our
constituents in this difficult time," Michlewitz said.
The budget does delay a charitable giving tax deduction that was
set to become available for tax year 2021. And the Boston
Democrat did not rule out revisiting tax increases in fiscal
year 2022, planning for which will begin as soon as the budget
for fiscal year 2021 is complete.
"It was something that we obviously considered but being able to
do these one-time revenue fixes allowed us to get through this
fiscal year. We'll have to see where we go in FY 22 because
we're not out of the woods just by getting through FY21, that's
for sure," Michlewitz said.
The House budget adopted many of the same one-time revenue
sources that Baker relied on in his revised budget submission
last month, including $550 million in federal CARES Act funding
and $834 million in enhanced Medicaid reimbursements for
MassHealth. Overall, the proposed budget for fiscal 2021 would
use $13.86 billion in federal money, up from $13.23 billion in
fiscal 2020.
For the first time in many years, House leaders are also
recommending a substantial withdrawal of $1.5 billion from the
state's "rainy day" fund," which would draw down the $3.5
billion reserve by 43 percent and leave nearly $2 billion for
future years. Baker recommended using $1.35 billion from the
stabilization fund in his budget plan.
DeLeo said he brought his experiences having dealt with
financial crises in 2008 and 2009, the dot-com bust and the
aftermath of the 9-11 terrorists attacks to the process of
putting the budget together. He said in 2009 the state used 60
percent of its reserves to get through the first year of the
crisis.
"We built it and we protected it for times just like these,"
DeLeo said.
State House News
Service
Friday, November 6, 2020
DeLeo: Policy Proposals Not Welcome in House Budget Process
By Colin A. Young
The House will begin debating a budget for the fiscal year that
began in July next week but don't expect it to be the same kind
of vehicle for policy proposals that the annual spending plan
can sometimes turn into.
House leadership is sending the message that it wants to see its
$46 billion spending bill stay fairly narrow in scope, with
House Speaker Robert DeLeo making that point clear Friday.
In an address to the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans,
DeLeo said the House believes "that the budget is not an
appropriate place for major policy reform."
"Basically, we've felt that that should go through the committee
process in terms of the usual debate in the House and in the
Senate before it goes on to the governor," DeLeo said.
"Especially during these very challenging times, these policy
proposals, I think, deserve more review and input from
stakeholders more than ever before because of this unusual
budget process that we're going through right now."
That could be unwelcome news to representatives who have already
filed policy-focused budget amendments, like Rep. Dan Cahill's
proposals related to online Lottery, Rep. Marjorie Decker's
pitch to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, Rep. Natalie
Higgins' amendment to create a student loan borrower bill of
rights, Rep. Susan Gifford's proposal around crossbow hunting,
or Rep. Ruth Balser's ideas about preventing COVID-19 outbreaks
in nursing homes.
The House also tweaked its rules related to the budget and the
amendment process this week, removing requirements that
representatives have the budget for seven days before debate
starts and have three days to file amendments, and instead
giving members until 8 p.m. Friday to file amendments to the
budget released around midday Thursday for debate beginning
Tuesday.
In a letter to the House clerk, Rules Committee Chairman Rep.
William Galvin outlined the rules changes that DeLeo and House
Minority Leader Brad Jones had signed off on. As of late Friday
morning, representatives had filed 166 amendments to the House
Ways and Means Committee budget.
State House News
Service
Friday, November 6, 2020
Weekly Roundup - Counting Every Vote
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
Is it over yet?
By the time you read this, America may know whether to call Joe
Biden president-elect or if Donald Trump will have four more
years in the White House. Or maybe not.
Chances are strong that even if enough votes have been counted
for someone (most likely Biden) to declare victory, it won't be
that simple. President Trump has already asked for recounts and
filed lawsuits to challenge the results in certain states, and
there's no reason to think he'll go quietly if he loses.
With every unsubstantiated claim of vote fraud tweeted or spoken
by the president, cable news pundits bemoan the the crumbling of
another brick in the American democratic system. But here in
Massachusetts, where a record 3.5 million people and counting
voted this cycle, Secretary of State William Galvin said the
great American experiment is alive and well.
"Yesterday was a great day for democracy in Massachusetts,"
Galvin said Wednesday morning.
The state elections chief was basking in the glow of an election
cycle in which he successfully helped to implement widespread
vote-by-mail for the first time, with only minor blemishes. The
secretary said he will now convene a working group of clerks and
other parties to put together a legislative package to make
mail-in voting a reality for future elections.
One thing that will mean, however, is more money. Galvin said
local clerks will need resources if vote-by-mail is here to
stay, and the Legislature will have the final word on all of
that.
But everyone from Galvin to Gov. Charlie Baker to U.S. Sen.
Edward Markey -- who easily won a new six-year term Tuesday
night over Republican Kevin O'Connor -- agreed that voters
should have the first and last say in who wins elections.
While President Trump was tweeting "STOP THE COUNT," Baker and
Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito urged patience.
"The United States of America depends on every American having
the freedom to cast their vote and for every vote to be counted.
Every American, regardless of political affiliation, especially
the President and every candidate on the ballot, should be
united in supporting this process," the two Republicans said the
day after the election.
Baker didn't vote for Trump. But it turned out he also didn't
vote for Biden.
"I blanked it," Baker said Tuesday, the same day he announced
Appeals Court Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt as his latest
nominee for the Supreme Judicial Court. If confirmed to the post
by the Governor's Council, Wendlandt would be the first Latina
to serve on the state's high court.
The SJC pick won Baker widespread plaudits, while the "blank"
ballot for president helped his critics draw immediate contrast
with Republican Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont, who, like Baker,
doesn't like Trump, but voted for Biden.
Blanking a ballot is one option for voters who don't like any of
the choices for a specific office, but the people of the state
made clear they don't want the option of ranking candidates in
the event that they actually like more than one.
The ballot question that would have made Massachusetts just the
second state to adopt ranked-choice voting, after Maine, failed,
despite the campaign raising $10 million and vastly outspending
the fragmented opposition, which barely raised any money at all.
It's impossible to know why voters said no to the reform that
was backed by so many prominent past and present elected
officials from both parties, but the best-guess, post-race
analysis was voters simply found it too complicated and were
hesitant to check the "yes" box for big change at a time of
great political uncertainty.
The other ballot question this year dealing with access to
wireless vehicle data fared much better. By a roughly
three-to-one margin, voters said they wanted to control access
to the telematics systems in their cars and to be able to share
that access with independent mechanics if they wish, even if
opponents continue to say it's unnecessary and potentially
dangerous from the cybersecurity standpoint.
The trick now will be figuring out whether the ballot law can be
easily implemented, or if lawmakers will want to step in and
alter the newest "Right to Repair" law to make it more workable.
The elections consumed a great deal of the mental bandwidth of
voters, candidates, elected officials and the media. And maybe
it wasn't the the worst thing that people were glued to watching
Dorchester native John King and Groton's Steve Kornacki ply
their trade at their magic walls on CNN and MSNBC, explaining
the intricate demographics of Maricopa County.
It might make the transition to Baker's new stay-at-advisory
that much easier. Baker this week told people he wants them home
between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. to stop the surge in coronavirus
cases from getting worse, and he implemented a 9:30 p.m. to 5
a.m. mandatory closure period for many businesses, including
restaurants and casinos.
Baker also updated his town-by-town risk assessment system,
upped his expectations of schools to bring students back to the
classroom and signed an order mandating mask use in public, even
if social distancing is possible.
Masks are already the norm at the State House where lawmakers,
clear of their own reelection efforts, are being called back by
Beacon Hill Democrats who are ready to turn the page on Election
2020, even if America isn't quite there yet.
The day after the polls closed, House leaders said they finally
would be rolling out a state budget for fiscal year 2021, which
began on July 1. Though still "at the mercy" of the virus, House
Ways and Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz said the financial
picture was finally clear enough to proceed with a process that
usually plays out over the course of three months or more,
beginning in April.
October tax revenues released this week continued to hold
strong, and Michlewitz said circumstances had actually allowed
for something "unthinkable" back in April and May when the
Legislature should have been debating a budget: The $46 billion
budget released by House leaders avoids "drastic cuts" to
services, and uses one-time federal aid and $1.5 billion in
state reserves to cover spending without major tax increases.
The House budget actually proposes to spend about $188 million
more than Baker recommended, and uses about $155 million more
from the state's $3.5 billion reserve fund, which would leave
just under $2 billion for future years.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo said his goal is to see the budget
get to the governor's desk by the end of November, or shortly
thereafter, but that would require a Herculean display of comity
between the House and Senate unseen in these parts for years.
But anything's possible.
Legislative leaders are attempting to warn members off seeking
major policy reforms in the budget or loading it with earmarks
to be negotiated with their Senate counterparts.
So for anyone hoping for a post-election breather, the
Legislature had other ideas.
The debate starts Tuesday in what will be the first lame duck
session since the 1990s. Nineteen new faces will be joining the
Legislature in January, but before then familiar ones, like Rep.
Angelo Scaccia, a Hyde Park Democrat and dean of the House, will
get one more bite at the budget apple.
While Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton in Massachusetts by
about five points from four years ago, the record turnout and
anti-Trump enthusiasm here did little to alter the landscape of
Beacon Hill.
Democrats picked up one net seat in the House, and one seat in
the Senate, while the all-Democrat Congressional delegation was
returned to Capitol Hill with one new face -- Newton's Jake
Auchincloss, who will take over for U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy in
the next Congress.
The two incumbents who lost in the general election were both
Republicans, with Sen. Dean Tran falling to Lunenburg Democrat
John Cronin after running into ethics problems earlier this
year, and Rep. William Crocker getting knocked off by Democrat
Kip Diggs on the Cape.
Democrats also won the North Attleboro seat long held by
retiring Rep. Elizabeth Poirier, while Republicans won back a
western Massachusetts House seat held briefly by John Velis
before he made the move to the Senate this year in a special
election.
While every race and district is different, some of these
results could come into play next week when the Massachusetts
Democratic Party elects its chairman for the next cycle. Gus
Bickford is seeking another four-year term, but deputy party
treasurer Mike Lake and activist and former gubernatorial
candidate Bob Massie both want his job.
While it's hard to criticize the leadership of a party that in
January will have a 129-30 majority in the House and a 37-3 grip
on the Senate, the governor's office is the prize and what it
will take to win that in 2022 is the party's newest unanswered
question.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Is it still Tuesday?
State House News
Service
Friday, November 6, 2020
Advances - Week of Nov. 8, 2020
The annual House budget debate that normally occurs when the
trees are blossoming in the spring is on track to get underway
Tuesday as masked Massachusetts residents stay closer to home,
perhaps raking leaves and getting mentally prepared for the
ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases and the latest turns in one of
the wildest presidential elections in U.S. history.
If Joe Biden wins the presidency, as it appears he may once the
votes are all counted, Massachusetts could once again be seen as
a recruiting field for the White House as opposed to the
political desert it's become under the Trump administration.
While the campaign that just ended was unfolding, the House and
Senate in August, September and October avoided any serious
legislating that might have opened them up to charges of
pre-election opportunism, and in doing so left a significant
workload for the first lame duck sessions since 1994.
On Thursday, two days after the election, the House rushed
through an overdue fiscal 2020 closeout spending bill, which
cleared the Senate on Friday and is now on Gov. Charlie Baker's
desk. The House simultaneously rolled out a $46 billion fiscal
2021 budget, which beginning on Tuesday will become the
first-ever annual state spending bill to be processed at
sessions where most representatives will participate remotely.
The budget is more than four months late and there's pressure on
lawmakers to pass it quickly, and start fiscal 2022 budget
deliberations on time by avoiding the kinds of disagreements
that often drag out budget talks for months. Baker wants a
budget by Thanksgiving, which is in 20 days, and lawmakers will
need a record turnaround time to meet that goal.
Eighteen lawmakers who will participate in the high-stakes
upcoming formal sessions will not be returning in 2021.
Lame Duck Session Outlook
In a normal election year, legislative activity would decelerate
substantially in the time between the election and the end of
the legislative session in January. In 2020, that dynamic is
upside-down and activity on Beacon Hill is ramping up, starting
with Tuesday's launch of House budget deliberations, the passage
of a final fiscal 2020 spending bill, and an expectation that at
least some of the five major conference committees in place
since the summer will be able to reach compromises to send to
the branches for up-or-down votes.
Those bills include scores of major changes in state laws
governing police conduct (S 2820/H 4886), climate change (S
2500/H 4933), economic development (S 2874/H 4887),
transportation spending (H 4547/S 2836) and health care (S
2796/H 4916).
In addition to decisions on sports betting, housing production,
and beer distribution rights, which are components of the
economic development bills, lawmakers in the coming two months
may also tackle proposals dealing with access to abortion (H
3320/S 1209), and sexual assaults on college campuses.
Gov. Baker is trying to move Judge Kimberly Budd's nomination to
succeed Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants through
the Governor's Council, as well as his nomination this week of
Appeals Court Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt to serve on the
SJC. Baker will have a third seat to fill when Barbara Lenk
retires this year from the SJC.
Analysts are already sizing up the likelihood, or not, of
another COVID-19 stimulus bill from Washington, depending on
shifts in the balance of power there, the details of which are
still unclear days after the election.
Massachusetts also has its eye on Washington for a decision by
year's end on the fate of Vineyard Wind and the offshore wind
industry, and is among the group of Northeast and mid-Atlantic
states trying to forge an historic pact to reduce transportation
sector emissions before the end of 2020.
Other unfolding storylines in the week ahead: ... SJC Justice
Kimberly Budd appears before the Governor's Council, which is
weighing Gov. Baker's plan to elevate Budd to chief justice of
the state's highest court ... The details of deep proposed MBTA
service cuts are expected to become clearer on Monday as the T
and its GM Steve Poftak grapple with a lot fewer riders and as a
result, less money to support its budget ... Rep. Claire Cronin
and Sen. Jamie Eldridge face deadline pressure to finally
release the ROE Act by Thursday from the Judiciary Committee
that they co-chair. |
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