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Post Office Box 1147
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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
▪ (781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
46 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
|
CLT UPDATE
Sunday, November 29, 2020
TCI Losing Steam
— While Conference Committees Stagnate
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
|
Most Relevant News Excerpts
(Full news reports follow
Commentary)
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The drastic
reduction in traffic and changes in the economy during the
coronavirus emergency have dampened enthusiasm for a carbon
fee on gasoline and diesel in Massachusetts – including
among residents and the state’s governor.
A new poll
released by Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance – which
opposes the carbon fee – suggests that residents of the
state are cooling on the idea of a Transportation and
Climate Initiative carbon fee on fuel.
The poll found
that about 56 percent of respondents said they are
either somewhat less likely or much less likely to
support the fuel fee when “knowing it will increase the
cost of fuel for blue collar and essential workers who
are largely unable to work from home.” The poll also
found that nearly 67 percent think Massachusetts
Governor Charlie Baker, who has supported the
Transportation and Climate Initiative in the past,
should rethink his position.
The survey of
500 state residents was conducted late last week by
Advantage Inc. for Fiscal Alliance Foundation, and
claims a margin of error of 4.4 percent with a 95
percent confidence level....
Opponents
question the urgency of the measure and reject the means
of achieving it.
Estimates of
the likely cost of the carbon fee on fuel has risen
dramatically over the last year. In December 2019,
government officials projected an increased price of up
to 17 cents a gallon on gasoline. A study in March 2020
(released by opponents of the proposal) found the price
of gasoline could go up 26 cents a gallon. A new study
released this month suggests the price might go up 38
cents a gallon.
Supporters of
the carbon fee on fuel have questioned those findings
and have called for patience as policymakers work out a
potential cap on costs, saying the proposed initiative
is vital to combating climate change. Yet the cost
projections have some government leaders skittish about
the program.
Other
governors in New England had been edging away from the
Transportation and Climate Initiative before coronavirus
hit, out of concerns about the cost increase of
gasoline.
Baker had
remained a supporter. Yet the governor suggested
recently that he is rethinking the idea. And he sounded
unenthusiastic about the Transportation and Climate
Initiative carbon fee on fuel when asked about it during
a coronavirus press conference Monday, November 23.
The New
Boston Post
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
Climate-Change Carbon Fee on Fuel in
Massachusetts
May Be Headed for Shelf
Gov. Charlie
Baker said the underlying assumptions about a proposal
to assess a price on the carbon contained in automobile
fuels are in flux, but he still intends to make a
decision on whether to push ahead with the high-profile
regional initiative by the end of the year.
At a State
House press conference on Monday, Baker said the
emission reductions expected from the regional
transportation initiative were based on forecasts about
traffic and congestion, most of which no longer apply
because of COVID-19. Baker said a re-examination of
those forecasts is warranted given the current
transportation reality.
“If you pursue
a price on carbon associated with transportation, what
do you get for that price on carbon in a world that
looks a lot different now, and potentially will stay a
lot different for the next several years, relative to
the one we thought we were living in a couple years
ago?” he said.
The so-called
transportation climate initiative, or TCI, has been a
high priority of Baker’s, both as a way to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and to raise funds for
investments in transit.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Monday, November 23, 2020
Baker vows TCI decision by end of
year
Gov says underlying assumptions in flux due to COVID
One of the
most overlooked stories on Election Day was the defeat
of pro-carbon tax politicians across the nation and here
in New England....
Twelve states,
including all of New England, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and the
District of Columbia, are considering joining TCI. Last
December, when TCI released its first and only memo of
understanding, New Hampshire withdrew, leaving just 11
states and DC. The losses of such high-profile carbon
tax proponents in Vermont, Maine, and Pennsylvania are
sure to give those states even further pause before
continuing to consider joining TCI in the midst of a
pandemic.
Perhaps some
left-wing political insiders were right to question the
merits of TCI early on. In Vermont, some of the state’s
largest union bosses came out against TCI due to its
regressive nature and elitist goals. October saw
left-wing environmental groups in New Jersey announce
their opposition to TCI, with a director of the Climate
Justice Alliance noting that, “TCI is just taxing poor
people so we can subsidize rich people’s electric cars.”
While it’s
unlikely TCI will have enough defectors in the
professional environmental lobby, it certainly lost some
credibility among the voters this past November. Polls
consistently show the environment is a concern shared by
many, but voters can support the environment and be
against TCI and carbon taxes, as we saw voters
consistently demonstrate this past November. While TCI
breathes its last breaths, it’s more obvious than ever
that these taxes are bad policy and worse politics.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Carbon tax backers didn’t fare well in
election
Could the political defeats explain Baker’s hesitancy on
TCI?
By Paul D. Craney
The annual
state budget, now nearly five months late, was put in
the hands of a six-member conference committee on Monday
with the Legislature looking to avoid the type of
protracted negotiations between the branches that are
holding up final agreements on other key bills.
Of course,
this year the budget is late by design....
The conference
committee that will now negotiate a compromise fiscal
year 2021 budget to be presented to Gov. Charlie Baker
includes predictable figures, led by House Ways and
Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz and Senate Ways and
Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues. Michlewitz will be
joined at the table by House Ways and Means Vice
Chairwoman Denise Garlick, and the committee's ranking
Republican Rep. Todd Smola, and on the Senate side, Ways
and Means Vice Chairwoman Cindy Friedman and ranking
Republican Patrick O'Connor round out the committee....
The budget
conference is now one of six actively seeking compromise
on major legislation passed by the House and Senate this
session, the oldest of which has been trying to hash
through a long-term transportation borrowing bill for
124 days. The next oldest conference committee is the
one being led by Rep. Claire Cronin and Sen. William
Brownsberger, who are trying to negotiate a major
overhaul of policing that became a top priority on
Beacon Hill after the killing of George Floyd, only to
lose some political momentum as the weeks have turned
into months.
The policing
conference committee has had the reform bills for 120
days.
The
Legislature in late July voted to suspend its rules and
extend its formal lawmaking sessions until early January
2021, in part to deal with the budget and those bills in
conference that had yet to be resolved. But not much has
changed since July 31, which would have been the
traditional end of the formal legislative calendar.
There are just 44 days remaining before the last
possible full day of formal sessions: Jan. 5, 2021.
State House
News Service
Monday, November 23, 2020
SHNS Conference Committee Scorecard
New Budget Means Six Bills in
Conference With 44 Days to Go
After months
and even years of public debate, the fate of six key
pieces of legislation is now in the hands of just 29
lawmakers.
The lawmakers
are charged with resolving differences between House and
Senate bills dealing with the state budget, police
reform, climate change, economic development, health
care, and transportation bond funding; so-called
conference committees on which these lawmakers serve are
“black boxes” whose inner workings are unknown.
Rep. Denise
Provost of Somerville, who retires in January after 14
years in the Legislature, said on the Codcast this week
that many of her constituents have been asking her about
progress on bills in the House-Senate conference
committees. She said she has to explain that she doesn’t
know.
The bills are
the outgrowth of enormous public debate and negotiations
over the last two years. But now their final shape – or
whether they even emerge for an up-or-down vote in both
branches – is being decided by a handful of lawmakers
working in private, out of the public eye....
“The process
is very well sealed,” [Provost] said. “Maybe that’s
necessary to an extent for successful negotiations. Just
as in diplomacy you have Chatham House rules, you have
the security of knowing you can have wide ranging
conversations that are not reported. But I wonder,
especially in the last few sessions when some bills have
ended up not coming out of conference at all after all
that work, whether our current conference process is a
good one.” ...
Frustrated
with the lack of action on police reform legislation,
Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi today called for
opening the process up for the public to see what’s
holding things up. “Of course, that’s a fantasy
scenario; open, honest debate doesn’t happen anymore on
Beacon Hill on an issue,” she said.
The conference
committees all have three members from the House and
three from the Senate. Each branch supplies two
Democrats and one Republican. The Democrats tend to be
key members of the House and Senate power structures,
while the Republicans, because of their small numbers on
Beacon Hill, have to plug the gaps as best they can.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
The Legislature’s ‘black box’ committees
The Baker
family celebrated Thanksgiving with "immediate family,"
while the governor urged everyone to keep it in the
household. That's how Public Health Commission Monica
Bharel, who beat COVID-19 earlier in the pandemic,
approached Thanksgiving with her family.
"There is
still time and space for people to reconsider their
plans and think about the safest way to celebrate
Thanksgiving, given that we are in this second surge,"
Bharel said Monday.
Nobody will
know for sure for a couple of weeks whether the public
listened, or was able to pull off a turkey celebration
without spreading the coronavirus to friends and
relatives. But the pleading for continued sacrifice
isn't going away just because the holiday is over.
Christmas,
after all, is just several weeks away.
The governor
launched a new public awareness campaign this week
branded "Get Back Mass." The ads are slated to run
through February, and are meant to remind people that if
they just hunker down this winter the joys of live
baseball at Fenway, family birthday parties and
fireworks on the Esplanade are not far out of reach.
At least three
promising vaccine candidates could be available in late
2020 or early 2021, with at-risk populations and first
responders likely to be among the first allowed to get
in line for the shot.
By next
summer, the general public? Maybe? Gov. Baker thinks
it's possible....
By the time
vaccines start arriving, legislative leaders are hoping
to have the fiscal year 2021 budget process well in
their rearview mirror and be progressing through the
development of a fiscal year 2022 budget, expected to be
equally, if not more, challenging.
The state
budget got placed before a six-member conference
committee this week led by the two chairmen of the Ways
and Means committees, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen.
Michael Rodrigues. The conference committee met
virtually on Monday afternoon for the first time, and
moved into executive session as they push for a quick
resolution to negotiations on the $46 billion budget.
"In the days
ahead, we look forward to working closely together in
order to reach a timely resolution," Michlewitz and
Rodrigues said.
Just how fast
is timely might be a matter of interpretation, but it
won't be before the calendar reads December, which means
it's highly likely Gov. Baker and the Legislature will
have to consider another fourth interim budget, even if
only to cover spending for a few weeks.
State House
News Service
Friday, November 27, 2020
Weekly Roundup - Sitting Tight
The
Legislature next week can either pass a fourth interim
budget or a full-year fiscal 2021 budget, but must make
a move of some sort since the last temporary budget
signed by Gov. Charlie Baker was designed to run only
through November, which ends on Monday.
The House and
Senate broke for the Thanksgiving holiday on Wednesday,
with plans to return for a session on this month's final
day. Gov. Charlie Baker wanted a full-year budget on his
desk by Thanksgiving and by not filing an interim budget
he may be applying pressure on Democrats to finally end
the 2020 budget saga. However, while the governor in
late October told lawmakers that the current interim
budget was needed "to maintain necessary services
through the end of November," his office told the News
Service Friday that the current spending authorization
is actually sufficient to cover "several days into the
month of December."
In their first
three interim budgets, the governor and Legislature
appropriated more than $27 billion to cover the first
five months of the fiscal year. Baker proposed a $45.5
billion fiscal 2021 budget and the full-year budget
that's being worked out by a six-member legislative
conference committee calls for about $46 billion in
spending, drawing heavily from state reserves and
one-time federal revenues.
The week ahead
will also bring news on whether state tax revenues will
stay above fiscal 2020 levels for the fifth straight
month of fiscal 2021, or whether the budgeted 6 percent
slide in collections will begin. Massachusetts is one of
the last states in the country without an approved
annual budget, and the current budget talks are poised
to flow straight into fiscal 2022 deliberations, which
could launch in December with the annual public hearing
on revenue forecasts.
State House
News Service
Friday, November 27, 2020
Advances - Week of Nov. 29, 2020 |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Governor Baker's boondoggle, his
Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), is back in the headlines
and not in a good way for him. His multi-state compact scheme
appears to be losing its momentum and even Charlie seems to see the
handwriting on the wall.
In the last CLT Update I informed you
on Monday that this slide had begun ("Poll
shows strong support for Charlie Baker re-evaluating TCI climate tax").
On Tuesday The New Boston Post reported ("Climate-Change Carbon Fee
on Fuel in Massachusetts May Be Headed for Shelf"):
The drastic
reduction in traffic and changes in the economy during the
coronavirus emergency have dampened enthusiasm for a carbon fee
on gasoline and diesel in Massachusetts – including among
residents and the state’s governor.
A new poll
released by Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance – which opposes the
carbon fee – suggests that residents of the state are cooling on
the idea of a Transportation and Climate Initiative carbon fee
on fuel.
The poll found
that about 56 percent of respondents said they are either
somewhat less likely or much less likely to support the fuel fee
when “knowing it will increase the cost of fuel for blue collar
and essential workers who are largely unable to work from home.”
The poll also found that nearly 67 percent think Massachusetts
Governor Charlie Baker, who has supported the Transportation and
Climate Initiative in the past, should rethink his position. . .
.
Other
governors in New England had been edging away from the
Transportation and Climate Initiative before coronavirus hit,
out of concerns about the cost increase of gasoline.
On Monday CommonWealth Magazine
reported ("Baker vows TCI decision by end of year
— Gov says underlying assumptions in
flux due to COVID"):
Gov. Charlie
Baker said the underlying assumptions about a proposal to assess
a price on the carbon contained in automobile fuels are in flux,
but he still intends to make a decision on whether to push ahead
with the high-profile regional initiative by the end of the
year.
At a State
House press conference on Monday, Baker said the emission
reductions expected from the regional transportation initiative
were based on forecasts about traffic and congestion, most of
which no longer apply because of COVID-19. Baker said a
re-examination of those forecasts is warranted given the current
transportation reality.
“If you pursue
a price on carbon associated with transportation, what do you
get for that price on carbon in a world that looks a lot
different now, and potentially will stay a lot different for the
next several years, relative to the one we thought we were
living in a couple years ago?” he said.
The so-called
transportation climate initiative, or TCI, has been a high
priority of Baker’s, both as a way to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and to raise funds for investments in transit.
In a Thursday op-ed column by
MassFiscal Alliance executive director Paul D. Craney published in
CommonWealth Magazine ("Carbon tax backers didn’t fare well in
election — Could the political defeats
explain Baker’s hesitancy on TCI?") we might be getting some insight
into why Baker's and other advocates' loss of "enthusiasm" shall we
say:
One of the
most overlooked stories on Election Day was the defeat of
pro-carbon tax politicians across the nation and here in New
England....
Twelve states,
including all of New England, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and the District of
Columbia, are considering joining TCI. Last December, when TCI
released its first and only memo of understanding, New Hampshire
withdrew, leaving just 11 states and DC. The losses of such
high-profile carbon tax proponents in Vermont, Maine, and
Pennsylvania are sure to give those states even further pause
before continuing to consider joining TCI in the midst of a
pandemic.
Perhaps some
left-wing political insiders were right to question the merits
of TCI early on. In Vermont, some of the state’s largest union
bosses came out against TCI due to its regressive nature and
elitist goals. October saw left-wing environmental groups in New
Jersey announce their opposition to TCI, with a director of the
Climate Justice Alliance noting that, “TCI is just taxing poor
people so we can subsidize rich people’s electric cars.”
While it’s
unlikely TCI will have enough defectors in the professional
environmental lobby, it certainly lost some credibility among
the voters this past November. Polls consistently show the
environment is a concern shared by many, but voters can support
the environment and be against TCI and carbon taxes, as we saw
voters consistently demonstrate this past November. While TCI
breathes its last breaths, it’s more obvious than ever that
these taxes are bad policy and worse politics.
These are all good signs for taxpayers
and motorists; there's no denying this. Better that the TCI
scam is moving in this direction than raging ahead, whatever the
reason or reasons. From the regular Zoom conferences we have
among TCI opposition leaders and organizations in the dozen states
that would be affected, the many moving parts in various states are
not running in alignment. Herding cats is never easy, and
herding multi-state politicians is much the same. But this may
be just a speed-bump in the trajectory. As I wrote in the last
CLT Update:
Even if TCI is put
on hold by Gov. Baker and the multi-state compact pushing it, it
won't go away. Progressives and liberals like Gov. Baker
never back down or surrender. The socialist-progressives
and liberals just regroup, rebrand, and charge on. A
Graduated Income Tax in Massachusetts is a perfect example.
They have managed to put it on the ballot five times (1962,
1968, 1972, 1976, and 1994) and were defeated five times.
That hasn't stopped them from going for a sixth attempt, with
their so-called "Fair Share Amendment," aka, "The Millionaire's
Tax."
There is little to report of the
five-months late fiscal year 2021 state budget over the week.
The State House News Service reported on Monday ("New Budget Means
Six Bills in Conference With 44 Days to Go"):
The annual
state budget, now nearly five months late, was put in the hands
of a six-member conference committee on Monday with the
Legislature looking to avoid the type of protracted negotiations
between the branches that are holding up final agreements on
other key bills....
The budget
conference is now one of six actively seeking compromise on
major legislation passed by the House and Senate this session,
the oldest of which has been trying to hash through a long-term
transportation borrowing bill for 124 days. The next oldest
conference committee is the one being led by Rep. Claire Cronin
and Sen. William Brownsberger, who are trying to negotiate a
major overhaul of policing that became a top priority on Beacon
Hill after the killing of George Floyd, only to lose some
political momentum as the weeks have turned into months.
The policing
conference committee has had the reform bills for 120 days.
The
Legislature in late July voted to suspend its rules and extend
its formal lawmaking sessions until early January 2021, in part
to deal with the budget and those bills in conference that had
yet to be resolved. But not much has changed since July 31,
which would have been the traditional end of the formal
legislative calendar. There are just 44 days remaining before
the last possible full day of formal sessions: Jan. 5, 2021.
Reporting on the stalled passage of the
five-months late state budget, in its Weekly Roundup on Friday the
State House News Service reported:
"Just how fast is
timely might be a matter of interpretation, but it won't be
before the calendar reads December, which means it's highly
likely Gov. Baker and the Legislature will have to consider
another fourth interim budget, even if only to cover spending
for a few weeks."
You've heard of "Trump Speed"?
That's come to mean getting difficult things done yesterday.
We're now looking at "Beacon Hill Speed." That translates into
getting anything done only when they can't be put off any longer,
and only then if a new excuse can't be fabricated.
Back in the CLT Update of
August 16 in my
commentary I wrote:
There's nothing
like a deadline to focus attention, and there's nothing like
extending a deadline to feed procrastination. Remember a
month ago when everything on Beacon Hill was about getting so
much accomplished before the July 31 recess deadline? Now
that they've agreed to ignore their own rule and remain in
session interminably the pressure is off the pols; it's back to
business-as-usual. Nothing has come out of any of the
numerous conference committees, and nothing likely will until
the next deadline, after they are safely re-elected.
Even with re-election assured, not
surprisingly the procrastination continues. It's much easier
to get a speedy unanimous passage of a major bill if no legislator
has the time to read it and the vote is called immediately with no
time for thought, debate, or dissent. Conference committee
reports allow for only an up or down vote, and six of those massive
bills are expected to come out in the month ahead. Don't
blink, folks.
How do these "conference committees"
function — or should that be dysfunction?
CommonWealth Magazine's editor Bruce
Mohl revealed just how it works in Massachusetts in his Tuesday
column, "The Legislature’s ‘black box’ committees":
After months and
even years of public debate, the fate of six key pieces of
legislation is now in the hands of just 29 lawmakers.
The lawmakers are
charged with resolving differences between House and Senate
bills dealing with the state budget, police reform, climate
change, economic development, health care, and transportation
bond funding; so-called conference committees on which these
lawmakers serve are “black boxes” whose inner workings are
unknown.
Rep. Denise Provost
of Somerville, who retires in January after 14 years in the
Legislature, said on the Codcast this week that many of her
constituents have been asking her about progress on bills in the
House-Senate conference committees. She said she has to explain
that she doesn’t know.
The bills are the
outgrowth of enormous public debate and negotiations over the
last two years. But now their final shape – or whether they even
emerge for an up-or-down vote in both branches – is being
decided by a handful of lawmakers working in private, out of the
public eye. The six what’s going on in those committees.
“The process is
very well sealed,” she said. “Maybe that’s necessary to an
extent for successful negotiations. Just as in diplomacy you
have Chatham House rules, you have the security of knowing you
can have wide ranging conversations that are not reported. But I
wonder, especially in the last few sessions when some bills have
ended up not coming out of conference at all after all that
work, whether our current conference process is a good one.”
Bills dealing with
police reform, transportation funding, health care, and economic
development went into conference committees in July. A climate
change conference committee was appointed in early August, and
budget conferees were named on Monday.
Ironically, the
budget, which is typically the biggest and most complex bill the
Legislature passes each year, is likely to emerge for a final
vote first because it’s five months late. The other bills have
been languishing for months in their conference committees,
leading to speculation that House and Senate negotiators are
having a hard time finding common ground. The final deadline for
action is a little over a month away, on January 5.
Frustrated with the
lack of action on police reform legislation, Boston Globe
columnist Joan Vennochi today called for opening the process up
for the public to see what’s holding things up. “Of course,
that’s a fantasy scenario; open, honest debate doesn’t happen
anymore on Beacon Hill on an issue,” she said.
The conference
committees all have three members from the House and three from
the Senate. Each branch supplies two Democrats and one
Republican. The Democrats tend to be key members of the House
and Senate power structures, while the Republicans, because of
their small numbers on Beacon Hill, have to plug the gaps as
best they can.
Of the 29 lawmakers
serving on the six conference committees, 19 are white men, six
are white women, and there are three men and one woman of color.
Eleven of the 40
senators fill the 18 Senate slots on the conference committees.
Sen. Michael Rodrigues of Westport, a Democrat and the chair of
the Senate Ways and Means Committee, serves on three, as does
Republican Sen. Patrick O’Connor of Weymouth. Sens. Cindy
Friedman, a Democrat from Arlington, and Dean Tran, a Republican
from Fitchburg, each serve on two.
In the 160-member
House, only Rep. Aaron Michlewitz of Boston, the chair of the
House Ways and Means Committee, serves on more than one
conference committee. He serves on the budget and economic
development committees.
Of the 200 highly-paid members of the
Massachusetts House and Senate only 29 on the six conference
committees have even a clue on what it being discussed in secret
behind closed doors, what will be offered for the 11th hour
up-or-down votes. Really, is this any way to run a
representative government — if any
still consider the Legislature such?
Some CLT members over the past year or
more have asked me to relay how politics in Kentucky are different
from Massachusetts. There's been so much happening in
Massachusetts that I've never got around to what is happening NOT
in Massachusetts. On Saturday CLT member Mike Z asked a
specific question, and this morning I replied to him before getting
back to this CLT Update. My explanation became so necessarily
comprehensive that, thinking of the others who've asked to learn
more about Kentucky politics, I decided it was a good opportunity to
include it in this CLT Update for those who've made the requests or
those who might be interested. You will find it at the bottom,
following the last news report: "Observations
from the Bluegrass State."
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Full News Reports Follow
(excerpted above) |
|
The New Boston
Post
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
Climate-Change Carbon Fee on Fuel in Massachusetts
May Be Headed for Shelf
By Matt McDonald
The drastic reduction in traffic and changes in the economy
during the coronavirus emergency have dampened enthusiasm
for a carbon fee on gasoline and diesel in Massachusetts –
including among residents and the state’s governor.
A new poll released by Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance – which
opposes the carbon fee – suggests that residents of the
state are cooling on the idea of a Transportation and
Climate Initiative carbon fee on fuel.
The poll found that about 56 percent of respondents said
they are either somewhat less likely or much less likely to
support the fuel fee when “knowing it will increase the cost
of fuel for blue collar and essential workers who are
largely unable to work from home.” The poll also found that
nearly 67 percent think Massachusetts Governor Charlie
Baker, who has supported the Transportation and Climate
Initiative in the past, should rethink his position.
The survey of 500 state residents was conducted late last
week by Advantage Inc. for Fiscal Alliance Foundation, and
claims a margin of error of 4.4 percent with a 95 percent
confidence level.
The proposed initiative is supposed to unit Northeast and
Mid-Atlantic states in charging a fee for fuel that would
generate revenue to make improvements to public
transportation, therefore providing a disincentive for
driving by increasing the cost of gasoline and an incentive
for taking public transportation by improving its service.
Supporters say it would reduce traffic on the roads and
carbon emissions, which they say leads to climate change.
Opponents question the urgency of the measure and reject the
means of achieving it.
Estimates of the likely cost of the carbon fee on fuel has
risen dramatically over the last year. In December 2019,
government officials projected an increased price of up to
17 cents a gallon on gasoline. A study in March 2020
(released by opponents of the proposal) found the price of
gasoline could go up 26 cents a gallon. A new study released
this month suggests the price might go up 38 cents a gallon.
Supporters of the carbon fee on fuel have questioned those
findings and have called for patience as policymakers work
out a potential cap on costs, saying the proposed initiative
is vital to combating climate change. Yet the cost
projections have some government leaders skittish about the
program.
Other governors in New England had been edging away from the
Transportation and Climate Initiative before coronavirus
hit, out of concerns about the cost increase of gasoline.
Baker had remained a supporter. Yet the governor suggested
recently that he is rethinking the idea. And he sounded
unenthusiastic about the Transportation and Climate
Initiative carbon fee on fuel when asked about it during a
coronavirus press conference Monday, November 23.
“TCI was based on a certain set of assumptions about volume,
right? And congestion. And it may be that at some point –
you know, I don’t know when that would be, down the road –
we’ll be back to where we were with respect to that. But I
think at this point in time it’s important to sort of
reexamine a lot of assumptions that went into what the
impact would be in terms of carbon reduction, based on the
changing nature of transportation generally,” Baker said.
“And I think that is an important element, not just for us
but for the other states that are participating in this
conversation. If you pursue a price on carbon associated
with transportation, what do you get for that price on
carbon, in a world that looks a lot different now — and
potentially will stay a lot different for the next several
years — relative to the one we thought we were living in a
year ago?”
The governor did not declare the initiative dead, but said a
formal declaration is expected soon.
“Our goal and our assumption is that by the end of the year,
people will make a decision,” Baker said.
Paul Diego Craney, an adviser to the Fiscal Alliance
Foundation’s board and a spokesman for the Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance, said his organization’s poll results
suggest the governor is on the right track.
“Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly support Governor
Baker’s recent rethinking of TCI during the COVID-19
pandemic. By a margin of nearly 2 of every 3 likely voters,
they strongly or somewhat agree with the Governor. The
Governor should feel confident that he has the support of
the people as he rethinks entering Massachusetts into the
TCI compact during the pandemic,” Craney said in a written
statement Monday, November 23. “A majority of likely voters
are strongly against TCI knowing it will impact ‘essential’
workers the most — people who cannot simply ‘Zoom’ into
work, but must continue to drive. Massachusetts voters
realize the world has changed since the pandemic and as a
result, a majority of voters show concerns with the TCI
program because of who it will impact the most — blue collar
workers, essential workers, and the poor.”
CommonWealth
Magazine
Monday, November 23, 2020
Baker vows TCI decision by end of year
Gov says underlying assumptions in flux due to COVID
By Bruce Mohl
Gov. Charlie Baker said the underlying assumptions about a
proposal to assess a price on the carbon contained in automobile
fuels are in flux, but he still intends to make a decision on
whether to push ahead with the high-profile regional initiative
by the end of the year.
At a State House press conference on Monday, Baker said the
emission reductions expected from the regional transportation
initiative were based on forecasts about traffic and congestion,
most of which no longer apply because of COVID-19. Baker said a
re-examination of those forecasts is warranted given the current
transportation reality.
“If you pursue a price on carbon associated with transportation,
what do you get for that price on carbon in a world that looks a
lot different now, and potentially will stay a lot different for
the next several years, relative to the one we thought we were
living in a couple years ago?” he said.
The so-called transportation climate initiative, or TCI, has
been a high priority of Baker’s, both as a way to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and to raise funds for investments in
transit. As envisioned, 12 northeast and mid-Atlantic states
plus the District of Columbia would set a cap on transportation
emissions within the region – a cap that would decline over
time. To sell gas and diesel fuel in the region, wholesale
distributors would have to purchase special allowances auctioned
off in amounts equal to the size of the cap. Most analysts
assume the cost of the special allowances will be incorporated
into the price of gasoline at the pump.
The proceeds of the auction sales would be funneled back to the
participating states for use in combatting climate change. Baker
in the past has said half of the money would go for transit,
specifically electric buses and trains. Baker’s push for TCI has
weakened support on Beacon Hill for raising taxes to support
transit.
The state’s new transportation reality during COVID was the
focus of several presentations on Monday before the
Massachusetts Department of Transportation board and the MBTA’s
Fiscal and Management Control Board.
Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said statewide
traffic volumes, which had been slowly rebounding from the start
of COVID in March, have trended downward over the past few
weeks. She said all of the state’s highway districts are now
below 2019 levels.
The Baker administration released a congestion report in August
2019 that said the state was at a tipping point, where small
problems such as crashes or bad weather could quickly mushroom
into major traffic tie-ups. Staff members on Monday provided an
update on their efforts to deal with congestion, but a lot of
the urgency is missing now because traffic volumes are way down.
From October 12 to October 18, the staffers said, daily traffic
volumes statewide were down 9 to 21 percent depending on the
day. They also said vehicle miles traveled on weekends were
higher than vehicle miles traveled on weekdays.
Similarly, transit ridership is trending downward. Pollack said
the number of subway passengers fell from an average of 140,000
a day in September and October to 120,000 in November. She said
bus passenger levels also declined, dropping from 180,000 in
September and October to 160,000 in November.
Those declining transit numbers are creating more headaches for
the T as it tries to save money during the current fiscal year
to offset a projected $584 million deficit looming in fiscal
2022, which begins July 1. The T is taking a number of steps to
close the size of the deficit, including a series of service
cuts that would begin taking effect next year.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Carbon tax backers didn’t fare well in election
Could the political defeats explain Baker’s hesitancy on TCI?
By Paul D. Craney
One of the most overlooked stories on Election Day was the
defeat of pro-carbon tax politicians across the nation and here
in New England.
The most notable carbon tax proponent to seek office in New
England was Sara Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House who was
challenging moderate incumbent Republican US Sen. Susan Collins.
As speaker, Gideon in 2019 supported the imposition of a carbon
tax that’s end effect on fuel prices bore a striking similarity
to the Transportation and Climate Initiative, or TCI, a regional
effort to place a price on the carbon in vehicle fuels. The
carbon tax proposal went nowhere in Maine and Gideon did not
embrace it during her run for US Senate.
Collins, however, continually highlighted Gideon’s previous
support for the carbon tax proposal with TV and digital ads
describing it as a 40 cent-per-gallon gas tax, which would add
an “extra $10 for every fill up.” The ads closed by saying
“higher fuel taxes hurt Maine workers, our farmers, and our
families.” While most pundits felt Gideon was favored to
prevail, Collins beat her 51-42, winning 14 of the 16 counties
in Maine.
In Vermont, Republican challenger Mike Morgan defeated House
speaker Mitzi Johnson and his uncle, Leland Morgan, won the
district’s other seat. The Morgans made carbon taxes, including
TCI, the signature issue of their campaign.
In another district, Republican challenger Sally Achey knocked
out Robin Chesnut-Tangerman. First elected in 2014, Chestnut-Tangerman
had been a strong progressive voice and chaired the House
Progressive Caucus. TCI was a central issue in the campaign. A
third victory came when Art Peterson, a Republican challenger,
knocked out 14-year Democrat incumbent Dave Potter. Tom Bruditt,
a Republican incumbent in the same district, won re-election.
Peterson and Bruditt both ran ads in their local papers against
TCI.
Perhaps Vermont’s most notable carbon tax candidate to lose was
Lt. Governor David Zuckerman. Zuckerman is a long-hair organic
farmer, who once worked for Bernie Sanders and supported a
carbon tax. He lost to Republican Gov. Phil Scot, who opposes
carbon taxes and carbon-pricing schemes like TCI. Carbon taxes
even proved to be a drag in Vermont’s Democratic primary for
lieutenant governor, as Senate President Tim Ashe, the lead
proponent for TCI in the legislature, lost. Several of Vermont’s
biggest TCI’s supporters were defeated on election night.
One of the biggest political shifts within the TCI boundary came
in New Hampshire. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu won his
reelection with 65 percent of the vote and the GOP flipped both
legislative chambers from Democrat to Republican. New Hampshire
Republicans saw an increase of 60 legislative seats. Before the
election, Democrats proposed legislation that would undercut
Gov. Sununu’s withdrawal from TCI. No other state within the TCI
compact had a governor so forcefully reject TCI and no other
state saw such significant political changes as New Hampshire.
Sununu deserves a lot of credit for seeing the policy as flawed
and reading his voters so well on the issue.
The last stop in New England was in Massachusetts. Before the
election, Gov. Charlie Baker was seen as the biggest proponent
of TCI. Since the election, Baker’s tune has shifted, saying
COVID-19 has altered many of the assumptions underlying TCI. In
the Massachusetts Legislature, one of the biggest critics of TCI
is Republican state Rep. David DeCoste of Norwell. DeCoste is
the primary sponsor of a bi-partisan bill that would force the
governor to seek legislative approval before entering the state
into TCI. He faced an opponent who self-financed his race, while
special interest groups spent thousands of dollars to defeat
him. DeCoste won reelection in a deep blue state.
In Pennsylvania, which is one of the few if only states within
the proposed TCI region that produces energy, the Democratic
minority leader lost to a Republican challenger. Frank Dermody,
a Democrat who held office for 30 years, lost to Republican
challenger Carrie delRosso by a vote of 49-51. The number one
issue in Pennsylvania was energy, and it didn’t help Dermody
that House Democrats were seen as against an effort in the
legislature to reign in the governor’s authority to enter into a
similar TCI carbon tax scheme called the Regional Greenhouse Gas
Initiative.
Twelve states, including all of New England, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and the
District of Columbia, are considering joining TCI. Last
December, when TCI released its first and only memo of
understanding, New Hampshire withdrew, leaving just 11 states
and DC. The losses of such high-profile carbon tax proponents in
Vermont, Maine, and Pennsylvania are sure to give those states
even further pause before continuing to consider joining TCI in
the midst of a pandemic.
Perhaps some left-wing political insiders were right to question
the merits of TCI early on. In Vermont, some of the state’s
largest union bosses came out against TCI due to its regressive
nature and elitist goals. October saw left-wing environmental
groups in New Jersey announce their opposition to TCI, with a
director of the Climate Justice Alliance noting that, “TCI is
just taxing poor people so we can subsidize rich people’s
electric cars.”
While it’s unlikely TCI will have enough defectors in the
professional environmental lobby, it certainly lost some
credibility among the voters this past November. Polls
consistently show the environment is a concern shared by many,
but voters can support the environment and be against TCI and
carbon taxes, as we saw voters consistently demonstrate this
past November. While TCI breathes its last breaths, it’s more
obvious than ever that these taxes are bad policy and worse
politics.
— Paul Diego Craney is the
spokesperson and board member of Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance,
and an opponent of the Transportation Climate Initiative.
State House News
Service
Monday, November 23, 2020
SHNS Conference Committee Scorecard
New Budget Means Six Bills in Conference With 44 Days to Go
By Matt Murphy and Sam Doran
The annual state budget, now nearly five months late, was put in
the hands of a six-member conference committee on Monday with
the Legislature looking to avoid the type of protracted
negotiations between the branches that are holding up final
agreements on other key bills.
Of course, this year the budget is late by design.
House and Senate leaders in March halted the traditional budget
process that aims most years to lead to the production of a
final budget on or around July 1, choosing instead to wait and
watch as the COVID-19 pandemic upended the economy and sowed
uncertainty throughout the state's finances. After the election,
however, the branches released and passed similar versions of a
$46 billion budget in the span of just three weeks.
The conference committee that will now negotiate a compromise
fiscal year 2021 budget to be presented to Gov. Charlie Baker
includes predictable figures, led by House Ways and Means
Chairman Aaron Michlewitz and Senate Ways and Means Chairman
Michael Rodrigues. Michlewitz will be joined at the table by
House Ways and Means Vice Chairwoman Denise Garlick, and the
committee's ranking Republican Rep. Todd Smola, and on the
Senate side, Ways and Means Vice Chairwoman Cindy Friedman and
ranking Republican Patrick O'Connor round out the committee.
The budget conference is now one of six actively seeking
compromise on major legislation passed by the House and Senate
this session, the oldest of which has been trying to hash
through a long-term transportation borrowing bill for 124 days.
The next oldest conference committee is the one being led by
Rep. Claire Cronin and Sen. William Brownsberger, who are trying
to negotiate a major overhaul of policing that became a top
priority on Beacon Hill after the killing of George Floyd, only
to lose some political momentum as the weeks have turned into
months.
The policing conference committee has had the reform bills for
120 days.
The Legislature in late July voted to suspend its rules and
extend its formal lawmaking sessions until early January 2021,
in part to deal with the budget and those bills in conference
that had yet to be resolved. But not much has changed since July
31, which would have been the traditional end of the formal
legislative calendar. There are just 44 days remaining before
the last possible full day of formal sessions: Jan. 5, 2021.
Rodrigues and O'Connor now each sit on three of the conference
committees, which have each opted to work only in private.
Rodrigues and O'Connor were appointed in July, along with
Michlewitz and three other lawmakers, to finalize a jobs and
economic stimulus bill. Rodrigues also serves on the
transportation spending conference, and O'Connor is on the
negotiating team for climate change legislation.
Friedman sits on two conference panels, leading the Senate's
conferees on a telehealth expansion bill.
Here's the full lineup:
FISCAL 2021 GENERAL BUDGET
Bills: H 5151 and S 2955
House Vote: Nov. 12, 143-14
Senate Vote: Nov. 18, 40-0
House Conferees: Aaron Michlewitz, Denise Garlick, Todd Smola
Senate Conferees: Michael Rodrigues, Cindy Friedman, Patrick
O'Connor
Date Sent to Conference: Nov. 23, 2020
Days in Conference: 1
CLIMATE CHANGE
Bills: S 2500 and H 4933
House Vote: July 31, 142-17
Senate Vote: Jan. 30, 36-2
House Conferees: Thomas Golden, Patricia Haddad, Brad Jones
Senate Conferees: Michael Barrett, Cindy Creem, Patrick O'Connor
Date Sent to Conference: Aug. 6, 2020
Days in Conference: 110
HEALTH CARE
Bills: S 2796 and H 4916
House Vote: July 29, 158-0
Senate Vote: June 25, 38-0
House Conferees: Ron Mariano, John Mahoney, Randy Hunt
Senate Conferees: Cindy Friedman, Julian Cyr, Dean Tran
Date Sent to Conference: July 31, 2020
Days in Conference: 116
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Bills: S 2874 and H 4887
House Vote: July 28, 156-3
Senate Vote: June 29, 40-0
House Conferees: Aaron Michlewitz, Ann-Margaret Ferrante, Donald
Wong
Senate Conferees: Eric Lesser, Michael Rodrigues, Patrick
O'Connor
Date Sent to Conference: July 30, 2020
Days in Conference: 117
POLICING REFORM
Bills: S 2820 and H 4886
House Vote: July 24, 93-66
Senate Vote: July 14, 30-7
House Conferees: Claire Cronin, Carlos Gonzalez, Tim Whelan
Senate Conferees: Will Brownsberger, Sonia Chang-Diaz, Bruce
Tarr
Date Sent to Conference: July 27, 2020
Days in Conference: 120
TRANSPORTATION BOND
Bills: H 4547 and S 2836
House Vote: March 5, 150-1
Senate Vote: July 16, 36-4
House Conferees: William Straus, Mark Cusack, Norman Orrall
Senate Conferees: Joseph Boncore, Michael Rodrigues, Dean Tran
Date Sent to Conference: July 23, 2020
Days in Conference: 124
CommonWealth
Magazine
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
The Legislature’s ‘black box’ committees
By Bruce Mohl – CommonWealth editor
After months and even years of public debate, the fate of six
key pieces of legislation is now in the hands of just 29
lawmakers.
The lawmakers are charged with resolving differences between
House and Senate bills dealing with the state budget, police
reform, climate change, economic development, health care, and
transportation bond funding; so-called conference committees on
which these lawmakers serve are “black boxes” whose inner
workings are unknown.
Rep. Denise Provost of Somerville, who retires in January after
14 years in the Legislature, said on the Codcast this week that
many of her constituents have been asking her about progress on
bills in the House-Senate conference committees. She said she
has to explain that she doesn’t know.
The bills are the outgrowth of enormous public debate and
negotiations over the last two years. But now their final shape
– or whether they even emerge for an up-or-down vote in both
branches – is being decided by a handful of lawmakers working in
private, out of the public eye. The six what’s going on in those
committees.
“The process is very well sealed,” she said. “Maybe that’s
necessary to an extent for successful negotiations. Just as in
diplomacy you have Chatham House rules, you have the security of
knowing you can have wide ranging conversations that are not
reported. But I wonder, especially in the last few sessions when
some bills have ended up not coming out of conference at all
after all that work, whether our current conference process is a
good one.”
Bills dealing with police reform, transportation funding, health
care, and economic development went into conference committees
in July. A climate change conference committee was appointed in
early August, and budget conferees were named on Monday.
Ironically, the budget, which is typically the biggest and most
complex bill the Legislature passes each year, is likely to
emerge for a final vote first because it’s five months late. The
other bills have been languishing for months in their conference
committees, leading to speculation that House and Senate
negotiators are having a hard time finding common ground. The
final deadline for action is a little over a month away, on
January 5.
Frustrated with the lack of action on police reform legislation,
Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi today called for opening
the process up for the public to see what’s holding things up.
“Of course, that’s a fantasy scenario; open, honest debate
doesn’t happen anymore on Beacon Hill on an issue,” she said.
The conference committees all have three members from the House
and three from the Senate. Each branch supplies two Democrats
and one Republican. The Democrats tend to be key members of the
House and Senate power structures, while the Republicans,
because of their small numbers on Beacon Hill, have to plug the
gaps as best they can.
Of the 29 lawmakers serving on the six conference committees, 19
are white men, six are white women, and there are three men and
one woman of color.
Eleven of the 40 senators fill the 18 Senate slots on the
conference committees. Sen. Michael Rodrigues of Westport, a
Democrat and the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee,
serves on three, as does Republican Sen. Patrick O’Connor of
Weymouth. Sens. Cindy Friedman, a Democrat from Arlington, and
Dean Tran, a Republican from Fitchburg, each serve on two.
In the 160-member House, only Rep. Aaron Michlewitz of Boston,
the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, serves on more
than one conference committee. He serves on the budget and
economic development committees.
State House News
Service
Friday, November 27, 2020
Weekly Roundup - Sitting Tight
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
If there was a consistent message heard in Massachusetts this
Thanksgiving week, it was this: Everybody stay right where you
are. That went double for Elizabeth Warren.
Warren had her eyes set on becoming the first woman to lead the
Treasury as secretary in a new Biden administration, but that
history-making appointment will go instead to former Federal
Reserve chair Janet Yellen.
Biden's plan to nominate Yellen was one of several senior level
Cabinet appointments that trickled out of the transition team
ahead of the holiday, which Biden usually spends on Nantucket.
The president-elect, in his first post-election interview with
NBC News anchor Lester Holt, didn't completely slam the door on
tapping a progressive like Warren to join his administration in
a different role, but suggested he sees her as potentially too
valuable where she is.
"I have a very ambitious, very progressive agenda and it's going
to take really strong leaders in the House and Senate to get it
done," Biden said.
Taking a former Massachusetts senator with him to Washington
posed no such complications, however. Biden is giving former
Secretary of State John Kerry a newly created seat on the
National Security Council as special presidential envoy for
climate as he prepares to rejoin the Paris Agreement that Kerry
negotiated as a member of the Obama administration.
Kerry might be packing his bags, but Gov. Charlie Baker, and
just about everyone else in the state in a position of power,
continued to beat the stay-at-home drum. The governor reminds
people about not letting down their guard about as often as he
says schools are safe, which is often.
But the parents of about 37,000 children might disagree. That's
the number of students the state had seen drop off the rolls of
public schools over the past year, which is way more than the
average churn. Half of the enrollment decline, officials said,
is in kindergarten and pre-K, which could be families holding
their little one back an extra year.
The Baker family celebrated Thanksgiving with "immediate
family," while the governor urged everyone to keep it in the
household. That's how Public Health Commission Monica Bharel,
who beat COVID-19 earlier in the pandemic, approached
Thanksgiving with her family.
"There is still time and space for people to reconsider their
plans and think about the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving,
given that we are in this second surge," Bharel said Monday.
Nobody will know for sure for a couple of weeks whether the
public listened, or was able to pull off a turkey celebration
without spreading the coronavirus to friends and relatives. But
the pleading for continued sacrifice isn't going away just
because the holiday is over.
Christmas, after all, is just several weeks away.
The governor launched a new public awareness campaign this week
branded "Get Back Mass." The ads are slated to run through
February, and are meant to remind people that if they just
hunker down this winter the joys of live baseball at Fenway,
family birthday parties and fireworks on the Esplanade are not
far out of reach.
At least three promising vaccine candidates could be available
in late 2020 or early 2021, with at-risk populations and first
responders likely to be among the first allowed to get in line
for the shot.
By next summer, the general public? Maybe? Gov. Baker thinks
it's possible.
"I don't want to put numbers out there yet because those are
still being discussed," he said. "But I think the idea is to
have a fairly significant amount of vaccines start to be
available sometime early in 2021, with that amount growing sort
of over the course of the first five or six months of the
calendar year."
To bridge that gap, Bain executive and Celtics co-owner Steve
Pagliuca says much more testing is needed, even in a
top-per-capita testing state like Massachusetts. Pagliuca has
been working on behalf of the Massachusetts High Technology
Council to develop a framework for economic recovery that has
revolved heavily around testing.
And no one would be happier to see more testing in
Massachusetts, especially free testing, than Sen. Julian Cyr and
his colleagues on Cape Cod who worry that as the virus begins to
spread again on the Cape the region lacks the testing resources
available in other parts of the state to identify pockets of
COVID-19 and intervene.
Cyr, on the weekly Cape Cod Reopening Task Force conference
call, said Barnstable County is a "testing desert" compared with
the rest of the state, and the Cape delegation's pleas for a
free "Stop the Spread" site on the other side of the Cape Cod
Canal have gone unanswered by the administration in Boston.
"Help is needed and this is that cry for help," said Sean
O'Brien, director of the Barnstable County Department of Health
and the Environment.
By the time vaccines start arriving, legislative leaders are
hoping to have the fiscal year 2021 budget process well in their
rearview mirror and be progressing through the development of a
fiscal year 2022 budget, expected to be equally, if not more,
challenging.
The state budget got placed before a six-member conference
committee this week led by the two chairmen of the Ways and
Means committees, Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Michael
Rodrigues. The conference committee met virtually on Monday
afternoon for the first time, and moved into executive session
as they push for a quick resolution to negotiations on the $46
billion budget.
"In the days ahead, we look forward to working closely together
in order to reach a timely resolution," Michlewitz and Rodrigues
said.
Just how fast is timely might be a matter of interpretation, but
it won't be before the calendar reads December, which means it's
highly likely Gov. Baker and the Legislature will have to
consider another fourth interim budget, even if only to cover
spending for a few weeks.
Most people watching the budget process are aware that leaders
of the two branches forswore major changes to the tax code to
generate new revenue during the crisis, but one issue that could
hit the pocketbooks of thousands of residents, many of them
sick, largely flew under the radar until this week.
The House budget tries to address the looming expiration of a
2012 law that allows Massachusetts citizens to use manufacturer
drug coupons to lower the cost of their prescription
medications, by extending the law until 2023.
The Senate, however, left the measure out of its proposal, and
that must now get resolved. The Senate also put language in its
budget asking the MBTA to revisit service reductions if new
federal stimulus becomes available, but for now the financial
picture at the transit agency may be worsening, not getting
better.
October fare revenues missed MBTA targets by $1.7 million as
ridership on the subway and buses is plateauing on some lines,
and tapering off on others.
STORY OF THE WEEK: After cramming for weeks for the big
Thanksgiving test, now the state waits to see if it passed.
State House News
Service
Friday, November 27, 2020
Advances - Week of Nov. 29, 2020
The Legislature next week can either pass a fourth interim
budget or a full-year fiscal 2021 budget, but must make a move
of some sort since the last temporary budget signed by Gov.
Charlie Baker was designed to run only through November, which
ends on Monday.
The House and Senate broke for the Thanksgiving holiday on
Wednesday, with plans to return for a session on this month's
final day. Gov. Charlie Baker wanted a full-year budget on his
desk by Thanksgiving and by not filing an interim budget he may
be applying pressure on Democrats to finally end the 2020 budget
saga. However, while the governor in late October told lawmakers
that the current interim budget was needed "to maintain
necessary services through the end of November," his office told
the News Service Friday that the current spending authorization
is actually sufficient to cover "several days into the month of
December."
In their first three interim budgets, the governor and
Legislature appropriated more than $27 billion to cover the
first five months of the fiscal year. Baker proposed a $45.5
billion fiscal 2021 budget and the full-year budget that's being
worked out by a six-member legislative conference committee
calls for about $46 billion in spending, drawing heavily from
state reserves and one-time federal revenues.
The week ahead will also bring news on whether state tax
revenues will stay above fiscal 2020 levels for the fifth
straight month of fiscal 2021, or whether the budgeted 6 percent
slide in collections will begin. Massachusetts is one of the
last states in the country without an approved annual budget,
and the current budget talks are poised to flow straight into
fiscal 2022 deliberations, which could launch in December with
the annual public hearing on revenue forecasts.
Economic growth is stalling after a strong surge and with
pandemic era safety net programs expiring, the nation is looking
to minimize the damage from COVID-19's second surge and enter
2021 with optimism. The new year will bring a new Congress and
president and, perhaps more importantly, vaccines that could
finally bring an end to the public health crisis and state of
emergency that started in March.
President Donald Trump continues to dispute election results,
but as Joe Biden prepares to serve as the next president Trump
said Thursday that he will leave office if the Electoral College
votes for Biden in December. "Certainly I will, and you know
that," Trump said. Without getting into his legal team's
unsuccessful efforts to prove alleged election fraud, he
continued to forecast "shocking" election developments soon, but
also referred to "the Biden administration," which now has
access to federal agencies for transition purposes. "There will
be a lot of things happening between now and the 20th of
January," Trump said. In addition to the three vaccine
breakthroughs already announced, Trump said additional COVID-19
vaccine makers are "coming up soon also."
... As the state budget vigil continues, not to mention the much
longer vigils over other major bills stuck in
Democrat-controlled conference committees, cannabis regulators
are set to vote next week on historic home delivery regulations
... The Governor's Council is ready to vet Gov. Charlie Baker's
nomination of Judge Serge Georges to serve on the Supreme
Judicial Court. If confirmed, Georges would turn the SJC into
Baker's Court, since the Republican governor will have appointed
all seven justices, a rare accomplishment ... And Trump is
planning soon to visit Georgia, where leaders of both parties
are channeling human and financial resources. The outcome of two
U.S. Senate runoffs in that state will determine which party
controls that branch.
Observations from The Bluegrass State
CLT member Mike Z wrote to me: "I
thought your [new] state didn’t interfere with people?
Your governor is limiting get-togethers to 8 people??"
This morning I
replied:
There’s a state constitutional crisis going on now in
Kentucky. First you need to understand the Commonwealth of
Kentucky’s constitution (its fourth, by the way – 1792,
1799, 1850, and 1891 – since it broke away from Virginia and
became the fifteenth state of the Union in 1792). Here’s a
little requisite history you need to know to understand this
situation, and the current makeup of statewide
constitutional officers and legislators:
Kentucky entered the Union in June 1792, the second state to
join after the original 13 colonies, one day after New
Hampshire. A border state, Kentucky remained in the Union
during the Civil War, yet joined most other southern states
in voting almost exclusively Democratic from that era
through World War II. Since the 1950s, Kentucky has been
reliably Republican, although its voters have been willing
to vote Democratic when a southern governor has run – the
state voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and for Bill Clinton in
both 1992 and 1996. In 2016, Donald Trump defeated Hillary
Clinton 63% to 33%. In
2020 Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden 62% to 36%.
Kentucky has six U.S. House of Representatives seats, five
held by Republicans, one by a Democrat —
the only Democrat member of the state's congressional
delegation. Both U.S. Senators are Republican.
Kentucky's U.S. Congressional Delegation
U.S. Senators:
Mitch McConnell
(R)
Rand Paul
(R)
U.S. Representatives:
CD1 - James Comer
(R)
CD2 - Brett Guthrie
(R)
CD3 - John Yarmuth
(D)
CD4 - Thomas Massie
(R)
CD5 - Harold "Hal" Rogers
(R)
CD6 - Garland "Andy" Barr
(R)
State Constitutional Officers
2020-2024
Governor: Andy Beshear
(D)
Lt. Governor: Jacqueline Coleman
(D)
Attorney General: Daniel Cameron
(R)
Treasurer: Allison Ball
(R)
Secretary of State: Michael Adams
(R)
Auditor: Mike Harmon
(R)
Commissioner of Agriculture: Dr. Ryan F. Quarles
(R)
General Assembly (State Legislature)
After the 2020 election:
(State Senators serve staggered four-year terms, half up
for election every two years.)
Composition of the Kentucky Senate (2021-2022)
Republican Party
30
Democratic Party
8
Composition of the Kentucky House of Representatives
(2021-2022)
Republican Party
75
Democratic Party
25
The Kentucky legislature [General Assembly] convenes in
regular session on the first Tuesday after the first Monday
in January for 60 days in even-numbered years (long session)
and for 30 days in odd-numbered years (short session).
It convenes in special
sessions at the call of the governor. The
Kentucky Constitution mandates that a regular session be
completed no later than April 15 in even-numbered years and
March 30 in odd-numbered years.
Legislators are paid only for the days during which the
General Assembly is actually in session.
Base Salary: $188.22/day
Session Per Diem Rate: $154/day
http://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/2017-legislator-compensation-information.aspx
(Kentucky voters also elect judges and justices of the state
supreme court.)
The legislature prorogued sine die (shut down for the
year permanently) this year on March 27, in a “long-session”
budget year. (Kentucky has a two-year budget, so its
legislature doesn’t need to be in eternal budget-writing
mode as in Massachusetts.)
Once the General Court (legislature) on March 27 prorogued
for this year (as required by the state constitution), it is
prohibited from coming back into session on its own – the
only way it can return for a "special session" is “at the
call of the governor.”
The current governor is a lefty Democrat, Andy Beshear –
formerly the state attorney general and the son of former
two-term governor Steve Beshear. He defeated Republican
Gov. Matt Bevin (who succeeded Andy's father) by some 5,000
votes in 2019. Many Kentuckians now call him “Emperor Andy
of Kentucky.” Gov. Beshear has refused to call the General
Assembly into special session, or even consider consulting
with its leadership. He very much likes it this way.
State reps and senators, with a Republican supermajority,
have been neutered for now by the state constitution.
I never thought I’d say this but — this is the
downside of a part-time legislature and limited sessions!
Nobody ever anticipated a pandemic, a unilaterally declared
“state of emergency” that stretches on interminably. It had
never happened, until now. The “fulltime” Massachusetts
Legislature, in session in perpetuity, theoretically
could stop Charlie – but as usual has chosen to do
nothing but go along and let him take any heat for what
they'd do anyway.
That is about to change here, the first order of business
when the General Court reconvenes in January, their first
chance to act on anything since the end of March:
https://eu.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/20/bill-curb-beshears-covid-19-powers-could-pass-first-week-2021/6356197002/
Louisville, Kentucky
November 20, 2020
Osborne: Bill to curb Beshear's COVID-19 powers
could pass in first week of 2021 session
By Joe Sonka
Kentucky House
Speaker David Osborne indicated Friday it is possible
a bill amending the governor's emergency COVID-19 powers
could pass in the first week of the upcoming legislative
session, which begins Jan. 5.
Osborne made the
comments at a press conference Friday at the
Capitol where he and other House majority
leaders outlined their priorities for the session, where
Republicans will have a dominant 75-25 supermajority.
Along with passing a
one-year budget, the Republican legislators identified
one of those top priorities as passing legislation
to amend KRS Chapter 39A — the statute used by Gov. Andy
Beshear to pass numerous executive orders to address
COVID-19 through his emergency powers.
The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled last week Beshear
did have the authority to enact COVID-19 restrictions
using his emergency powers under this statute, which the
governor
used again on Wednesday to close most K-12 schools
to in-person classes through the end of the year and
restrict certain gatherings for the next three weeks.
Noting that
Republicans have prefiled multiple bills to scale back
the governor's emergency powers since this summer,
Osborne said four months ago they "put together a
working group that would try to find consensus among
those bills."
Osborne said such a
bill could make it through both chambers in the first
week of the 2021 legislative session, should Republicans
find agreement on one bill.
"We will pass that
when it's ready, and if that is the first week, then
that will be the first week," Osborne said. "If it's not
ready the first week, it won't be."
The current Kentucky
General Assembly schedule calls for the first part of
the 2021 short session to last from Tuesday to Friday in
the first week of January, then take a break until the
first Tuesday of February and end March 30.
While a bill cannot pass through
both chambers in just four days, the legislature could
add the following Saturday in January in order to pass
bills that first week, which happened as recently as the
2017 session.
If the General
Assembly does pass a law restricting Beshear's executive
power in the first week of the session, Beshear would
have to veto it within 10 days or it would become law.
However, if Beshear
does veto such a bill, the legislature could immediately
override the veto once they are back in session in
February.
If such legislation
has an emergency clause, it would go into effect
immediately after it becomes law. Otherwise, it wouldn't
go into effect until the summer.
Osborne said the
purpose of the working group is "looking at building the
best long-term policy that will affect this governor,
the next governor, hopefully the next 20 governors. Our
goal is to pass good long-term policy that will stand
the test of time."
The speaker said the
legislature when initially passing the emergency powers
statute likely had short-term crises in mind, not
envisioning a pandemic that could give a governor such
broad powers over the span of eight months.
"These emergency
powers ... were contemplated to consider natural
disasters, terrorist attacks, things that would be
limited in either geographic area or a limited time,"
Osborne said. "I think now we see there is a need to
consider the long-term implications to provide some
clarity." Five bills and one proposed constitutional
amendment have been prefiled to limit the governor's
emergency powers under the statute, with the first one
filed in July by Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, now
up to eight co-sponsors.
The bills would
limit the duration in which Beshear's orders under the
statute would last — ranging from 15 to 30 days — and
call for their expiration unless the legislature
gives its approval, even if that means calling a special
session to do so.
Laura Lee Goins, the
spokeswoman for GOP House leadership, told The Courier
Journal the working group is "an informal group of
legislators" that includes "those who have prefiled
bills on the topic and other folks."
Kentucky Democratic
Party spokeswoman Marisa McNee issued a statement
criticizing the Republican House leadership for
complaining about Beshear's orders without detailing a
plan of their own to combat COVID-19.
"Their press
conference this morning is just one more low point in
their pathetic grab for power," McNee stated. "Rather
than come up with solutions for the past nine months,
too many Kentucky Republican leaders have spread
misinformation, engaged in petty partisan politics, and
pushed their own selfish agendas. Kentuckians deserve
leaders, like Governor Beshear, who are going to step up
and do the hard work to keep us all safe."
In his press
conference Thursday, Beshear also countered Republican
critics by
saying they had no plan of their own to protect
Kentuckians from the pandemic and "would choose
surrender," leading to the loss of more lives.
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