 |
Post Office Box 1147
▪
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
▪ (781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
48 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
|
CLT UPDATE
Monday, February 7, 2022
Stunning
Over-Taxation Marches On
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
|
Most Relevant News
Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
|
|
As Gov.
Charlie Baker embarks on a push for tax relief
proposals, the Department of Revenue
reported
Thursday that it collected $4.026 billion in state
tax revenue from people and businesses last month, a
haul that surpassed expectations by $856 million or
27 percent and has helped to put the state nearly
$1.5 billion ahead of its end-of-fiscal-year
target....
"January
2022 revenue collections increased in most major tax
types, in comparison to January 2021 collections,
including withholding, non-withholding, sales and
use tax, and corporate and business tax," Revenue
Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder said....
In the
first seven months of fiscal year 2022, DOR has so
far collected approximately $21.872 billion --
$4.219 billion or about 24 percent more than actual
collections during the same period of fiscal 2021
and $1.45 billion or about 7 percent more than the
department's year-to-date benchmark....
"We ended
last year with a surplus and tax collections
continue to exceed projections in a big way. It's
time to enact tax breaks for families, seniors and
more," Baker tweeted Thursday just after DOR
reported on January revenues. In his fiscal 2023
budget plan, the governor proposed tax breaks for
renters, seniors, parents and low-income workers, a
cut to the tax rate on short-term capital gains, and
two changes to the estate tax.
State
House News Service
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Tax Receipts Already Running
$1.5 Bil Above Revised Estimate
After
state tax revenues came in wildly above projections
last month, Gov. Charlie Baker took to Twitter to
tout his plan to slash taxes for a broad swath of
Bay Staters.
“We ended
last year with a surplus and tax collections
continue to exceed projections in a big way,” Baker
tweeted Thursday evening. “It’s time to enact tax
breaks for families, seniors and more. Last week I
proposed doing just that.”
As the
Herald previously reported, Baker has proposed
almost $700 million in tax breaks as part of his
last budget as governor, including doubling the
maximum Senior Circuit Breaker Credit to lower the
tax burden for many low-income senior homeowners,
increasing the rental deduction cap for renters, and
giving other breaks to parents, low-income
households and those filing estate taxes.
The
Boston Herald
Saturday, February 5, 2022
Charlie Baker pushes tax
cuts
as January tax revenues soar above projections
It’s tax
season, and in news perhaps unsurprising to Bay
State taxpayers, couples living here have to shell
out the highest percentage of their income on taxes.
“The
biggest takeaway for me was just how vast the spread
can be across the country,” said Josh Koebert, who
authored the study on
FinanceBuzz.com, in an email.
He noted
that the difference between states like Florida and
Massachusetts was 50%. “That is a huge difference,”
he said, “50% more paid in taxes annually, almost
all of which comes down to state-level income tax
laws.”
The study
compared the median income for full-time workers in
each state, derived from the U.S. Census Bureau,
against the federal and state tax rates for the 2021
tax year.
Massachusetts took the top spot for couples filing
jointly, with couples paying 23.51% of their income
in taxes. Close behind is Oregon, at 23.24%, Hawaii,
at 23.05%, and Connecticut, at 22.99%. The lowest
rate was in Tennessee, with taxpaying couples owing
just 15.54% of their income to taxes.
For single
filers, Massachusetts earned the number two spot, at
23.23%. Oregon edged out Massachusetts at 23.37% to
take the top spot. Connecticut and Hawaii fell not
far behind, and Florida singles took the bottom
spot, with 15.52% of their median income owed to
taxes....
Paul Diego
Craney, of the conservative Mass. Fiscal Alliance,
reminded the Herald that state lawmakers are
proposing a ballot measure that would raise the
income tax on the wealthiest earners, as well as
some businesses.
“The
public needs to realize that when they send part of
their paycheck to the legislators at the Statehouse
to spend, they are already the most generous in the
country and yet lawmakers still want more,” he said.
The
Boston Herald
Wednesday, February 3, 2022
Massachusetts couples
pay the highest percentage of income in taxes
in the country, report says
Are you
having a hard time making ends meet in this
inflationary Biden malaise?
Could you
use an extra $70,530 a year — for a “job” where you
never, ever have to show up, where the actual place
where you would theoretically “work” hasn’t even
been open to the public for two years now?
And that
$70,530 a year — that’s minimum wage for a state
legislator, you understand. They’re all also
grabbing at least $16,245 for “travel expenses,”
even though they’re not traveling to Boston anymore.
And most
of them have also been handed even more money for
some phony-baloney so-called leadership position,
running committees that just rubber-stamp what
they’re ordered to do.
Did I
mention that if a legislator lives more than 50
miles from the State House, he or she can write off
most of their federal income taxes, just like almost
all members of Congress do?
And then
there’s the campaign committee you can set up, which
allows you to write off almost all your expenses.
You can even buy gift cards for your constituents,
who might very well happen to be your parents … or
your girlfriend. You can charge all your bar tabs –
just ask Rep. Mark Cusack, D-Braintree.
If you
could use a little – actually, a lot of — free
money, no strings attached, perhaps you should
consider running for the Massachusetts state
Legislature. It’s the easiest gig this side of being
an illegal immigrant....
The solons
used to get reimbursed for every day they drove to
work, on a scale — $5 if you lived around the
corner, $50 if you were from, say, Berkshire County.
It went up and up and up … but these “per diems”
were always embarrassing, because the statesmen had
to file paperwork with the treasurer for their
dough. And reporters could check up....
So the
hacks got rid of the per diems and just gave
everybody a set amount per year — $15,000 if you
lived within 50 miles, or $20,000 if you lived more
than 50 miles away....
And behind
the money comes the pension. Billy Bulger has been
grabbing a kiss in the mail of what is now $272,719
a year since 2003. David Bartley, who last won an
election in 1974, has been pocketing $157,666 since
2004.
Nice
“work” if you can get it.
The reason
I bring this up, other than the Feb. 15 date to pull
papers, is that more and more this election year
seems to be shaping up as a once-in-a-generation
cycle, when a fed-up electorate throws the bums out
in larger-than-normal numbers.
I’m
starting to pick up that 1990 vibe around here
again. That was the year in Massachusetts when
dozens of Democrats retired due to ill health — the
voters got sick of them....
The pay
now is at least four times what it was during that
tidal wave election of 1990.
The
Boston Herald
Friday, February 4, 2022
The easiest $70,530 you’ll ever make
— with perks that add up, and up
Massachusetts lawmakers laughing all the way to the
bank
By Howie Carr
No rules
are hard and fast on Beacon Hill, but the
Legislature's Joint Rule 10 required committees to
render a verdict on thousands of bills filed this
session, or at the very least request an extension.
The soft
deadline on Wednesday breathed life into some ideas,
like retrofitting 1 million homes over the next
decade to be energy efficient and giving consumers
more control over their data privacy online. Others
- i.e. giving drivers' licenses to undocumented
immigrants, and allowing municipalities to raise
money for housing through new fees on real estate
transfers - remain stuck in limbo as their
committees requested more time.
But only
opponents were toasting the demise of a bill to
remove the ban on Happy Hour drink specials, as
legislators referred that concept for "further
study" - the bureaucratic equivalent of a bartender
saying, "You're cut off."
State
House News Service
Friday, February 4, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Building Bridges
Eight
bills that would allow individual municipalities to
add a new fee to certain real estate transactions
advanced from one legislative committee, while
another is taking more time to decide on a proposal
that would allow cities and towns to take such a
step without first getting Beacon Hill's approval.
As of
Wednesday's deadline for most committees to act on
bills, the Housing Committee had put forward an
order extending until May 9 its window to advance or
reject legislation that would enable municipalities
to impose a fee of between 0.5 percent and 2 percent
of the price of certain housing transactions in
order to generate revenue to preserve affordable
housing and fund new home construction.
The fee
rate and any exemptions would be set locally, and
the bills (H 1377, S 868) call for the new fees to
be applied only on transactions featuring prices
that are above the statewide or county median
single-family home price.
While the
decision could bottle the bills up for three more
months, Rep. Mike Connolly, who filed the House
version and serves on the Housing Committee, said he
viewed the extension as an "encouraging sign." ...
Amid a
lack of housing inventory, the state's median home
sale price in 2021 surpassed $500,000, the Warren
Group reported Tuesday. The new annual median of
$510,000 represents an increase of more than 14
percent from 2020....
Bills
proposing transfer fees in Somerville (H 3938),
Provincetown (H 3966), Concord (S 2437), Boston (H
2942), Arlington (H 4295), Cambridge (H 4282),
Nantucket (H 4201) and Chatham (H 4060) all earned
favorable reports from the Revenue Committee, moving
them along them in the legislative process.
A
favorable report doesn't guarantee a bill will pass,
or even make it to the floor for a vote. Similarly,
the Housing Committee's extension order doesn't
carve May 9 in stone as a final deadline for action
on its bills, as committees can seek further
extensions and lawmakers may opt to advance policies
as attachments to other vehicles including the
annual state budget.
State
House News Service
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Housing Panel Holding On To
Transfer Fee Bill
Revenue Committee Backs Local Transfer Fee Proposals
Almost two
years ago to the day, the Transportation Committee
voted along party lines to endorse legislation that
would allow undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts
to access driver's licenses.
Now, with
a deadline looming to take a position on the latest
version of the bill, the same panel decided it needs
more time, just as it did with a long-debated
proposal to expand enforcement of the state's
seatbelt law.
Neither
the measure that supporters dubbed the Work and
Family Mobility Act (H 3456 / S 2289) nor Gov.
Charlie Baker's refiled bill allowing police to stop
motorists solely for failing to buckle up (H 3706)
will be subject to this week's biennial culling of
the bills under the Legislature's Joint Rule 10.
Both bills
had been pending before the committee for more than
nine months before its members sought an additional
one-month extension. The licensing bill featured at
a public hearing in June, while lawmakers heard
testimony on Baker's road safety bill in
December....
That move
frustrated supporters of the seatbelt proposal, who
cautioned the extension further delays action on a
potential life-saving measure at a time when roadway
deaths are soaring in Massachusetts and nationally.
Among
supporters of the licensing bill, who have been
unsuccessfully pushing some form of the change for
more than a decade, the delay was interpreted as
"very good news."
"I think
we're all in agreement at the coalition that this
was very good news because we know how, with COVID
especially, this has been an incredibly difficult
and rushed legislative session," said Franklin
Soults, a 32BJ SEIU spokesperson who works with the
Driving Families Forward Coalition. "We had a very
great hearing. It seems like communication is really
good between the committees and the sponsors of the
bill and everybody, so we feel very confident this
is actually a really great sign."
State
House News Service
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Committee Keeps Lock On
Popular Licensing Bill
Deadline Also Extended On Seatbelt Enforcement
Proposal
Chris
Doughty wants to make sure both major political
parties have a voice on Beacon Hill next year.
The
59-year-old Republican from Wrentham understands
that the Democratic Party will control both chambers
of the legislature, but sees an opportunity for his
side of the aisle to maintain the governorship.
Doughty,
the president of Capstan Atlantic, a gear
manufacturer in Wrentham, announced last week he’s
running for governor. He spoke with NewBostonPost in
a telephone interview this past Friday and explained
why he is running to replace Charlie Baker, 65, a
Republican who is planning to step down after two
four-year terms.
“There’s
really two reasons,” Doughty said. “One is to keep
the balance in the State House. I think that’s part
of the miracle of Massachusetts is that we
consistently elect governors from the private sector
that are conservative to keep the balance in the
State House. The other reason is: I want to fix the
affordability problems in the state, particularly
for our citizens and also for our businesses.”
Doughty
(the “o” in the first syllable is long, and rhymes
with “go”) said that he thinks his experience in the
private sector would be helpful as governor....
One major
legislative priority for Doughty would be lowering
taxes.
“On day
one, I would say to everyone that I would like to
see us begin the process of lowering our tax burdens
on our citizens–slowly over time because it takes
awhile–and to improve,” he said. “In my business, I
have to do both. I have to become more affordable
and better every day, and I’d bring that to the
State House.”
When asked
if he would support the kinds of tax breaks that
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker proposed during
last week’s State of the Commonwealth address,
Doughty said yes.
“Yeah I
think lowering taxes is wise. It puts more money in
everyone’s pocket and lets them decide how they want
to spend their hard-earned dollars. I grew up mowing
lawns, so I know the value of a dollar. Every dollar
we can leave in the citizens’ pocketbook and say
‘You keep it. You’re better at making decisions on
how to spend your money than the government.’ I
think that’s always good.”
Some of
the tax cuts Baker proposed last week included:
raising the floor at which Bay Staters begin paying
state income tax (from $8,000 to $12,400 for single
filers, from $16,400 to $24,800 for joint filers and
from $14,400 to $18,650 for heads of household);
increasing the senior circuit breaker property tax
credit for seniors earning less than $63,000 per
year ($93,000 for married couples) from $1,170 to
$2,340; allowing renters to deduct 50 percent of
their annual rent from their tax bill up to $5,000
(it’s currently at $3,000); and doubling the state’s
dependent care tax credit for people with children
under 12, a disabled dependent, or a dependent over
65 years old (making it $480 for single filers with
one dependent, $960 if a filer has two or more
dependents, $360 for households with one dependent,
and $720 for households with two ore more
dependents).
The New
Boston Post
Monday, January 31, 2022
Republican Chris Doughty Weighs In On Taxes,
Business Climate, Abortion
In Bid For Governor of Massachusetts
Wealthy
businessmen do not fare well in Massachusetts
politics. Often, they think that because they can
run a successful business as Doughty has, they can
get elected to high office or run a government.
In lieu of
a campaign organization or campaign contributors,
they spend a fortune of their own money hiring
political consultants who tell them what to say, how
to say it and who to say it to....
This is
not to say that Doughty will go down that path. But
he has attracted some attention by promising to
spend $500,000 of his own money to defeat Diehl in
the primary. Diehl so far has raised some $325,000
from contributors.
A
Republican primary is small beer and far less costly
when compared to the Democrats, and Doughty’s half
million for starters will go a long way.
While
there are 1.2 million registered Democrats and 2.7
million Independents, who normally don’t vote in
primaries, there are only 459,663 registered
Republicans, many of whom don’t vote anyway.
The
Boston Herald
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Consultants the only sure winners
as Doughty looks for moderate votes
By Peter Lucas
Given
Baker’s high approval ratings, it’s easy to see why
some Democrats might have celebrated his decision
not to seek a third term. But the complacency
Downing described also suggests a low regard for
Geoff Diehl, the former state representative from
Whitman who announced his run for governor last
July.
Diehl
served in the Legislature from 2011 to 2018, and in
2014, he helped lead a successful ballot-question
campaign to end automatic hikes to the state’s gas
tax. Lately, though, Diehl’s electoral fortunes have
foundered. In 2015, he ran unsuccessfully in a
special election for state Senate. In 2016, when he
helped lead Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in
Massachusetts, Trump lost the state to Hillary
Clinton by 27 percentage points. And in 2018, after
winning the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate,
Diehl was routed by Elizabeth Warren in the general
election, winning 36 percent of the vote to Warren’s
60.
Despite
those setbacks, however, dismissing Diehl as
unelectable would be a mistake. Thanks to the
idiosyncrasies of Massachusetts politics, the 2022
governor’s race will offer him structural advantages
the 2018 Senate race didn’t. And while Diehl’s
strengths as a campaigner and candidate are
debatable, he possesses one invaluable skill: an
ability to intuit what various constituencies want
to hear and to shape his message accordingly — even
if that means, on occasion, saying different things
to different people....
But
Democratic strategist Doug Rubin, who helped Deval
Patrick make the jump from unknown to governor in
2006, has a very different take on Diehl’s
prospects.
“The most
important thing in Massachusetts politics for
governor — separate from every other race in the
state — is that, for whatever reason, voters for
governor don’t seem to see Democrat and Republican,”
Rubin said. “They see insider-outsider. And they
want an outsider in that governor’s office.”
In the
past three decades, Rubin points out, that dynamic
has resulted in just one Democrat, Patrick serving
as governor. Every other occupant of the corner
office has been a Republican.
“One
reason Deval Patrick was able to break that
Republican streak is because he was perceived as an
outsider who was willing to stand up to the
Legislature and fight for the people of
Massachusetts,” Rubin said. “And look, if Geoff
Diehl is able to paint the Democratic nominee as an
insider, and is able to paint himself credibly as an
outsider … that’s the path to victory for
Republicans. It’s a pretty simple path.”
That
outsider-insider narrative might be tough for Diehl
to push if he’s the nominee and his opponent is
Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen, who’s
never held elected office. But against Sonia Chang-Díaz,
an incumbent state Senator in the Democrat-dominated
Legislature, it would be considerably easier.
Against new entry Maura Healey — who’s in her second
term as attorney general, and is widely seen as the
preferred candidate of the Democratic establishment
— it might be easiest of all....
Of course,
for Diehl to fully emulate [Virginia Gov. Glenn]
Youngkin, he’ll have to get through the Republican
primary. As of last week, he has some competition:
Chris Doughty, a Wrentham businessman, announced his
own bid for governor Wednesday, touting himself as a
process-oriented job-creator in a kickoff video. But
Doughty, who’s never run for office before, may find
that the appetite for his political profile is
limited these days. In an interview with the Boston
Globe, Doughty acknowledged voting for Hillary
Clinton in 2016, which is unlikely to please the
Republican base. He also said he voted for Trump in
2020, which is unlikely to please moderate
Republicans and Republican-leaning unenrolled voters
concerned with the party’s ongoing shift rightward.
In
addition, even if Doughty proves to be a quick
study, Diehl has already forged a strong
relationship with the voters who’ll choose the next
Republican nominee. In October 2021, a poll
commissioned by the Democratic Governors Association
showed Diehl leading Baker by 21 points in a
hypothetical primary matchup — with the margin
growing to 32 points when respondents were told of
Trump’s endorsement.
WGBH -
Greater Boston
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Is everyone underestimating Geoff
Diehl?
Maura
Healey said she’s ready to break a supposed “curse”
that’s blocked six past attorneys general from
running successful bids for the governor’s seat and
and she pushed back on her “anti-business” label
while making the rounds on Sunday morning political
shows.
“Business
benefits when every family is doing well
economically,” Healey said on WBZ’s “Keller @ Large”
when host Jon Keller said establishment Democrats
and Republicans consider the two-term attorney
general “anti-business.” ...
Healey
highlighted her “record of demonstrated results” as
the state’s top law enforcement official, winning
lawsuits and going after predatory lenders and
businesses — including several who capitalized off
of the pandemic by slinging subpar masks and hand
sanitizer....
Asked by
“On the Record” host Ed Harding whether she believes
in a supposed “curse” blocking attorneys general
from taking the corner office, Healey said,
“Obviously we don’t because we’re running for
governor.”
“During my
time I’m lucky to have seen some curses broken here,
and I sure hope that we can break this,” the
two-term attorney general said.
The
Boston Herald
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Maura Healey ready to break attorney general
“curse,” hits back “anti-business” label
Returning
to an issue that was at the center of her first
campaign, Attorney General Maura Healey led a
coalition of state prosecutors on Tuesday in the
filing of a brief in U.S. District Court supporting
Mexico in its consumer protection case against seven
gun manufacturers and a Massachusetts-based gun
distributor.
Healey led
a group of 14 attorneys general in their argument
that federal law does not shield gun manufacturers
and dealers from consumer laws governing the
marketing and sale firearms.
The
Mexican governor has alleged that Springfield-based
Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta, Century
Arms, Colt, Glock, Ruger and Massachusetts-based
distributor Interstate Arms designs, markets and
distributes guns in a manner they know appeal to
Mexican drug cartels and violent gangs....
Smith &
Wesson recently announced last fall that it planned
to relocate its headquarters and a large portion of
its operations to Tennessee in 2023 after 169 years
being based in Springfield. Corporate executives
sited the "changing business climate" for firearm
manufacturers in Massachusetts as a motivating
factor.
Healey
announced last month that she was running for
governor in 2022.
State
House News Service
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Healey: Fed Law Should
Not “Shield” Gun Manufacturers |
|
MASSterList Job Board
Beacon Hill’s hottest new job postings
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Recent postings to the
MASSterList
Job Board from last Week:
Communications Director, Massachusetts Fair Share Amendment
Digital Director, Massachusetts Fair Share Amendment
Field Director, Massachusetts Fair Share Amendment
Raise Up Massachusetts
— the radical leftwing progressive
cabal behind the latest push for a graduated income tax
— is advertising job openings with
minimum salaries starting at $100,000-$110,000. I’ve been
working for CLT for 26 years, have done all those jobs and more,
usually simultaneously especially for the past six years, and I
still don’t earn close to that “starting salary” even for the
100-plus hours a week I put in. Before Barbara Anderson passed
away in 2016 she was paid $600 a week, $31,000 a year. Just
one of those $110,000 salaries would cover a full year of what
CLT now raises and spends — its
entire annual operating budget. We’ve been on the wrong
political side all
along if our goal was to make money. We at CLT have always
recognized and accepted this.
Nonetheless, it
must be satisfying to be a deep-pockets leftwing self-interest group
(aren't they all?) with
unlimited resources to toss around in the insatiable pursuit of
taking more for themselves from the productive others.
Last week I
informed you of
the Legislature's Joint Rule 10 and its "deadline"
on the past Wednesday. The deadline came and went but there
doesn't seem to have been any movement on the five bills which seek
to stealthily attack our Proposition 2½.
Apparently this rule is like so many others on Beacon Hill — more a
suggestion than a mandate especially if it becomes inconvenient to
other priorities or conveniences.
The legislative History
for each of the following bills indicates that
they remain in the secretive Joint Committee on Revenue — have not
been rejected for this session, not been reported out favorably, not
been condemned to the graveyard of "further study." This again
explains why it continually takes "The Best Legislature Money Can
Buy" a full year to blindly pass important legislation in the dark
of night in the final moments of its annual session.
H.2978,
S.1899,
H.3086,
S.1804, and
H.3039 remain where they have been since the
public hearing six months ago, four months ago for H.3039, "An
Act establishing a local option gas tax." We'll keep watching
closely for any movement in any direction.
The state revenue gravy
train just keeps chugging along. On Thursday the
State
House News Service reported ("Tax Receipts Already Running
$1.5 Bil Above Revised Estimate"):
As Gov.
Charlie Baker embarks on a push for tax relief
proposals, the Department of Revenue
reported
Thursday that it collected $4.026 billion in state
tax revenue from people and businesses last month, a
haul that surpassed expectations by $856 million or
27 percent and has helped to put the state nearly
$1.5 billion ahead of its end-of-fiscal-year
target....
"January
2022 revenue collections increased in most major tax
types, in comparison to January 2021 collections,
including withholding, non-withholding, sales and
use tax, and corporate and business tax," Revenue
Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder said....
In the
first seven months of fiscal year 2022, DOR has so
far collected approximately $21.872 billion --
$4.219 billion or about 24 percent more than actual
collections during the same period of fiscal 2021
and $1.45 billion or about 7 percent more than the
department's year-to-date benchmark....
"We ended
last year with a surplus and tax collections
continue to exceed projections in a big way. It's
time to enact tax breaks for families, seniors and
more," Baker tweeted Thursday just after DOR
reported on January revenues. In his fiscal 2023
budget plan, the governor proposed tax breaks for
renters, seniors, parents and low-income workers, a
cut to the tax rate on short-term capital gains, and
two changes to the estate tax.
You may recall that Fiscal
Year 2021's revenue story of a bonanza of dizzying riches is much
the same. The State House News Service reported on January 3
("Comptroller:
FY '21 Revenues Smashed Estimates By $13 Billion"):
The grand total of
state revenues collected by the end of fiscal year 2021 exceeded
that year's budget estimates by more than $13 billion, including
a surplus of more than $5.86 billion in tax revenue, according
to a new report from the state comptroller.
From July 1, 2020 through
June 30, 2021 the state raked in $5.86 Billion in surplus tax
revenue — then quickly spent it.
From July 1, 2021
— the start of this fiscal year
— the state has so far raked in
an additional $4.219 Billion more than the prior fiscal
year.
Is there even the lamest
argument from any insatiable legislator opposed to a return of at
least some if not most or all of this extraordinary tax
surplus to its rightful owners — the taxpayers
from whom it is being unnecessarily extracted? Return it to
the taxpayers — before the temptation to spend it all once again
becomes overwhelming. Those multiple-billions of over-taxation
do not belong to government, and with a straight face it can't even
be argued that it is needed for government to function.
How
can those massive revenue surpluses be explained?
In a word, "Taxachusetts." The
Boston Herald reported on Wednesday ("Massachusetts couples
pay the highest percentage of income in taxes
in the country, report says"):
It’s tax
season, and in news perhaps unsurprising to Bay
State taxpayers, couples living here have to shell
out the highest percentage of their income on taxes.
“The
biggest takeaway for me was just how vast the spread
can be across the country,” said Josh Koebert, who
authored the study on
FinanceBuzz.com, in an email.
He noted
that the difference between states like Florida and
Massachusetts was 50%. “That is a huge difference,”
he said, “50% more paid in taxes annually, almost
all of which comes down to state-level income tax
laws.”
The study
compared the median income for full-time workers in
each state, derived from the U.S. Census Bureau,
against the federal and state tax rates for the 2021
tax year.
Massachusetts took the top spot for couples filing
jointly, with couples paying 23.51% of their income
in taxes. Close behind is Oregon, at 23.24%, Hawaii,
at 23.05%, and Connecticut, at 22.99%. The lowest
rate was in Tennessee, with taxpaying couples owing
just 15.54% of their income to taxes.
For single
filers, Massachusetts earned the number two spot, at
23.23%. Oregon edged out Massachusetts at 23.37% to
take the top spot. Connecticut and Hawaii fell not
far behind, and Florida singles took the bottom
spot, with 15.52% of their median income owed to
taxes....
Paul Diego
Craney, of the conservative Mass. Fiscal Alliance,
reminded the Herald that state lawmakers are
proposing a ballot measure that would raise the
income tax on the wealthiest earners, as well as
some businesses.
“The
public needs to realize that when they send part of
their paycheck to the legislators at the Statehouse
to spend, they are already the most generous in the
country and yet lawmakers still want more,” he said.
Massachusetts has the distinction of ranking Number 1 in yet another
new category: Bay State couples pay the highest percentage of
income in taxes in the country. With the multitude of these
Number 1 "honors" is there any wonder that multi-billion dollar
annual surpluses have become the norm in Taxachusetts?
And
still the Legislature is hell-bent on extracting even more
from the productive — until none remain. Who will The
Takers feed off then?
In
his
Boston Herald column on Friday Howie Carr reminds us
of how fat and happy Massachusetts legislators are, by their own
hand. In The easiest $70,530 you’ll ever make
— with perks that add up, and up
Massachusetts lawmakers laughing all the way to the
bank he wrote:
Are you
having a hard time making ends meet in this
inflationary Biden malaise?
Could you
use an extra $70,530 a year — for a “job” where you
never, ever have to show up, where the actual place
where you would theoretically “work” hasn’t even
been open to the public for two years now?
And that
$70,530 a year — that’s minimum wage for a state
legislator, you understand. They’re all also
grabbing at least $16,245 for “travel expenses,”
even though they’re not traveling to Boston anymore.
And most
of them have also been handed even more money for
some phony-baloney so-called leadership position,
running committees that just rubber-stamp what
they’re ordered to do.
Did I
mention that if a legislator lives more than 50
miles from the State House, he or she can write off
most of their federal income taxes, just like almost
all members of Congress do?
And then
there’s the campaign committee you can set up, which
allows you to write off almost all your expenses.
You can even buy gift cards for your constituents,
who might very well happen to be your parents … or
your girlfriend. You can charge all your bar tabs –
just ask Rep. Mark Cusack, D-Braintree.
If you
could use a little – actually, a lot of — free
money, no strings attached, perhaps you should
consider running for the Massachusetts state
Legislature. It’s the easiest gig this side of being
an illegal immigrant....
There's some interesting news on the race for governor that's begun
to take form, some useful insights and some stuff of nightmares.
I'll leave those for you to read and digest but will provide my
impression: It's going to be quite an interesting eight months
ahead leading up to November. After that, you might want to be
prepared to break out and run for your lives.
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
State House News
Service
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Tax Receipts Already Running $1.5 Bil Above Revised Estimate
By Colin A. Young
As Gov. Charlie Baker embarks on a push for tax relief
proposals, the Department of Revenue
reported Thursday that
it collected $4.026 billion in state tax revenue from people
and businesses last month, a haul that surpassed
expectations by $856 million or 27 percent and has helped to
put the state nearly $1.5 billion ahead of its
end-of-fiscal-year target.
As it did last month when it reported December revenues, DOR
said Thursday that much of January's windfall is likely
temporary because many of the gains are attributed to a
change in state law that allows certain businesses to avoid
federal limits on state and local tax deductions. Still,
even after adjusting for the business tax changes, the
tax-collecting department said January receipts exceeded
January 2021 collections by $315 million or 9.4 percent and
topped the monthly benchmark by $791 million.
"January 2022 revenue collections increased in most major
tax types, in comparison to January 2021 collections,
including withholding, non-withholding, sales and use tax,
and corporate and business tax," Revenue Commissioner
Geoffrey Snyder said. "The increase in withholding is likely
related to improvements in labor market conditions. The
non-withholding income tax increase is primarily due to the
recently enacted [pass-through entity] excise; as mentioned
above, most of this increase is temporary. The sales and use
tax increase in part reflects continued strength in retail
sales and meals taxes, which in turn were impacted by rising
inflation."
In the first seven months of fiscal year 2022, DOR has so
far collected approximately $21.872 billion -- $4.219
billion or about 24 percent more than actual collections
during the same period of fiscal 2021 and $1.45 billion or
about 7 percent more than the department's year-to-date
benchmark.
After accounting for the pass-through entity excise
payments, DOR said that year-to-date collections are $2.982
billion or about 17 percent more than collections in the
same period of fiscal 2021 and $794 billion or 4 percent
more than the year-to-date benchmark.
"We ended last year with a surplus and tax collections
continue to exceed projections in a big way. It's time to
enact tax breaks for families, seniors and more," Baker
tweeted Thursday just after DOR reported on January
revenues. In his fiscal 2023 budget plan, the governor
proposed tax breaks for renters, seniors, parents and
low-income workers, a cut to the tax rate on short-term
capital gains, and two changes to the estate tax.
Snyder said DOR will "closely monitor how the recent surge
in COVID-19 cases and the revised restrictions on economic
activities" could impact state revenue collections for the
remaining five months of the fiscal year.
The Baker administration in January raised its estimate of
fiscal 2022 tax collections by about $1.5 billion, and
January's tax haul puts the $1.5 billion above that newly
revised fiscal year-end target.
The Boston
Herald
Saturday, February 5, 2022
Charlie Baker pushes tax cuts
as January tax revenues soar above projections
By Amy Sokolow
After state tax revenues came in wildly above projections
last month, Gov. Charlie Baker took to Twitter to tout his
plan to slash taxes for a broad swath of Bay Staters.
“We ended last year with a surplus and tax collections
continue to exceed projections in a big way,” Baker tweeted
Thursday evening. “It’s time to enact tax breaks for
families, seniors and more. Last week I proposed doing just
that.”
As the Herald previously reported, Baker has proposed almost
$700 million in tax breaks as part of his last budget as
governor, including doubling the maximum Senior Circuit
Breaker Credit to lower the tax burden for many low-income
senior homeowners, increasing the rental deduction cap for
renters, and giving other breaks to parents, low-income
households and those filing estate taxes.
The Department of Revenue collected $4.026 billion in state
tax revenue from individuals and businesses last month,
exceeding expectations by $856 million, or 27%.
The Department of Revenue said the boost could be partially
attributed to a change in state law that allowed some
businesses to avoid federal limits on state and local tax
deductions, but even accounting for that, the year-over-year
revenues increased by $315 million, or 9.4%.
“January 2022 revenue collections increased in most major
tax types, in comparison to January 2021 collections,
including withholding, non-withholding, sales and use tax,
and corporate and business tax,” Revenue Commissioner
Geoffrey Snyder said.
Snyder attributed much of the increase to improvements in
labor market conditions, and strengths in retail sales and
meal taxes, “which in turn were impacted by rising
inflation,” he said.
In response to Baker’s budget requests, Senate President
Karen Spilka previously told the Herald that “we’ll take a
look. We realize that people are still hurting from COVID,
so we’ll take a hard look,” the Ashland Democrat said.
Speaker of the House Ronald Mariano, D-Quincy, previously
said, that “the devil is always in the details in these
things.”
— State House News Service
contributed.
The Boston
Herald
Wednesday, February 3, 2022
Massachusetts couples pay the highest percentage of income
in taxes
in the country, report says
By Amy Sokolow
It’s tax season, and in news perhaps unsurprising to Bay
State taxpayers, couples living here have to shell out the
highest percentage of their income on taxes.
“The biggest takeaway for me was just how vast the spread
can be across the country,” said Josh Koebert, who authored
the study on
FinanceBuzz.com, in an email.
He noted that the difference between states like Florida and
Massachusetts was 50%. “That is a huge difference,” he said,
“50% more paid in taxes annually, almost all of which comes
down to state-level income tax laws.”
The study compared the median income for full-time workers
in each state, derived from the U.S. Census Bureau, against
the federal and state tax rates for the 2021 tax year.
Massachusetts took the top spot for couples filing jointly,
with couples paying 23.51% of their income in taxes. Close
behind is Oregon, at 23.24%, Hawaii, at 23.05%, and
Connecticut, at 22.99%. The lowest rate was in Tennessee,
with taxpaying couples owing just 15.54% of their income to
taxes.
For single filers, Massachusetts earned the number two spot,
at 23.23%. Oregon edged out Massachusetts at 23.37% to take
the top spot. Connecticut and Hawaii fell not far behind,
and Florida singles took the bottom spot, with 15.52% of
their median income owed to taxes.
The report notes that Massachusetts residents pay the
highest federal tax rate in the country, at 18.58%, which is
attributable to having the highest median annual income in
the country.
Eileen McAnneny, of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation,
made the same observation, but also noted that our expensive
real estate also contributes to a high property tax.
Massachusetts also has an income tax,
Paul Diego Craney, of the conservative Mass. Fiscal
Alliance, reminded the Herald that state lawmakers are
proposing a ballot measure that would raise the income tax
on the wealthiest earners, as well as some businesses.
“The public needs to realize that when they send part of
their paycheck to the legislators at the Statehouse to
spend, they are already the most generous in the country and
yet lawmakers still want more,” he said.
The Boston
Herald
Friday, February 4, 2022
The easiest $70,530 you’ll ever make — with perks that add
up, and up
Massachusetts lawmakers laughing all the way to the bank
By Howie Carr
Are you having a hard time making ends meet in this
inflationary Biden malaise?
Could you use an extra $70,530 a year — for a “job” where
you never, ever have to show up, where the actual place
where you would theoretically “work” hasn’t even been open
to the public for two years now?
And that $70,530 a year — that’s minimum wage for a state
legislator, you understand. They’re all also grabbing at
least $16,245 for “travel expenses,” even though they’re not
traveling to Boston anymore.
And most of them have also been handed even more money for
some phony-baloney so-called leadership position, running
committees that just rubber-stamp what they’re ordered to
do.
Did I mention that if a legislator lives more than 50 miles
from the State House, he or she can write off most of their
federal income taxes, just like almost all members of
Congress do?
And then there’s the campaign committee you can set up,
which allows you to write off almost all your expenses. You
can even buy gift cards for your constituents, who might
very well happen to be your parents … or your girlfriend.
You can charge all your bar tabs – just ask Rep. Mark
Cusack, D-Braintree.
If you could use a little – actually, a lot of — free money,
no strings attached, perhaps you should consider running for
the Massachusetts state Legislature. It’s the easiest gig
this side of being an illegal immigrant.
Right now the state Republicans are looking for a few good
men and women who’d like to grab some free money, I mean,
enter public service.
Consider the State House – people used to joke that it was
the only place in the world where people said, “Have a nice
weekend” on Wednesdays. Another saying was that you could
fire a cannon down the halls on Thursdays and Fridays and
not hit anyone.
Now those jokes apply 365 days a year. Sometime in February
or March 2020, everyone at the State House looked around at
their fellow payroll patriots and said, “Have a nice life!”
The building has been closed ever since. And no one has
missed a single paycheck.
Massfiscal.org has been trying to recruit Republican
candidates, even advertising on my radio show. They’ve been
stressing the “part-time” state senator from Arlington who
made $220,544 last year. She said it was an accounting error
— wink wink nudge nudge.
But I think an even better poster gal for the rewards, shall
we say, of public service might be Sen. Harriette Chandler
of Worcester, who last week announced her impending
retirement at the tender age of 84.
The solons used to get reimbursed for every day they drove
to work, on a scale — $5 if you lived around the corner, $50
if you were from, say, Berkshire County. It went up and up
and up … but these “per diems” were always embarrassing,
because the statesmen had to file paperwork with the
treasurer for their dough. And reporters could check up.
Years ago, the Herald discovered that the solon from East
Boston had filed for his $5 per diem while he was in Rome —
Italy, not New York. The rep couldn’t believe he was being
called out.
“For five bucks,” he told the reporter, “you’re going to
croak me?”
So the hacks got rid of the per diems and just gave
everybody a set amount per year — $15,000 if you lived
within 50 miles, or $20,000 if you lived more than 50 miles
away.
Which brings us back to Harriette Chandler. When the shift
was made, she realized she was on the edge of the 50-mile
line. Her local newspaper did a check of Google Maps. The
quickest route from her home to the State House came in at
49.7 miles.
The alternate route, adding I-495 to her commute, came in at
53.1 miles.
Care to guess which route one Madame President (for indeed
she was briefly the Senate president after Stanley Rosenberg
resigned in disgrace) claimed. You are correct, sir. She
filed for $20,000 rather than $15,000.
And behind the money comes the pension. Billy Bulger has
been grabbing a kiss in the mail of what is now $272,719 a
year since 2003. David Bartley, who last won an election in
1974, has been pocketing $157,666 since 2004.
Nice “work” if you can get it.
The reason I bring this up, other than the Feb. 15 date to
pull papers, is that more and more this election year seems
to be shaping up as a once-in-a-generation cycle, when a
fed-up electorate throws the bums out in larger-than-normal
numbers.
I’m starting to pick up that 1990 vibe around here again.
That was the year in Massachusetts when dozens of Democrats
retired due to ill health — the voters got sick of them.
The GOP elected both the governor and treasurer, and came
within a few thousand votes of seizing control of the state
Senate from Whitey Bulger’s younger brother.
All kinds of unlikely Republicans were elected in 1990. A
56-year-old factory worker on unemployment ousted the hack
Middlesex County register of probate – by 40,000 votes. In
Taunton, Sen. Teddy Aleixo was upset by a Republican whose
day job was selling Bibles. His name was Erv Wall.
After his stinging 4,000-vote defeat, Sen. Aleixo was
philosophical:
“Tell Erv he won’t sell too many Bibles in the state
Senate.”
The pay now is at least four times what it was during that
tidal wave election of 1990. Candidates, if you win this
year, you won’t have to moonlight selling Bibles or anything
else.
Hell, you wouldn’t even be able to if you wanted. The State
House is closed, and that’s just the way the hacks like it.
And you’ll learn to like it too – a lot.
State House News
Service
Friday, February 4, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Building Bridges
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
Six more weeks of winter, but only five for Democrats to
select delegates to the June convention in Worcester when,
presumably, the weather will be a little more pleasant.
The furry weatherman from Punxsutawney saw his shadow
Wednesday, presaging another wintery blast of precipitation
leading into the weekend as Democrats kicked off the caucus
season and candidates begin the battle for delegates.
The field, at least on the Democratic side, appears close to
set as this week brought the formal entries of former Boston
City Councilor Andrea Campbell and 2018 lieutenant governor
nominee Quentin Palfrey to a now three-way race for attorney
general.
Gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen also gave voters
something to chew on as she marked the start of Black
History Month with a proposal to decriminalize the personal
use and possession of drugs, including heroin and cocaine,
to shift the focus away from punishment to treatment.
Her competitors for the nomination shied away from endorsing
or rejecting Allen's idea, but this is one that will likely
come up often over the course of the next seven months as
Allen, Attorney General Maura Healey and Sen. Sonia
Chang-Diaz looks for ways to differentiate themselves.
Healey was far more clear when it came to her thoughts (not
positive) on Republican Geoff Diehl hiring former Trump
campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a Lowell native, as a
senior advisor on his gubernatorial campaign. Diehl said he
welcomed Lewandowski's wealth of experience, but by leaning
in on the Trump brand he will also have to accept some of
the blowback in a state where Trump is not and never was
popular with the general electorate.
As it stands, Healey holds a sizable lead over her rivals at
the outset of the campaign with 48 percent of likely voters
indicating they would support the attorney general compared
to 12 percent for Chang-Diaz and 3 percent for Allen,
according to a new MassINC Polling Group survey. Yet, 38
percent said they still don't know, wouldn't vote or are
looking for someone else.
Those voters will have until Sept. 6 to make up their mind,
assuming Gov. Charlie Baker signs off on that date for the
primaries, included as part of a $101 million COVID-19
relief bill that would direct funds towards rapid testing,
masks, and vaccination equity. The bill's bottom line grew
in each iteration, with House and Senate leaders tacking on
$25 million in the final deal to replenish the COVID-19 paid
sick leave reserve.
The pandemic relief bill reached the governor's desk
Thursday, while legislation known as "Nero's Law" came
within a whisker. The House voted in support of the bill
that would allow medical personnel to treat and provide
transport to police dogs injured in the line of duty.
The bill's namesake is the K9 injured during a 2018 incident
during which Yarmouth Police Sergeant Sean Gannon was killed
as he attempted to serve a warrant.
For other legislation, however, this week turned out to be
the end of the line.
No rules are hard and fast on Beacon Hill, but the
Legislature's Joint Rule 10 required committees to render a
verdict on thousands of bills filed this session, or at the
very least request an extension.
The soft deadline on Wednesday breathed life into some
ideas, like retrofitting 1 million homes over the next
decade to be energy efficient and giving consumers more
control over their data privacy online. Others - i.e. giving
drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants, and allowing
municipalities to raise money for housing through new fees
on real estate transfers - remain stuck in limbo as their
committees requested more time.
But only opponents were toasting the demise of a bill to
remove the ban on Happy Hour drink specials, as legislators
referred that concept for "further study" - the bureaucratic
equivalent of a bartender saying, "You're cut off."
Baker was in Washington, D.C. to start the week, meeting
alongside other governors with President Joe Biden and
members of his Cabinet during the National Governors
Association winter meeting. He later had one-on-ones at the
Pentagon where he said he basically secured a deal for the
Army Corps of Engineers to replace the two bridges spanning
the Cape Cod Canal, and hopes to have a financing plan in
place by the end of the year.
The money will come, in large part, from the bipartisan
infrastructure bill signed last year by Biden - the same
bill that will deliver $9.5 billion to Massachusetts.
Baker visited the campus of UMass Lowell on Thursday to
detail how he intends to spend much of the rest of the
federal infrastructure funding, though the Legislature will
have its say too once the administration files a new
transportation bond bill.
Baker has his eyes set on spending billions to repair
highways, electrify bus fleets and replace or rehabilitate
146 bridges in need of repair.
The visit to the UMass campus came as the governor's team
urged higher education institutions to help lead the way out
of the COVID-19 pandemic, urging them to begin thinking
about ways to relax restrictions that require remote
learning, discourage group activities or mandate "overly
aggressive surveillance testing; and mask type
requirements."
Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders and
Education Secretary Jim Peyser said the negative social and
emotional effects of lasting restrictions are taking a toll
on youth, and they see colleges as the place to start the
transition "into an endemic, a highly contagious virus that
is manageable and allows us to regain a sense of normalcy."
William Allen, who has spent the past 27 years behind bars
after being an accomplice to murder, went before the
Governor's Council this week also asking them to restore a
sense of normalcy to his life.
Allen is under consideration for his first-degree murder
conviction to be commuted to second degree murder, making
him eligible for parole. He's the second convicted felon to
appear before the council in as many weeks after Baker made
the first two commutation recommendations of his tenure.
"I promise I will make you proud by doing good and being
good and that I won't let my fellow prisoners down either,"
Allen told the council.
Councilor Robert Jubinville, his attorney at trial in the
1990s, predicted Allen would soon be a free man.
"You're a good man and you're gonna get a commutation,"
Jubinville told him.
STORY OF THE WEEK: "For those of us in the infrastructure
business, today is like Christmas," state Highway
Administrator Jonathan Gulliver said about putting together
a $9.5 billion highway and bridge spending plan.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Housing Panel Holding On To Transfer Fee Bill
Revenue Committee Backs Local Transfer Fee Proposals
By Katie Lannan
Eight bills that would allow individual municipalities to
add a new fee to certain real estate transactions advanced
from one legislative committee, while another is taking more
time to decide on a proposal that would allow cities and
towns to take such a step without first getting Beacon
Hill's approval.
As of Wednesday's deadline for most committees to act on
bills, the Housing Committee had put forward an order
extending until May 9 its window to advance or reject
legislation that would enable municipalities to impose a fee
of between 0.5 percent and 2 percent of the price of certain
housing transactions in order to generate revenue to
preserve affordable housing and fund new home construction.
The fee rate and any exemptions would be set locally, and
the bills (H 1377, S 868) call for the new fees to be
applied only on transactions featuring prices that are above
the statewide or county median single-family home price.
While the decision could bottle the bills up for three more
months, Rep. Mike Connolly, who filed the House version and
serves on the Housing Committee, said he viewed the
extension as an "encouraging sign."
"I'm grateful that we have the opportunity to continue the
conversation and look to build consensus around it," he
said.
Connolly, a Cambridge Democrat, said he sees momentum
gathering behind the idea of transfer fees, with Boston
Mayor Michelle Wu this week filing a home-rule petition that
would allow her city to impose a fee on sales of $2 million
or more and major employer Mass General Brigham earlier this
month voicing support for the bills filed by Connolly and
Sen. Jo Comerford.
"I think the momentum is a product of the ongoing affordable
housing emergency, and I'm cognizant of sort of the unique
trajectory of this legislative session," Connolly told the
News Service. "When the legislative session started, the
real housing advocacy focus was on stopping evictions and
foreclosures, in a way where those immediate COVID housing
concerns were really dominating a lot of our bandwidth and
our advocacy attention."
A little more than a year into the two-year session,
Connolly said there's now "a chance to focus more on the
regular agenda," though pandemic response activity
continues.
"Those underlying issues of housing costs haven't gone
away," he said.
High costs in Massachusetts can burden renters and present a
barrier to homeownership for many.
Amid a lack of housing inventory, the state's median home
sale price in 2021 surpassed $500,000, the Warren Group
reported Tuesday. The new annual median of $510,000
represents an increase of more than 14 percent from 2020.
The Connolly/Comerford bills are backed by a collection of
community organizations, planning agencies and other groups,
the Local Option for Housing Affordability coalition, which
also supports a handful of bills filed by individual
municipalities where local officials have already backed
proposed transfer fees.
"We look forward to continuing to work with the legislature
on this extremely important issue. It is a vital measure to
have enacted this session for communities from Nantucket, to
Boston, to Western Massachusetts," Nantucket housing
director Tucker Holland said in a statement offered by the
coalition.
Bills proposing transfer fees in Somerville (H 3938),
Provincetown (H 3966), Concord (S 2437), Boston (H 2942),
Arlington (H 4295), Cambridge (H 4282), Nantucket (H 4201)
and Chatham (H 4060) all earned favorable reports from the
Revenue Committee, moving them along them in the legislative
process.
A favorable report doesn't guarantee a bill will pass, or
even make it to the floor for a vote. Similarly, the Housing
Committee's extension order doesn't carve May 9 in stone as
a final deadline for action on its bills, as committees can
seek further extensions and lawmakers may opt to advance
policies as attachments to other vehicles including the
annual state budget.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Committee Keeps Lock On Popular Licensing Bill
Deadline Also Extended On Seatbelt Enforcement Proposal
By Chris Lisinski
Almost two years ago to the day, the Transportation
Committee voted along party lines to endorse legislation
that would allow undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts to
access driver's licenses.
Now, with a deadline looming to take a position on the
latest version of the bill, the same panel decided it needs
more time, just as it did with a long-debated proposal to
expand enforcement of the state's seatbelt law.
Neither the measure that supporters dubbed the Work and
Family Mobility Act (H 3456 / S 2289) nor Gov. Charlie
Baker's refiled bill allowing police to stop motorists
solely for failing to buckle up (H 3706) will be subject to
this week's biennial culling of the bills under the
Legislature's Joint Rule 10.
Both bills had been pending before the committee for more
than nine months before its members sought an additional
one-month extension. The licensing bill featured at a public
hearing in June, while lawmakers heard testimony on Baker's
road safety bill in December.
The codified-yet-malleable deadline in Joint Rule 10, which
falls on the first Wednesday of February in even years, is
designed to push bills forward in the process with enough
time remaining for the Legislature to tackle big topics
before it transitions to holding only lightly attended
informal sessions after July 31.
The House on Monday quietly adopted an extension order
pushing the deadline for the Transportation Committee to
produce an up-or-down report on eight bills from Feb. 2 to
March 4, giving the panel -- which has functioned without a
Senate chair since September -- another month to work.
That move frustrated supporters of the seatbelt proposal,
who cautioned the extension further delays action on a
potential life-saving measure at a time when roadway deaths
are soaring in Massachusetts and nationally.
Among supporters of the licensing bill, who have been
unsuccessfully pushing some form of the change for more than
a decade, the delay was interpreted as "very good news."
"I think we're all in agreement at the coalition that this
was very good news because we know how, with COVID
especially, this has been an incredibly difficult and rushed
legislative session," said Franklin Soults, a 32BJ SEIU
spokesperson who works with the Driving Families Forward
Coalition. "We had a very great hearing. It seems like
communication is really good between the committees and the
sponsors of the bill and everybody, so we feel very
confident this is actually a really great sign."
In February 2020, on the most recent iteration of Joint Rule
10 Day, the Transportation Committee voted 14-4 to advance a
redrafted version of the bill that would authorize
undocumented immigrants to apply for standard, but not REAL
ID-enhanced, licenses. All four votes against the measure
came from Republicans. House Co-chair Rep. William Straus of
Mattapoisett and Rep. Paul Tucker of Salem, both Democrats,
did not cast votes.
The measure later died without action in the Senate Ways and
Means Committee, despite public support from Senate
President Karen Spilka.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano has been less vocal, though he
said in March that he "recognize(s) the value in bringing
all drivers under the same public safety, licensing and
insurance structures."
At a virtual event highlighting business and health care
sector support for the bill, its backers noted that the
latest version has the highest number of cosponsors in the
history of the campaign, including majorities in the
160-member House and the 40-member Senate.
As of Tuesday, 84 representatives and 21 senators --
excluding former Transportation Committee Co-chair Sen. Joe
Boncore, who resigned last year -- added their names in
support of the bill.
The latest version differs from the version that earned the
Transportation Committee's support last session in two main
ways: it has a slightly different set of identification
standards required to acquire a standard license, and it
would limit the state Registry of Motor Vehicles from
sharing many documents involved in the applications,
including with federal immigration authorities.
Laura Rotolo, staff counsel and community advocate at the
American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said the
latest version is "tighter" than its predecessor.
"This session, we had a lot of support and co-drafting with
our law enforcement leaders," Rotolo said. "We have worked
together with them and other partners like insurers to make
sure that the bill makes sense, that the bill is workable
for many different stakeholders."
Sixteen other states and Washington, D.C. already have laws
on the books allowing undocumented immigrants to acquire
some form of a driver's license, according to supporters.
"Our neighbors in Connecticut enacted a similar law
permitting the issuance of driver's licenses back in 2015,
and as of 2019, over 50,000 undocumented immigrants in
Connecticut have taken written tests, vision tests, and road
tests to obtain driver's licenses," said Roberta
Fitzpatrick, senior vice president and CIO at Arbella
Insurance. "Since that time, Connecticut has seen a
reduction in hit-and-run crashes and a steep decline in the
number of people found guilty of unlicensed driving."
If legislative leaders opt to pursue the bill this session,
they will likely need to line up two-thirds majorities in
both chambers to overcome opposition from Gov. Charlie
Baker.
The Republican governor said in February 2020 that he does
not support the bill because he believes "it's really hard
to build the kind of safeguards into that kind of process
that would create the kind of security that would be hard to
live up to some of the federal and state standards with
respect to security and identification."
Asked if he has vocalized an opinion on the topic more
recently, a Baker spokesperson replied, "Governor Baker
supports existing laws in Massachusetts, enacted on a
bipartisan basis, that ensure Massachusetts' compliance with
federal REAL ID requirements and enable those who
demonstrate lawful presence in the United States to obtain a
license."
Baker, now in the lame-duck stretch of his final term, has
been ramping up pressure on Democrat leaders to tackle some
of his stalled proposals. His push to reform the state's
seatbelt law so far has failed to gather momentum.
Lawmakers have been hesitant to convert the Bay State from
its current secondary enforcement system, in which police
can only cite motorists for driving unbuckled if they first
observe another traffic violation, to primary enforcement,
in which cops could pull someone over solely for not wearing
a seatbelt.
Supporters of the change say it would help increase the Bay
State's seatbelt use rate, which lags behind the 35 other
states where police can enforce the restraints without
requiring an additional offense.
Mary Maguire, AAA Northeast Director of Public Affairs, said
81.6 percent of Bay State drivers and passengers buckled up
before the pandemic, a rate that has since dropped to 77.5
percent. At the same time, roadway deaths in Massachusetts
have surged from 327 in 2020 to at least 415 in 2021, she
said.
"Each one of those people is an individual who's part of a
family, a school, a football team, a church, a committee.
The ripple effect of that is really extraordinary," Maguire
said. "We know that the drop in seatbelt use has been one of
the key factors in this increase in the number of deaths in
Massachusetts and across the country."
AAA Northeast also backs other primary seatbelt bills
pending before different legislative committees, but Maguire
said she believes it is "really important" for the
Transportation Committee to send Baker's road safety bill
forward into the larger legislative arena.
Mariano remains skeptical about the idea, saying via a
spokesperson in the fall that he has "long been concerned
about potential racial profiling with primary enforcement
measures."
The Vision Zero Coalition, a group of road safety and
transportation advocates, also opposes the push, arguing
that converting seatbelt laws would be an ineffectual use of
state resources and could wreak disproportionate harm on
communities of color.
Boston Cyclists Union Executive Director Becca Wolfson,
whose group is a member of the coalition, said the
Transportation Committee extending its review period on
Baker's bill is "a little bit troubling."
"It means we're going to be doubling down on our
communication and activating folks to reach out to the
committee members to know how serious the consequences would
be if we passed this," Wolfson said. "We've activated folks
and have a lot of support for our opposition to this bill."
Baker's wide-ranging bill would also allow municipalities to
post red-light cameras at select intersections, add
penalties for driving recklessly, causing injury or causing
death with a suspended license, and reform the commercial
licensing process.
The New Boston
Post
Monday, January 31, 2022
Republican Chris Doughty Weighs In On Taxes, Business
Climate, Abortion
In Bid For Governor of Massachusetts
By Tom Joyce
Chris Doughty wants to make sure both major political
parties have a voice on Beacon Hill next year.
The 59-year-old Republican from Wrentham understands that
the Democratic Party will control both chambers of the
legislature, but sees an opportunity for his side of the
aisle to maintain the governorship.
Doughty, the president of Capstan Atlantic, a gear
manufacturer in Wrentham, announced last week he’s running
for governor. He spoke with NewBostonPost in a telephone
interview this past Friday and explained why he is running
to replace Charlie Baker, 65, a Republican who is planning
to step down after two four-year terms.
“There’s really two reasons,” Doughty said. “One is to keep
the balance in the State House. I think that’s part of the
miracle of Massachusetts is that we consistently elect
governors from the private sector that are conservative to
keep the balance in the State House. The other reason is: I
want to fix the affordability problems in the state,
particularly for our citizens and also for our businesses.”
Doughty (the “o” in the first syllable is long, and rhymes
with “go”) said that he thinks his experience in the private
sector would be helpful as governor.
“I think there’s several elements to that one,” he said.
“One is that I have lived with both good and bad policies
that have come from the State House, so I know what it feels
like at the end of the row. I think because of that, I’ll be
sensitive to what policies we put in place and what we do in
the State House and how that will impact businesses and
their employees. Also, I think the attributes of running a
business are similar to some aspects of running a State
House. Teamwork, being fiscally aware, making sure you can
meet the budgets, being centered on the needs of the
citizens.
“You know, in a business, you become centered on the needs
of the customer. In this case, the citizens become your
customer and you’re kind of being focused on their needs and
make sure that you’re fulfilling them.”
He also noted that this experience would help him work
across the aisle. He said in his line of work, it doesn’t
matter if someone is a Democrat or a Republican. Asked how
he would work with state legislators on the other side of
the party divide, Doughty responded:
“The way I have my whole life in the business sector. We
never ask ‘Hey, which party are you in?”‘ We just start out
with ‘What’s the mission? What’s the task that we’re all
trying to solve?’ And I think it’s healthy to have different
opinions. In business, that’s how progress is made. You have
different life experiences and different perspectives and
you bring them to the table and you kind of find the right
direction with that tension of different thoughts and
different opinions.
“It’ll be a huge loss in our state, I believe, if we don’t
have both voices at the table.”
One major legislative priority for Doughty would be lowering
taxes.
“On day one, I would say to everyone that I would like to
see us begin the process of lowering our tax burdens on our
citizens–slowly over time because it takes awhile–and to
improve,” he said. “In my business, I have to do both. I
have to become more affordable and better every day, and I’d
bring that to the State House.”
When asked if he would support the kinds of tax breaks that
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker proposed during last
week’s State of the Commonwealth address, Doughty said yes.
“Yeah I think lowering taxes is wise. It puts more money in
everyone’s pocket and lets them decide how they want to
spend their hard-earned dollars. I grew up mowing lawns, so
I know the value of a dollar. Every dollar we can leave in
the citizens’ pocketbook and say ‘You keep it. You’re better
at making decisions on how to spend your money than the
government.’ I think that’s always good.”
Some of the tax cuts Baker proposed last week included:
raising the floor at which Bay Staters begin paying state
income tax (from $8,000 to $12,400 for single filers, from
$16,400 to $24,800 for joint filers and from $14,400 to
$18,650 for heads of household); increasing the senior
circuit breaker property tax credit for seniors earning less
than $63,000 per year ($93,000 for married couples) from
$1,170 to $2,340; allowing renters to deduct 50 percent of
their annual rent from their tax bill up to $5,000 (it’s
currently at $3,000); and doubling the state’s dependent
care tax credit for people with children under 12, a
disabled dependent, or a dependent over 65 years old (making
it $480 for single filers with one dependent, $960 if a
filer has two or more dependents, $360 for households with
one dependent, and $720 for households with two ore more
dependents).
Doughty also said that more government regulation isn’t the
answer to making the state more affordable for individuals.
On his political philosophy, he described himself as a Chris
Doughty Republican. He said that a Chris Doughty Republican
is pragmatic, has common sense, listens to others, and tries
to get things right. He also said that former president
Ronald Reagan is his political role model and that he
admired Reagan’s sense of humor, wit, communication skills,
and how he stuck to his principles.
On abortion, Doughty said he is pro-life — and that
protecting the unborn is an important issue to him.
“Yeah I’m pro-life. There’s exceptions, course, but yeah.”
The exceptions Doughty supports are for cases of rape and
incest.
Speaking further on the issue, Doughty said that he would
support policies that reduce the number of abortions that
take place in the Commonwealth.
“It’s encouraging that it has fallen in half over time,”
Doughty said. “We’re going in the right direction as a
society and as a people. And anything I can do to keep us
moving in that right direction. I can think of fewer things
that are a lose-lose-lose than abortion.”
As Doughty points out, the number of abortions that take
place in Massachusetts has fallen dramatically over the past
four decades. While there were 44,044 abortions in the
Commonwealth in 1979, the figure dropped to 16,452 in 2020,
the most recent data available.
Shortly after he announced his run, Doughty received
endorsements from a pair of state representatives: Shawn
Dooley (R-Norfolk) and Peter Durant (R-Spencer). Doughty
told NewBostonPost he has been encouraged by the amount of
support he has received thus far.
“I’m really grateful for those who have come forward, I’ve
been overwhelmed with how many people have contacted me to
offer their support, their help,” he said. “I think there
was a real appetite for someone like myself to get into the
race.”
Doughty is one of a few Republicans in the race for
governor. Other candidates include former state
representative Geoff Diehl (R-Whitman), who was endorsed by
former President Donald Trump in October 2021; and former
Lowell city council candidate Darius Mitchell. On the
Democratic side, the candidates include: attorney general
Maura Healey, Harvard professor Danielle Allen, and state
Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz (D-Jamaica Plain).
The GOP primary is set for September 2022. The general
election is in November.
The Boston
Herald
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Consultants the only sure winners as Doughty looks for
moderate votes
By Peter Lucas
Chris Doughty could be Charlie Baker’s third term.
The 59-year-old moderate Republican businessman from
Wrentham even looks a bit like the outgoing governor,
especially when Baker, 65, was first elected governor in
2014.
He sounds like him, too.
But he has not like Baker run for office before.
Doughty’s opponent in the GOP primary is conservative former
state Rep. Geoff Diehl, 52, of Whitman who has run statewide
twice, once in a primary and again in a November election.
Diehl is a former President Donald Trump supporter who has
been endorsed by the former president.
Doughty, a self-styled moderate, said he voted for Hillary
Clinton over Trump in 2016 but voted for Trump in 2020, a
vote that is bound to be brought up by Diehl conservatives.
Doughty started and runs Capstan Atlantic, a manufacturing
firm that employs some 300 people in two plants.
He said he made his decision to run when he saw that there
were no moderate Republicans seeking to run for governor.
That first Baker gubernatorial victory was many snowstorms
ago. Now, after serving two terms, Baker is not seeking
re-election and Doughty is hoping to succeed him.
Wealthy businessmen do not fare well in Massachusetts
politics. Often, they think that because they can run a
successful business as Doughty has, they can get elected to
high office or run a government.
In lieu of a campaign organization or campaign contributors,
they spend a fortune of their own money hiring political
consultants who tell them what to say, how to say it and who
to say it to.
And when the candidate loses, the consultants walk away with
bags of cash and the ex-candidate’s wife (or by now ex-wife)
and kids are asking where all the money went.
A classic example of a rich businessman and philanthropist
losing his shirt in Massachusetts politics was the 2009 U.S.
Senate campaign of Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca.
Pagliuca, with no campaign experience, sought the Democrat
nomination to succeed the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, vowing to
spend up to $20 million of his own money. The consultants
drooled.
When the dust settled Pagliuca ended up fourth in a
four-candidate primary with just 12% of the vote, or 80,000
votes. The winner was then-Attorney General Martha Coakley
who got 47% and 310,827 votes.
Coakley went on to lose the election to Republican Scott
Brown, who was later ousted by Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
But the real winners were the political consultants that
campaign novice Pagliuca surrounded himself with. They went
home rich.
This is not to say that Doughty will go down that path. But
he has attracted some attention by promising to spend
$500,000 of his own money to defeat Diehl in the primary.
Diehl so far has raised some $325,000 from contributors.
A Republican primary is small beer and far less costly when
compared to the Democrats, and Doughty’s half million for
starters will go a long way.
While there are 1.2 million registered Democrats and 2.7
million Independents, who normally don’t vote in primaries,
there are only 459,663 registered Republicans, many of whom
don’t vote anyway.
For instance, in the GOP 2018 primary for the U.S. Senate,
which Diehl won over two opponents — Beth Lindstrom and John
Kingston — the total vote cast for the three candidates was
261,179 votes. Diehl received 144,043 votes, or 56% of the
vote.
It is true that Diehl, like Doughty, has not run a city or
state government before. But Diehl has run two statewide
campaigns.
Doughty, the father of six children and grandfather of four,
is pro-life, as is Diehl.
While Baker has not come out in support of fellow moderate
Doughty, he will at least tilt toward him.
That is because Baker is at war with Diehl and the
Republican State Committee, now run by Trump-supporting
conservative Jim Lyons, the chairman, who supports Diehl.
Baker is a longtime Trump foe.
So take your pick.
Then consider that the winner will most likely face Democrat
Attorney General Maura Healey in the November election.
Healey is a heavy favorite to win the Democratic nomination
over fellow candidates state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz,
D-Boston, and Harvard Professor Danielle Allen.
Candidates will lose, but the consultants will win. They
always do.
— Peter Lucas is a veteran
Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
WGBH -
Greater Boston
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Is everyone underestimating Geoff Diehl?
By Adam Reilly
When Ben Downing, the first candidate to jump into the 2022
governor’s race, ended his campaign a month ago, he warned
his fellow Democrats not to take victory for granted. “I’ve
heard too much, from too many Democrats … that with Gov.
[Charlie] Baker and Lt. Gov. [Karen] Polito not running for
reelection, that somehow this race is a slam dunk and a
guarantee,” Downing said.
Given Baker’s high approval ratings, it’s easy to see why
some Democrats might have celebrated his decision not to
seek a third term. But the complacency Downing described
also suggests a low regard for Geoff Diehl, the former state
representative from Whitman who announced his run for
governor last July.
Diehl served in the Legislature from 2011 to 2018, and in
2014, he helped lead a successful ballot-question campaign
to end automatic hikes to the state’s gas tax. Lately,
though, Diehl’s electoral fortunes have foundered. In 2015,
he ran unsuccessfully in a special election for state
Senate. In 2016, when he helped lead Donald Trump’s
presidential campaign in Massachusetts, Trump lost the state
to Hillary Clinton by 27 percentage points. And in 2018,
after winning the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate,
Diehl was routed by Elizabeth Warren in the general
election, winning 36 percent of the vote to Warren’s 60.
Despite those setbacks, however, dismissing Diehl as
unelectable would be a mistake. Thanks to the idiosyncrasies
of Massachusetts politics, the 2022 governor’s race will
offer him structural advantages the 2018 Senate race didn’t.
And while Diehl’s strengths as a campaigner and candidate
are debatable, he possesses one invaluable skill: an ability
to intuit what various constituencies want to hear and to
shape his message accordingly — even if that means, on
occasion, saying different things to different people.
For the record, it’s not just Democratic partisans who
struggle to take Diehl seriously. In 2021, when a primary
contest pitting Baker against Diehl looked likely, former
state GOP chair Jennifer Nassour told GBH News her party
would be foolish to make Diehl its nominee. “If you cannot
win for state Senate, and if you cannot win statewide office
running for U.S. Senate, then the chance that you can
actually win in a general election for governor is pretty
slim to none,” Nassour said.
Paul Watanabe, a professor of political science and the
director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at
UMass Boston, is similarly pessimistic. For one thing, he
thinks Diehl’s recent losses will keep Massachusetts voters
from seeing him as a fresh political face in the mold of
then-state Sen. Scott Brown, who stunned Democratic nominee
Martha Coakley in the 2010 U.S. Senate special election that
followed the death of Ted Kennedy.
What’s more, Watanabe sees Diehl’s pitch — which includes an
early endorsement from Trump and staunch opposition to mask
and vaccine mandates — as inherently limited, compared to
those of Republicans who’ve previously become governor.
“You can get every Republican vote and still get [just] 10
percent of the vote in Massachusetts,” Watanabe said.
“That’s not a substantial amount. You’ve got to be able to
appeal broadly. … I don’t think Diehl’s message is one
that’s going to appeal broadly in the way that [Mitt] Romney
and Baker and [Bill] Weld have been able to do.”
Still, while Watanabe is skeptical, he allows that a Diehl
nomination wouldn't mean an automatic Democratic victory.
Democratic activist Liam Kerr is less charitable: in an
opinion piece for GBH News, he argued that Baker's
popularity has masked a protracted Republican collapse in
Massachusetts, and that the 2022 Democratic primary will
determine the next governor.
But Democratic strategist Doug Rubin, who helped Deval
Patrick make the jump from unknown to governor in 2006, has
a very different take on Diehl’s prospects.
“The most important thing in Massachusetts politics for
governor — separate from every other race in the state — is
that, for whatever reason, voters for governor don’t seem to
see Democrat and Republican,” Rubin said. “They see
insider-outsider. And they want an outsider in that
governor’s office.”
In the past three decades, Rubin points out, that dynamic
has resulted in just one Democrat, Patrick serving as
governor. Every other occupant of the corner office has been
a Republican.
“One reason Deval Patrick was able to break that Republican
streak is because he was perceived as an outsider who was
willing to stand up to the Legislature and fight for the
people of Massachusetts,” Rubin said. “And look, if Geoff
Diehl is able to paint the Democratic nominee as an insider,
and is able to paint himself credibly as an outsider …
that’s the path to victory for Republicans. It’s a pretty
simple path.”
That outsider-insider narrative might be tough for Diehl to
push if he’s the nominee and his opponent is Harvard
political theorist Danielle Allen, who’s never held elected
office. But against Sonia Chang-Díaz, an incumbent state
Senator in the Democrat-dominated Legislature, it would be
considerably easier. Against new entry Maura Healey — who’s
in her second term as attorney general, and is widely seen
as the preferred candidate of the Democratic establishment —
it might be easiest of all.
Healey, it’s worth noting, brings important strengths to the
race that Diehl lacks, including high name recognition and a
campaign war chest of nearly $4 million. (Recent state
filings show Diehl with less than $105,000 cash on hand.)
Then again, after announcing her long-awaited candidacy
earlier this month, Healey now has to contend with the
burden of high expectations. Diehl may benefit from the
exact opposite dynamic: since so few people outside the
state’s small conservative base expect his campaign to
succeed, pressure and scrutiny are, at this point, almost
nonexistent.
That, too, is reminiscent of the 2006 campaign, in which
Patrick was initially dismissed by many political observers
— a response Rubin said can be liberating for a candidate.
“I think there’s an opportunity, as somebody who is written
off or discounted, to appeal to different voters, to try
different messages, to try different ways of campaigning,”
Rubin said. “[And] in the environment we’re in right now –
where people are frustrated and disappointed in their
leaders, and checking out of politics because they don’t
think it applies to them — that gives that person, if they
run a smart campaign and have a good message. an opportunity
to bring those people back in.”
As Rubin points out, the Patrick analogy has its limits.
Despite being a neophyte candidate in 2006, Patrick was a
political natural blessed with eloquence, charisma, and
unerring instincts, at least during the campaign.
Diehl is less sure footed. In December 2021, GBH News asked
his campaign to comment on racist remarks left on Diehl’s
Facebook page as he decried vaccine mandates issued by
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. The politically smart move, for a
would-be governor, would have been to decry any and all
racism while reiterating his avowed commitment to personal
freedom. Instead, Diehl’s campaign provided a statement
saying Diehl shouldn’t be judged by his supporters’ actions
on social media.
In his stronger moments, though, Diehl comes across as an
affable everyman-turned-politician — the neighbor who you
might not always agree with, but whose earnestness and
civic-mindedness you have to respect. That persona was on
full display in “Bay State With A Bronco,” the folksy,
upbeat web series Diehl produced while mulling a run for
governor. In a May 2021 episode, he fretted about the future
of the country during an outdoor chat with GOP chair Jim
Lyons. “Just hopefully, you know, we have respectful
discussions between people who are elected and the people
who support them,” Diehl said. “Because our country’s really
taken a hard turn lately.” Even if you weren’t totally sure
what Diehl meant, it was a statement that invited tentative
head nods across the political spectrum.
But that example doesn’t do justice to Diehl’s nimbleness as
a communicator. Consider the varied ways in which he’s
discussed the 2020 election, suggesting to different groups
of potential voters that his understanding matches their
own.
In July 2021, GBH’s Greater Boston host Jim Braude asked
Diehl if Trump’s claim that he won the election was correct.
“Uh, no,” Diehl replied. “Look, those states — obviously,
they’ve got to clear — sort out if they had any problems
with voting, but look, I don’t think it was a stolen
election.” It was time, Diehl added, for Republicans to
“move forward [and] stop crying over spilled milk.”
It was a perfect response for wooing public-television
viewers — and substantially different from what Diehl said,
a couple weeks later, when WCVB’s Janet Wu asked Diehl if
the election had been stolen from Trump. “I don’t know,”
Diehl answered. “I don’t think you or anybody knows at this
point.”
In September 2021, when Diehl spoke outside the State House
at a conservative “freedom rally,” he seemed far less
ambivalent. Responding to shouts of “Stop the steal!” — the
mantra of Trump supporters who believe Biden's presidency is
illegitimate — Diehl said, “We got a concern about elections
being fixed. You guys — you guys think that 2020 was a
problem? You guys think that mail-in voting was a problem? I
agree with you!”
Collectively, these campaign-trail snippets evoke the
approach used by Glenn Youngkin, the new governor of
Virginia, to oust Democratic incumbent Terry McAuliffe last
year. In that race, Youngkin was able to appeal to Trump
loyalists while simultaneously keeping the former president
at bay, even after Trump endorsed him. “Furious Democratic
attacks that he was a Trumpian wolf in suburban-dad fleece
never quite stuck because, in both biography and manner, Mr.
Youngkin did not fit the former president’s bullying,
self-aggrandizing profile,” the New York Times concluded.
“[Youngkin’s] ability to direct multiple messages — red meat
to the G.O.P. base via interviews with right-wing media, and
a less divisive pitch to swing voters — will serve as a
blueprint for his party in the midterms.” Massachusetts is
not Virginia, and Diehl does not have Youngkin’s personal
wealth. But the strategic parallels are evident.
Of course, for Diehl to fully emulate Youngkin, he’ll have
to get through the Republican primary. As of last week, he
has some competition: Chris Doughty, a Wrentham businessman,
announced his own bid for governor Wednesday, touting
himself as a process-oriented job-creator in a kickoff
video. But Doughty, who’s never run for office before, may
find that the appetite for his political profile is limited
these days. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Doughty
acknowledged voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016, which is
unlikely to please the Republican base. He also said he
voted for Trump in 2020, which is unlikely to please
moderate Republicans and Republican-leaning unenrolled
voters concerned with the party’s ongoing shift rightward.
In addition, even if Doughty proves to be a quick study,
Diehl has already forged a strong relationship with the
voters who’ll choose the next Republican nominee. In October
2021, a poll commissioned by the Democratic Governors
Association showed Diehl leading Baker by 21 points in a
hypothetical primary matchup — with the margin growing to 32
points when respondents were told of Trump’s endorsement.
And yet, for Massachusetts electorate as a whole, Diehl
remains a largely unknown quantity, even after running
statewide in 2018. A survey released this week by the
MassINC Polling Group found that 18 percent of registered
voters know of Diehl but haven’t formed an opinion about
him, and that 51 percent haven’t heard of him at all.
Those findings make it clear that Diehl — who did not
comment for this story — has plenty of work to do if he
wants to become governor. But they also suggest that he has
an enviable opportunity, even after a decade in public life,
to re-introduce himself to voters in a way that maximizes
his appeal and viability.
The shadow state-of-the-state address Diehl delivered this
week, hooked to Baker's final such speech as governor,
suggests he plans to take full advantage. After nodding to
the right with a call to unmask kids and provide more
parental control of education, Diehl spoke of making
Massachusetts more affordable, and panned the Legislature’s
decision to spend federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds on
“pet projects." He closed by referencing his own experience
as an Eagle Scout — saying it taught him to “leave the
campsite better than you found it,” and vowing to apply that
maxim to Massachusetts. If, like nearly half the state's
voters, you didn’t have an opinion of Diehl before watching
it, you might have liked what you heard.
— Adam Reilly is a reporter
at GBH-TV's Greater Boston.
The Boston
Herald
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Maura Healey ready to break attorney general “curse,” hits
back “anti-business” label
By Erin Tiernan
Maura Healey said she’s ready to break a supposed “curse”
that’s blocked six past attorneys general from running
successful bids for the governor’s seat and and she pushed
back on her “anti-business” label while making the rounds on
Sunday morning political shows.
“Business benefits when every family is doing well
economically,” Healey said on WBZ’s “Keller @ Large” when
host Jon Keller said establishment Democrats and Republicans
consider the two-term attorney general “anti-business.”
“Every family sees an opportunity for mobility. Some of the
things I’ve been talking with business leaders about include
workforce development. You’ve got a lot of jobs that are
open right now. We have to find ways to train up people to
fill jobs that are readily available right now in our
state,” Healey continued.
Healey highlighted her “record of demonstrated results” as
the state’s top law enforcement official, winning lawsuits
and going after predatory lenders and businesses — including
several who capitalized off of the pandemic by slinging
subpar masks and hand sanitizer.
“The people of the commonwealth have really gotten their
bang for the buck out of us,” she said.
Healey said she would focus on “workforce development” as
the state emerges from the pandemic and touted her goal to
reform and increase funding for child care, which is among
the most costly in the nation here.
Asked by “On the Record” host Ed Harding whether she
believes in a supposed “curse” blocking attorneys general
from taking the corner office, Healey said, “Obviously we
don’t because we’re running for governor.”
“During my time I’m lucky to have seen some curses broken
here, and I sure hope that we can break this,” the two-term
attorney general said.
Healey launched her campaign just over a week ago after
months of speculation that she would run. She told Keller
she was “seriously” considering running “before Gov.
(Charlie) Baker made his decision.”
Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito in December announced they
would not run for a third term, allowing Healey to enter as
a front-runner.
She’ll face Harvard Professor Danielle Allen and state Sen.
Sonia Chang-Diaz in a Democratic primary come September.
Two Republicans — the Trump-endorsed Geoff Diehl and
businessman Chris Doughty — are running on the GOP side.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Healey: Fed Law Should Not “Shield” Gun Manufacturers
By Matt Murphy
Returning to an issue that was at the center of her first
campaign, Attorney General Maura Healey led a coalition of
state prosecutors on Tuesday in the filing of a brief in
U.S. District Court supporting Mexico in its consumer
protection case against seven gun manufacturers and a
Massachusetts-based gun distributor.
Healey led a group of 14 attorneys general in their argument
that federal law does not shield gun manufacturers and
dealers from consumer laws governing the marketing and sale
firearms.
The Mexican governor has alleged that Springfield-based
Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta, Century Arms,
Colt, Glock, Ruger and Massachusetts-based distributor
Interstate Arms designs, markets and distributes guns in a
manner they know appeal to Mexican drug cartels and violent
gangs.
The attorney general said the Protection of Lawful Commerce
in Arms Act should be "narrowly interpreted" so as not to
"displace" traditional state regulation, including consumer
protection laws. The coalition said the PLCAA was meant only
to bar lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers that
seek to hold them liable for harms committed by third
parties.
"It is unacceptable for gun manufacturers and distributors
to knowingly market their products in a way that facilitates
the illegal trafficking of weapons into the hands of
dangerous individuals," Healey said in a statement. "We urge
the Court to recognize that gun dealers, manufacturers, and
distributors may be held accountable under state laws for
how they market and sell their products."
Gun control became a major issue in Healey's first campaign
for attorney general in 2014 when she and fellow Democratic
candidate Warren Tolman clashed over whether the attorney
general had the authority under the state's consumer
protection laws to require fingerprint trigger lock
technology on guns sold in Massachusetts.
Healey argued the Legislature would need to pass a law to
give the attorney general's office the power to require the
technology, and argued for a broader approach to gun control
that included tracing all guns used in crimes committed in
Massachusetts, requiring all private gun sales to be
conducted through a registered gun dealer and the closure
what she described as a loophole that allowed guns to enter
the state untraced through gun shows and private sales.
Smith & Wesson recently announced last fall that it planned
to relocate its headquarters and a large portion of its
operations to Tennessee in 2023 after 169 years being based
in Springfield. Corporate executives sited the "changing
business climate" for firearm manufacturers in Massachusetts
as a motivating factor.
Healey announced last month that she was running for
governor in 2022. |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ (781) 639-9709
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|
