 |
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
Sunday, June 5, 2022
More Over-Taxation
Mounts As
Tax Rebates Remain Elusive
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
|
Most Relevant News
Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
|
|
The good
times continue to roll for Massachusetts tax
collectors and for the lawmakers who remain on track
to be gifted a massive election-year surplus.
Baker
administration officials announced Friday that the
Department of Revenue hauled in $2.478 billion in
May, $186 million or 8 percent more than the monthly
benchmark after accounting for a new elective
pass-through entity excise that affected
collections.
May 2022
revenues dropped compared to last year, when DOR
took in just more than $4 billion, but officials
said that decline is largely because of one-time
changes in the annual income tax filing timeline
made in 2021....
Massachusetts so far has collected $36.969 billion
in tax revenue through the first 11 months of fiscal
year 2022. After adjusting for the new excise, that
pot stands $4.726 billion or 15.5 percent higher
than the same period in fiscal year 2021 as well as
$1.965 billion or 5.9 percent more than the
year-to-date benchmark.
The Bay
State would only need to bring in a little less than
$700 million in taxes in June to surpass the third
and latest benchmark upgrade of $37.666 billion,
which the Baker administration set in mid-May after
a string of way-above-projected monthly collections.
Baker has
been pushing for months to enact $700 million in tax
relief, including reforms to the capital gains and
estate tax as well as breaks for renters, seniors
and low-income residents. Democrats who control the
House and Senate have not embraced Baker's push, and
while they say they intend to advance a tax relief
package by the July 31 end of formal sessions, they
have yet to outline any specific plans.
State
House News Service
Friday, June 3, 2022
Revenue Collections
Again Beat Expectations In May
FY2022
year-to-date collections totaled approximately
$36.969 billion, which is $6.519 billion or 21.4%
more than collections in the same period of FY2021,
and $2.666 billion or 7.8% more than the
year-to-date benchmark. After adjusting for PTE
excise, FY2022 year-to-date collections are $4.726
billion or 15.5% more than collections in the same
period of FY2021 and $1.965 billion or 5.9% more
than the year-to-date benchmark.
“The
decrease in May 2022 revenue in comparison to May
2021 is primarily due to an expected decline in
income tax return payments, which is largely
attributable to the extension of last year’s income
tax filing and payment deadline from April 15, 2021
to May 17, 2021,” said Commissioner Snyder. “The
decrease in income tax return payments was partially
offset by increases in other major tax categories
including withholding, sales and use tax, and ‘all
other’ tax.”
Massachusetts Department of Revenue
Press Release
June 3, 2022
May Revenue Collections Total $2.478
Billion
Gas prices
have hit a new record high in the Bay State at $4.84
per gallon.
The cost
of butter, bacon, meat and poultry is heading in the
same direction. Inflation is just hammering family
budgets.
And the
state Legislature is moving quickly … to override
Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto of a bill allowing illegal
immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. That vote is
set for Wednesday in the House.
The
lawmakers are not, however, doing anything to lessen
the hurt at the pump. Connecticut, Georgia, Florida,
Maryland, New York, California and Michigan have all
moved to help by dropping the gas tax or are
discussing how to bail residents out....
In
Massachusetts? It’s not that important, it seems,
but racing to override the Republican governor at
every turn seems to be the go-to move of the day.
It’s not lost on anyone that this weekend’s
Democratic state party convention was the next step
in Maura Healey’s front-runner march to the Corner
Office.
But, could
Democrats be headed for a big surprise come November
here? Nationwide there’s no doubt voters are fed up
with Nancy Pelosi’s failed leadership of the House
with President Biden seemingly tripping over his own
dismal poll numbers and looking for excuses.
Bay State
Republican gubernatorial candidates Geoff Diehl and
Chris Doughty have an opening if the state
Legislature continues to ignore just how difficult
life has become for taxpayers. A year ago a gallon
of regular gas was $2.92 in the state....
Forget
about the elderly living on fixed incomes or young
parents trying to juggle bills.
Instead of
thwarting Baker at every turn, the state Legislature
needs to do what they’ve been elected to do — serve
the people.
“Instead
of prioritizing a gas tax suspension, or any kind of
broad tax relief aimed at the middle class, Speaker
Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka have
used their political capital to appease the special
interest groups that dominate Democratic primaries,”
said MassFiscal’s spokesman Paul Diego Craney.
Martha
Coakley made a similar mistake. She won her primary
for the U.S. Senate in the 2010 special election to
fill Ted Kennedy’s seat. She took a victory lap and
put her feet up. That allowed Republican Scott Brown
to fire up voters.
She was
defeated 52% to 47%. Beacon Hill could be on that
same track if enough people ultimately say “enough”
this fall.
A Boston
Herald editorial
Sunday, June 5, 2022
Blindness on Beacon Hill
The budget
that the House and Senate will need to square
between them has left the upper chamber, ballooning
to just shy of $49.8 billion and leaving the two
legislative bodies little time to consider the tax
cuts not included in either body’s bill.
“This
budget contains no tax increase, this contains no
tax decreases,” Senate Ways and Means Chairman
Michael Rodrigues said to start debate on the
budget.
Three days
and more than 1,100 amendments later — over 500 of
which were adopted — and Rodrigues’ prediction
proved true. None of Gov. Charlie Baker’s tax cut
proposals were included in the final engrossed
version of the bill.
“We know
the governor has filed, separately from the budget,
tax relief proposals totaling well over $700
million. We know (Senate President Karen Spilka) has
been very public and clear that we in the Senate
will engage in tax discussions and a tax debate in
the near future, so we can apply our collective
wisdom on how to provide and how to focus relief for
hardworking people in the Commonwealth,” Rodrigues
told the Senate.
The
Senate’s budget, grown by nearly $100 million over
days of debate, was approved unanimously and will
now move to conference with the House; the lower
chamber’s April budget proposal also neared $50
billion in spending with no tax cuts included....
Republicans in both chambers have attempted to offer
a gas tax holiday in light of recent record-high
fuel prices. Both chambers rejected those proposals
by wide margins.
Republicans also offered tax cuts to mirror Baker’s
offering, which would have seen relief for seniors,
renters and low-income families and a reduction in
estate and property taxes. Those proposals were also
resoundingly rejected.
House
Speaker Ronald Mariano told reporters last week he
had his colleagues in the House working on some sort
of tax relief, though he wouldn’t allow himself to
be nailed down on what that relief would look like
but said the House will “try and put some things
together.”
“We’re
working on something. My goal is to have something
done,” he said....
“Anyone
who’s been involved with the Legislature knows that
we operate best up against deadlines because it
forces people to take a realistic view of their
position,” Mariano said.
The
Boston Herald
Monday, May 30, 2022
Massachusetts Legislature
moves budget to final committee,
leaves tax cuts for later
Deadlines
have also lost some of their meaning for reports
from standing committees. Under legislative rules,
committees were required to report on timely-filed
legislation by Feb. 2 -- but most committees secure
multiple deadline extensions without much
resistance, allowing them to postpone action on
scores of bills.
One of the
six deadline extensions agreed to Thursday in the
Senate would push the Revenue Committee's deadline
to act on 96 bills until Sunday, July 31 -- the
final day of formal sessions for this term.
State
House News Service
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Senate Session Summary - Thursday, June 2, 2022
Committees Keep Grip On
Bills As Formal Sessions Wind Down
The House
processed nearly a dozen extension orders Thursday,
giving committees a little more of the limited time
left for formal lawmaking to consider bills before
them.
Among the
bills extended Thursday was the so-called Safe
Communities Act (H 2418) which would restrict local
and state law enforcement officials from asking
about a person's immigration status and limit
cooperation with federal immigration officials. The
Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security now
has until June 24 to decide how to handle that bill.
It was previously due to render its decision by
Wednesday.
State
House News Service
Thursday, June 2, 2022
House Session Summary -
Thursday, June 2, 2022
It will be
a familiar group that works over the next month (and
possibly longer) to hammer out a compromise plan for
spending about $50 billion next budget year and to
decide which of the various policy riders lashed to
the House and Senate budgets will actually make it
to the governor's desk.
The House
and Senate on Thursday morning each appointed its
Ways and Means Committee chair, vice chair and
ranking minority member to serve on the budget
conference committee: Reps. Aaron Michlewitz of
Boston, Ann-Margaret Ferrante of Gloucester and Todd
Smola of Warren, and Sens. Michael Rodrigues of
Westport, Cindy Friedman of Arlington and Patrick
O'Connor of Weymouth.
The budget
conference committee is likely to begin its
discussions in public and then vote to retreat
behind closed doors to hash out differences between
the House and Senate versions of the budget (H 4701
/ S 2915). It was not immediately clear Thursday if
the first meeting had been scheduled and spokesmen
for the Ways and Means committees did not
immediately respond.
While the
spending levels are similar -- $49.76 billion in the
House bill and $49.92 billion in the Senate's
proposal -- the two bills take different approaches
to that spending and each branch included its own
suite of policy proposals. The Senate, for example,
included licensing protections for doctors and other
professionals involved with providing reproductive
care in its budget while the House budget would
extend free, universal school meals for another
year, make phone calls free for incarcerated people
and ban child marriage.
Last year,
the same group of six lawmakers was appointed as
budget conferees on June 7 and agreed on July 8 to a
compromise $48.1 billion budget bill. The new budget
year, fiscal year 2023, begins July 1 but
Massachusetts rarely has its annual budget in place
by then. Instead, the Legislature and governor
typically approve one month's worth of spending as a
stop-gap measure.
Twenty-nine of the 46 states that start their fiscal
years on July 1 have already put their budgets in
place, according to the National Association of
State Budget Officers.
State
House News Service
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Budget Negotiators
Named With 29 Days 'til Fiscal New Year
The
Legislature is on its own biennial collision course
with July 31, typically the end of serious lawmaking
for the two-year session as the political world
shifts into campaign mode.
"We have a
lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it,"
[Rep. Danielle ] Gregoire said this week.
She was
talking specifically about work on the
infrastructure bond bill, but her words are
essentially the mantra of Beacon Hill lawmakers now
that the their 19-month window of opportunity is
closing.
The only
thing that the Legislature is really required to do
is finalize a budget. The House and Senate got the
gang back together this week, reappointing the same
six lawmakers who knitted the current year's
compromise budget to do the same for the budget year
that starts July 1.
Reps.
Aaron Michlewitz of Boston, Ann-Margaret Ferrante of
Gloucester and Todd Smola of Warren, and Sens.
Michael Rodrigues of Westport, Cindy Friedman of
Arlington and Patrick O'Connor of Weymouth will meet
virtually Wednesday to start the talks that are
expected to lead, some time by the end of July, to a
compromise budget that will spend about $50 billion.
One of
their first orders of business could be to update
the expected revenue base that each chamber built
its spending plan on. Word came Friday from the
Department of Revenue that fiscal year 2022 tax
collections are at least about $2 billion ahead of
expectations with one month left and have already
surpassed next year's consensus revenue estimate of
$36.915 billion that was announced in January.
Unless the
budget negotiators work much faster than has been
their custom, the tan that Baker picked up in San
Diego this week will likely have faded by the time a
budget hits his desk.
State
House News Service
Friday, June 3, 2022
Weekly Roundup
In his
veto letter, Baker cited concerns about
identification and about unintentionally giving
non-citizens the ability to vote.
“I cannot
sign this legislation because it requires the
Registry of Motor Vehicles to issue state
credentials to people without the ability to verify
their identity,” two-term Republican governor wrote.
Baker had
previously voiced misgivings about the bill, so his
veto was not entirely unexpected. The bill’s
prospects for being enacted, however, remain good,
with the Democratic-dominated House and Senate both
passing the measure by margins great enough to
override Baker’s veto.
The bill
would require immigrants to provide two documents: a
foreign passport or consular identification document
and one of five other documents, which could include
documents issued in another country, like a foreign
license or birth certificate. Baker worried that
registry employees do not have the expertise or
ability to verify the validity of documents issued
by other countries.
“Consequently, a standard Massachusetts driver’s
license will no longer confirm that a person is who
they say they are,” Baker wrote.
Baker said
he does not like that under the bill, there would be
no distinction between a state driver’s license
issued to a person who is lawfully present in the US
and one who is not....
The bill
would also restrict the RMV from sharing information
about citizenship with election officials – although
it would direct the secretary of state to develop
rules to ensure there is no improper voting
registration. Baker said that protection is
insufficient. “This bill significantly increases the
risk that noncitizens will be registered to vote,”
Baker wrote.
CommonWealth Magazine
Friday, May 27, 2022
Baker vetoes driver’s
license bill for undocumented immigrants
Cites concerns about identification, voting
Lawmakers
are set Wednesday to begin the final votes necessary
to enact a new law granting immigrants without
lawful presence in the state the ability to obtain a
standard driver's license. The votes are there in
the House and Senate to override Gov. Charlie
Baker's veto of the bill. The House is ready to
start the override process on Wednesday and the
Senate intends to override next week, and plans to
hold a formal session on Thursday.
Lawmakers
now have just eight weeks left to wrap up scores of
important loose ends, all of which remain tied up in
either House-Senate conference committees or further
back in the queue before joint or standing
committees.
State
House News Service
Friday, June 3, 2022
Advances - Week of June 5, 2022
Gov.
Charlie Baker on Wednesday nominated Rep. James
Kelcourse [R-Amesbury] for a seat on the state's
Parole Board, a move that could create another
vacancy in the House of Representatives in the tail
end of the legislative session and further dwindle
the ranks of the House's minority caucus ahead of
this fall elections....
Kelcourse
has served in the House since 2015, where he is one
of 28 Republicans in the 160-seat body. He ran
unsuccessfully for mayor of Amesbury last fall and
was backed by Baker in that bid.
In
January, Baker nominated another House Republican,
Sheila Harrington of Groton, to serve as Gardner
District Court clerk magistrate. She resigned in
February to join the court and her seat will remain
vacant through the end of this session.
Ipswich
Republican Brad Hill left the House last year to
join the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, and Rep.
Jamie Belsito, a Topsfield Democrat, flipped the
seat in a special election....
Baker's
nomination of Kelcourse comes a day after the May 31
deadline for legislative candidates to submit their
nomination papers to the secretary of state's
office.
State
House News Service
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
Baker Picks GOP Rep.
Kelcourse For Parole Board
Guv Continues To Thin House GOP Ranks
They are
an increasingly marginalized breed in Texas and
Florida. They haven’t made it to the front of the
presidential pack in a decade. And even in
Massachusetts, once a cradle of Rockefeller
Republicanism, the moderate GOP teeters on the brink
of extinction: most of the party’s candidates for
statewide office this year revere Donald Trump and
reject the politics of retiring Governor Charlie
Baker.
At the
Massachusetts GOP’s convention two weekends ago,
speakers falsely claimed that the 2020 election was
“stolen,” labeled Democrats “evil,” and reprised a
2016 greatest hit, chanting “Lock her up! Lock her
up!” at the mention of Hillary Clinton. Baker, the
party’s top elected official and one of the nation’s
most popular governors, was present only on the back
of candy wrappers, sporting a red clown nose under
mocking valediction: “Adiόs, Chuckles....
That
rhetoric is easy to dismiss as irrelevant in a
reliably blue state where those extreme voices are
unlikely to win elected office. But the hard-right
turn the party has taken nonetheless signals the
continued decline of the moderate New England
Republican, long popular here for conservative
fiscal policy, a hands-off approach to social
issues, and as a counterbalance to a
Democratic-dominated Legislature.
And it
raises questions about the character of the party
nationally: If moderate voices cannot prevail in the
Massachusetts Republican Party, then where?
“I do not
recognize the party today as the party I led,” said
Fergus Cullen, who chaired the New Hampshire GOP in
2007 and 2008. He described support for Trump as the
litmus test for candidates and political operatives
across the country.
In
Massachusetts, “of all states,” one might expect
conservative Republicans to recognize that “maybe
we’re a minority, maybe we’re not the mainstream,
maybe not everyone out there agrees with us or
shares our perspective,” Cullen added. “And yet you
have a faction within that group that is
dominating.” ...
In the
past, Massachusetts Republicans have succeeded by
running away from the culture wars and hot-button
controversies of the national party. Now, they are
running toward them....
Conservatives heading the party now argue that
Baker’s moderate approach has achieved little; the
GOP has tiny minorities in the state Legislature,
and fewer than 10 percent of Massachusetts voters
are registered Republicans. A new strategy is
needed, they argue, one tied to party principles
rather than reliant on a single popular
politician....
“The state
party convention is inside, inside, inside, inside
baseball…. That is not the new Republican party,”
said Jennifer Nassour, a former chair of the MassGOP.
“The Republican Party is the one that believes in
fiscal conservatism, the one that believes that the
next governor should carry on the same messaging
that Governor Baker has.”
But
Baker’s was not the predominant message of the
candidates who won the most support at the
convention, and it is their positions whose
popularity will be tested on November’s ballot.
The
Boston Globe
Monday, May 30, 2022
Even in Massachusetts,
GOP politics are all about Trump
There has
always been a duality to the Massachusetts
Republican Party — something noble and something
dark....
Over the
last few decades, the Massachusetts GOP’s nobler
side has mostly prevailed. Governor William Weld
combined a traditional Republican push for
privatization of public services with
forward-looking views on gay rights and other social
issues. Governor Mitt Romney worked to expand health
coverage in a precursor to Obamacare. And Governor
Charlie Baker has served as a beacon of civil and
constructive conservatism in a truly frightening
moment in national Republican politics.
But Baker
isn’t running for reelection this year. And party
activists who have embraced former president Donald
Trump and chafed under Baker’s leadership in recent
years see a chance to steer the party in a very
different direction.
The
state’s voters got a visceral sense for what that
could look like at the state GOP’s convention last
weekend....
It was an
inauspicious start to the campaign season. And this
page isn’t especially hopeful that the message will
improve.
But if
Diehl is unwilling to steer the party away from the
science denialism and immigrant-bashing that
represent American conservatism at its worst,
perhaps his more moderate challenger for the GOP’s
gubernatorial nomination, businessman Chris Doughty,
can do the job.
The health
of Massachusetts’ democracy is at stake....
The
Massachusetts GOP, under Baker, is one of the few
vestiges of responsible Republicanism in the
country. If party leaders — and rank-and-file
members — snuff that out, what do we have left?
A Boston
Globe editorial
Sunday, May 29, 2022
A fateful moment for
Massachusetts Republicans
While
Democrats in other parts of the country feel like
they and their ideas are increasingly under duress
at the national level, a parade of elected officials
on Saturday urged Massachusetts Democrats to not
become complacent with the almost universal
Democratic control of elected offices here.
The
Massachusetts Democratic Party's convention at the
DCU Center in Worcester on Saturday focused on the
candidates running for state office, but speakers
also rallied the more than 5,000 blue-blooded
Democrats participating as delegates to get behind
the party's broader national messaging around issues
like abortion rights, gun control and the threat
that extremism poses to American democracy.
U.S. Rep.
James McGovern of Worcester said that the Republican
Party has embraced conspiracy theories and
misinformation and lashes out at any one who
disagrees as "pedophiles and murderers." He told
attendees of his experiences on the U.S. House floor
during the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, and said those
"very same people" are now trying to rig future
campaigns.
"We refuse
to let that happen because for all of our party's
flaws and imperfections, the Democratic Party is the
party of democracy...."
Like
McGovern, [U.S. Sen. Elizabeth] Warren also brought
up "the big lie" in her remarks and said that
Democrats around the country, including in liberal
bastions like Massachusetts, need to mobilize to
counteract the conservative movement.
"When
national Republican leaders tell us they're coming
for our rights, and when state Republican leaders
describe efforts to protect ourselves as extreme and
radical, then it is time to get angry, deep down
angry, and to channel that anger into powerful
action," she said.
Warren,
who easily turned away a challenge from Republican
gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl in the 2018 U.S.
Senate election, tied the front-runner on the GOP
side to the national GOP policies and ideas that
Democrat after Democrat railed against Saturday.
"Now a
Donald Trump wannabe is running for governor right
here in Massachusetts. Geoff Diehl has jumped on the
extremist bandwagon," Warren said. "Geoff Diehl can
try to talk out of both sides of his mouth on every
issue, but at the end of the day, he stands with the
white supremacists and January 6 insurrectionists
and anti-choice radicals who have taken over the
Republican leadership even here in Massachusetts.
And that this why he will not be the next governor
of this commonwealth."
At times,
though, the Democrats got a bit carried away with
their rousing speeches to delegates and let the
truth get away from them. U.S. Sen. Edward Markey,
for example, boomed to the crowd in Worcester that
he and Warren had voted to confirm the nation's
first Black Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown
Jackson, while "every Republican voted no."
In fact,
three Republicans in the U.S. Senate -- Susan
Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and
former Mass. governor Mitt Romney of Utah -- voted
to support Jackson's confirmation.
State
House News Service
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Republicans Top Of Mind At
Democrats' Convention
Warren Blasts "Trump Wannabe," Says "It's Time To
Get Angry"
Massachusetts Democrats on Saturday afternoon
endorsed Maura Healey's quest to move from the
attorney general's office to the governor's suite
but also put Sonia Chang-Díaz on the September
primary ballot, ensuring that Healey will have some
intraparty competition before she could turn her
full attention to any Republican opponents.
Healey,
serving her eighth year as attorney general and who
has long been viewed as a gubernatorial candidate in
waiting, took more than 71 percent of the votes cast
by party delegates at their nominating convention at
the DCU Center in Worcester. Chang-Díaz, a state
senator of more than a decade, got about 29 percent
of the delegate vote, almost double the 15 percent
required to make it onto the Sept. 6 primary
ballot....
As
attorney general, Healey focused a lot of her fire
on President Donald Trump and major corporations
like Exxon Mobil and Purdue Pharma. Her office has
also been deeply involved in the details as
Massachusetts shifts towards new sources of energy
and attempts to meet climate commitments. With her
run for governor, which she made official only after
Gov. Charlie Baker announced his intent not to run,
Healey is attempting to show voters that she has the
skills and vision for a broader role overseeing all
of state government.
Her speech
to the delegates focused mostly on her record as
attorney general and contrasts between herself and
the Republican candidates for governor here.
"They'd
take us backwards on racial justice, immigration,
gun violence, on reproductive rights and climate
change. The choice in this election could not be
more clear; a choice between progress or
partisanship, between delivering for people or
dividing them," Healey said. "Our campaign is about
coming together to fight for the things that matter,
that actually matter to people and families all
across Massachusetts."...
Salem
Mayor Kim Driscoll, who has been running the North
Shore city since 2006, topped the LG field with
support from 41.4 percent of the delegates at the
convention. She got into the lieutenant governor's
race in January promising a "new focus from Beacon
Hill" on the needs of cities of towns. Driscoll
previously worked as chief legal counsel and deputy
city manager in Chelsea and served on the Salem City
Council.....
Rep. Tami
Gouveia of Acton was a distant (but safe) second in
the lieutenant governor's field, taking 23 percent
of the delegate votes cast. Gouveia was one just two
House Democrats not to support Ron Mariano for
speaker last January and has openly called for more
transparency in the House and within the joint
committees....
Right
behind Gouveia in Saturday's balloting was Eric
Lesser, a fourth-term state senator from Longmeadow
and chairman of the Economic Development Committee.
He had the support of about 21 percent of delegates.
He dove into the race by telling voters that he "is
ready to confront the reality that Massachusetts,
despite its progressive history, has become one of
the most unequal places in the country." ...
Sen. Adam
Hinds, of Pittsfield, fell short of the 15 percent
threshold with 12.4 percent of the delegate vote
Saturday. Bret Bero, a Babson College business
professor and former small business owner, also came
up short with just 2 percent support at Saturday's
convention.
State
House News Service
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Dem Delegates Endorse
Healey, Qualify Chang-Díaz For Ballot
LG Candidates Hinds, Bero Tossed From The
Competition
Quentin
Palfrey was endorsed for attorney general, Tanisha
Sullivan was endorsed for secretary of state, and
Chris Dempsey was endorsed for state auditor, but
every Democrat running for those offices this year
secured enough support Saturday from delegates at
the Democratic Party convention to lock up a spot on
the Sept. 6 primary ballot.
Candidates
needed to win the backing of at least 15 percent of
the delegates at the convention in Worcester to keep
their campaigns alive over the summer, when they
will be able to make their case to voters statewide.
The 15 percent threshold was not too great of a
hurdle for any of the seven Democrats running for
attorney general, secretary of state or auditor.
State
House News Service
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Dem Delegates Back
Sullivan Over Galvin In Secretary Race
Palfrey, Dempsey Get Endorsements In AG, Auditor
Races
Attorney
General Maura Healey won over a crowd of liberal
activists and Massachusetts Democrats made clear
they intend to run against Donald Trump — even if
Trump isn’t on the ballot.
“Now a
Donald Trump wannabe is running for governor right
here in Massachusetts,” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren
told a crowd of several thousand delegates at the
Democratic state convention. “Geoff Diehl has jumped
on the extremist bandwagon.”
Warren
added that Diehl — who was endorsed by Republican
delegates last month as the party’s gubernatorial
nominee — “stands with the white supremacists and
January 6 insurrectionists and anti-choice radicals
who have taken over the Republican leadership even
here in Massachusetts.”
Healey —
who sued Trump dozens of times when the former
president was in office — also referenced
Republicans embracing a far right Trump agenda at
their convention.
“There are
some who say that Republicans in this race are
different here in Massachusetts,” Healey said. “Give
me a break. Look at that convention two weeks ago —
so much hatred and vitriol. They’re going to take us
backwards on racial justice, immigration, gun
violence, reproductive rights and climate change and
more.”
The
Boston Herald
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Massachusetts Democrats and
Maura Healey running against Donald Trump
By Joe Battenfeld |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary |
|
State
House News Service on Friday reported on the
Department of Revenue's latest monthly revenue report ("Revenue Collections
Again Beat Expectations In May") and once again
revenue extracted from taxpayers exceeded expectations, piling up
even higher the over-taxation surplus:
The good
times continue to roll for Massachusetts tax
collectors and for the lawmakers who remain on track
to be gifted a massive election-year surplus.
Baker
administration officials announced Friday that the
Department of Revenue hauled in $2.478 billion in
May, $186 million or 8 percent more than the monthly
benchmark after accounting for a new elective
pass-through entity excise that affected
collections.
May 2022
revenues dropped compared to last year, when DOR
took in just more than $4 billion, but officials
said that decline is largely because of one-time
changes in the annual income tax filing timeline
made in 2021....
Massachusetts so far has collected $36.969 billion
in tax revenue through the first 11 months of fiscal
year 2022. After adjusting for the new excise, that
pot stands $4.726 billion or 15.5 percent higher
than the same period in fiscal year 2021 as well as
$1.965 billion or 5.9 percent more than the
year-to-date benchmark.
The Bay
State would only need to bring in a little less than
$700 million in taxes in June to surpass the third
and latest benchmark upgrade of $37.666 billion,
which the Baker administration set in mid-May after
a string of way-above-projected monthly collections.
Baker has
been pushing for months to enact $700 million in tax
relief, including reforms to the capital gains and
estate tax as well as breaks for renters, seniors
and low-income residents. Democrats who control the
House and Senate have not embraced Baker's push, and
while they say they intend to advance a tax relief
package by the July 31 end of formal sessions, they
have yet to outline any specific plans.
In its press release on
June 3
("May Revenue Collections Total $2.478
Billion")
the Department of Revenue noted:
FY2022
year-to-date collections totaled approximately
$36.969 billion, which is $6.519 billion or 21.4%
more than collections in the same period of FY2021,
and $2.666 billion or 7.8% more than the
year-to-date benchmark. After adjusting for PTE
excise, FY2022 year-to-date collections are $4.726
billion or 15.5% more than collections in the same
period of FY2021 and $1.965 billion or 5.9% more
than the year-to-date benchmark.
“The
decrease in May 2022 revenue in comparison to May
2021 is primarily due to an expected decline in
income tax return payments, which is largely
attributable to the extension of last year’s income
tax filing and payment deadline from April 15, 2021
to May 17, 2021,” said Commissioner Snyder. “The
decrease in income tax return payments was partially
offset by increases in other major tax categories
including withholding, sales and use tax, and ‘all
other’ tax.”
On May 30 The Boston
Herald reported ("Massachusetts Legislature
moves budget to final committee,
leaves tax cuts for later"):
The budget
that the House and Senate will need to square
between them has left the upper chamber, ballooning
to just shy of $49.8 billion and leaving the two
legislative bodies little time to consider the tax
cuts not included in either body’s bill.
“This
budget contains no tax increase, this contains no
tax decreases,” Senate Ways and Means Chairman
Michael Rodrigues said to start debate on the
budget.
Three days
and more than 1,100 amendments later — over 500 of
which were adopted — and Rodrigues’ prediction
proved true. None of Gov. Charlie Baker’s tax cut
proposals were included in the final engrossed
version of the bill.
“We know
the governor has filed, separately from the budget,
tax relief proposals totaling well over $700
million. We know (Senate President Karen Spilka) has
been very public and clear that we in the Senate
will engage in tax discussions and a tax debate in
the near future, so we can apply our collective
wisdom on how to provide and how to focus relief for
hardworking people in the Commonwealth,” Rodrigues
told the Senate.
The
Senate’s budget, grown by nearly $100 million over
days of debate, was approved unanimously and will
now move to conference with the House; the lower
chamber’s April budget proposal also neared $50
billion in spending with no tax cuts included....
Republicans in both chambers have attempted to offer
a gas tax holiday in light of recent record-high
fuel prices. Both chambers rejected those proposals
by wide margins.
Republicans also offered tax cuts to mirror Baker’s
offering, which would have seen relief for seniors,
renters and low-income families and a reduction in
estate and property taxes. Those proposals were also
resoundingly rejected.
House
Speaker Ronald Mariano told reporters last week he
had his colleagues in the House working on some sort
of tax relief, though he wouldn’t allow himself to
be nailed down on what that relief would look like
but said the House will “try and put some things
together.”
“We’re
working on something. My goal is to have something
done,” he said....
“Anyone
who’s been involved with the Legislature knows that
we operate best up against deadlines because it
forces people to take a realistic view of their
position,” Mariano said.
In its editorial today
(Sunday) The Boston Herald opined
("Blindness on Beacon Hill"):
Gas prices have hit a new
record high in the Bay State at $4.84 per
gallon.
The cost of butter, bacon,
meat and poultry is heading in the same
direction. Inflation is just hammering family
budgets.
And the state Legislature
is moving quickly … to override Gov. Charlie
Baker’s veto of a bill allowing illegal
immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. That
vote is set for Wednesday in the House.
The lawmakers are not,
however, doing anything to lessen the hurt at
the pump. Connecticut, Georgia, Florida,
Maryland, New York, California and Michigan have
all moved to help by dropping the gas tax or are
discussing how to bail residents out....
In Massachusetts? It’s not
that important, it seems, but racing to override
the Republican governor at every turn seems to
be the go-to move of the day. It’s not lost on
anyone that this weekend’s Democratic state
party convention was the next step in Maura
Healey’s front-runner march to the Corner
Office.
But, could Democrats be
headed for a big surprise come November here?
Nationwide there’s no doubt voters are fed up
with Nancy Pelosi’s failed leadership of the
House with President Biden seemingly tripping
over his own dismal poll numbers and looking for
excuses.
Bay State Republican
gubernatorial candidates Geoff Diehl and Chris
Doughty have an opening if the state Legislature
continues to ignore just how difficult life has
become for taxpayers. A year ago a gallon of
regular gas was $2.92 in the state....
Forget about the elderly
living on fixed incomes or young parents trying
to juggle bills.
Instead of thwarting Baker
at every turn, the state Legislature needs to do
what they’ve been elected to do — serve the
people.
“Instead of prioritizing a
gas tax suspension, or any kind of broad tax
relief aimed at the middle class, Speaker Ron
Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka have
used their political capital to appease the
special interest groups that dominate Democratic
primaries,” said MassFiscal’s spokesman Paul
Diego Craney.
Martha Coakley made a
similar mistake. She won her primary for the
U.S. Senate in the 2010 special election to fill
Ted Kennedy’s seat. She took a victory lap and
put her feet up. That allowed Republican Scott
Brown to fire up voters.
She was defeated 52% to
47%. Beacon Hill could be on that same track if
enough people ultimately say “enough” this fall.
In its
Weekly Roundup on Friday the
State House News Service noted:
The Legislature is on its
own biennial collision course with July 31,
typically the end of serious lawmaking for the
two-year session as the political world shifts
into campaign mode.
"We have a lot of work to
do and not a lot of time to do it," [Rep.
Danielle ] Gregoire said this week.
She was talking
specifically about work on the infrastructure
bond bill, but her words are essentially the
mantra of Beacon Hill lawmakers now that the
their 19-month window of opportunity is closing.
The only thing that the
Legislature is really required to do is finalize
a budget. The House and Senate got the gang back
together this week, reappointing the same six
lawmakers who knitted the current year's
compromise budget to do the same for the budget
year that starts July 1.
Reps. Aaron Michlewitz of
Boston, Ann-Margaret Ferrante of Gloucester and
Todd Smola of Warren, and Sens. Michael
Rodrigues of Westport, Cindy Friedman of
Arlington and Patrick O'Connor of Weymouth will
meet virtually Wednesday to start the talks that
are expected to lead, some time by the end of
July, to a compromise budget that will spend
about $50 billion.
One of their first orders
of business could be to update the expected
revenue base that each chamber built its
spending plan on. Word came Friday from the
Department of Revenue that fiscal year 2022 tax
collections are at least about $2 billion ahead
of expectations with one month left and have
already surpassed next year's consensus revenue
estimate of $36.915 billion that was announced
in January.
Unless the budget
negotiators work much faster than has been their
custom, the tan that Baker picked up in San
Diego this week will likely have faded by the
time a budget hits his desk.
From the
May 30 Boston Herald report:
House
Speaker Ronald Mariano told reporters last week he
had his colleagues in the House working on some sort
of tax relief, though he wouldn’t allow himself to
be nailed down on what that relief would look like
but said the House will “try and put some things
together.”
“We’re
working on something. My goal is to have something
done,” he said....
“Anyone
who’s been involved with the Legislature knows that
we operate best up against deadlines because it
forces people to take a realistic view of their
position,” Mariano said.
It is inconceivable that
this "full-time" Legislature considers this appropriate, employs
this absurdity as acceptable operating practice. The only
reason the Legislature recesses on July 31 in even numbered years is
just so incumbent legislators can take time off to get out on the
campaign trail and ensure their reelections, or elections to higher
offices (e.g., Sen. Eric Lesser, running for Lt. Governor)
— on their taxpayer-funded obscene
salaries while any challengers are working out-of-pocket around
their jobs. Legislative salaries. benefits, and perks continue
uninterrupted through the end of the year while they're on this
five-month sabbatical.
I'm not holding my breath
waiting for serious if any tax relief. That's a low priority
for "The Best Legislature Money Can Buy" — the
lowest. They might find time to hike taxes before
disappearing, but not to reduce them a cent.
"One of the six deadline
extensions agreed to Thursday in the Senate would push the Revenue
Committee's deadline to act on 96 bills until Sunday, July 31 -- the
final day of formal sessions for this term," the
State House News Service reported on Thursday ("Committees Keep Grip On Bills As Formal
Sessions Wind Down"). "One of the six deadline extensions agreed to Thursday in the
Senate would push the Revenue Committee's deadline to act on
96 [tax] bills until Sunday, July 31 -- the final day of formal
sessions for this term [Extensions].
The stealth attacks on
Proposition 2½ have already been pushed out of
the Revenue Committee with a favorable report and are now in their
respective House or Senate Ways and Means Committees. They can
pop out of committee and into a bill without a moment's notice:
S.1804 - An Act authorizing a local affordable housing surcharge (Sen. Brownsberger)
S.1899 - An Act relative to regional transportation ballot
initiatives (Sen. Lesser)
H.3039 - An Act establishing a local option gas tax (Reps. Pignatelli,
Vitolo)
H.3086 - An Act relative to regional ballot initiatives (Reps. Vargas, Madaro)
On
Wednesday the News Service reported that Gov. Charlie Baker has
taken yet another Republican legislator off the board ("Baker
Picks GOP Rep. Kelcourse For Parole Board; Guv Continues To Thin
House GOP Ranks"), assisting Massachusetts in its steady decline
into a one-party tyranny.
Gov. Charlie Baker on
Wednesday nominated Rep. James Kelcourse
[R-Amesbury] for a seat on the state's Parole
Board, a move that could create another vacancy
in the House of Representatives in the tail end
of the legislative session and further dwindle
the ranks of the House's minority caucus ahead
of this fall elections....
Kelcourse has served in the
House since 2015, where he is one of 28
Republicans in the 160-seat body. He ran
unsuccessfully for mayor of Amesbury last fall
and was backed by Baker in that bid.
In January, Baker nominated
another House Republican, Sheila Harrington of
Groton, to serve as Gardner District Court clerk
magistrate. She resigned in February to join the
court and her seat will remain vacant through
the end of this session.
Ipswich Republican Brad
Hill left the House last year to join the
Massachusetts Gaming Commission, and Rep. Jamie
Belsito, a Topsfield Democrat, flipped the seat
in a special election....
Baker's nomination of
Kelcourse comes a day after the May 31 deadline
for legislative candidates to submit their
nomination papers to the secretary of state's
office.
What
Democrats haven't quite yet managed to accomplish Gov. Baker
apparently is intent on completing for them before he's out the door
in January. This will bring the count down to just 27
Republicans in the 160-member House, only 3 remaining in the
40-member Senate. The obliteration mission is almost
accomplished, at this rate the endangered GOP species will soon be extinct in the
Bay State.
That's not to say that the Democrats are slacking off on their end
to exterminate any Republican opposition to their grand designs on
governing. Republicans are not just opposition (though today
in Massachusetts they don't qualify as even a speed bump).
They'd have you believe Republicans are
evil incarnate.
The Boston Globe reported on Monday, May 30, 2022 ("Even
in Massachusetts, GOP politics are all about Trump"):
They are an increasingly
marginalized breed in Texas and Florida. They
haven’t made it to the front of the presidential
pack in a decade. And even in Massachusetts,
once a cradle of Rockefeller Republicanism, the
moderate GOP teeters on the brink of extinction:
most of the party’s candidates for statewide
office this year revere Donald Trump and reject
the politics of retiring Governor Charlie
Baker....
And it raises questions
about the character of the party nationally: If
moderate voices cannot prevail in the
Massachusetts Republican Party, then where?
“I do not recognize the
party today as the party I led,” said Fergus
Cullen, who chaired the New Hampshire GOP in
2007 and 2008. He described support for Trump as
the litmus test for candidates and political
operatives across the country.
In Massachusetts, “of all
states,” one might expect conservative
Republicans to recognize that “maybe we’re a
minority, maybe we’re not the mainstream, maybe
not everyone out there agrees with us or shares
our perspective,” Cullen added. “And yet you
have a faction within that group that is
dominating.” ...
In the past, Massachusetts
Republicans have succeeded by running away from
the culture wars and hot-button controversies of
the national party. Now, they are running toward
them....
Conservatives heading the
party now argue that Baker’s moderate approach
has achieved little; the GOP has tiny minorities
in the state Legislature, and fewer than 10
percent of Massachusetts voters are registered
Republicans. A new strategy is needed, they
argue, one tied to party principles rather than
reliant on a single popular politician....
But Baker’s was not the
predominant message of the candidates who won
the most support at the convention, and it is
their positions whose popularity will be tested
on November’s ballot.
This
followed a
Boston Globe editorial the day before, on May
29 ("A fateful moment for Massachusetts
Republicans"):
There has always been a
duality to the Massachusetts Republican Party —
something noble and something dark....
Over the last few decades,
the Massachusetts GOP’s nobler side has mostly
prevailed. Governor William Weld combined a
traditional Republican push for privatization of
public services with forward-looking views on
gay rights and other social issues. Governor
Mitt Romney worked to expand health coverage in
a precursor to Obamacare. And Governor Charlie
Baker has served as a beacon of civil and
constructive conservatism in a truly frightening
moment in national Republican politics.
But Baker isn’t running for
reelection this year. And party activists who
have embraced former president Donald Trump and
chafed under Baker’s leadership in recent years
see a chance to steer the party in a very
different direction.
The state’s voters got a
visceral sense for what that could look like at
the state GOP’s convention last weekend....
It was an inauspicious
start to the campaign season. And this page
isn’t especially hopeful that the message will
improve.
But if Diehl is unwilling
to steer the party away from the science
denialism and immigrant-bashing that represent
American conservatism at its worst, perhaps his
more moderate challenger for the GOP’s
gubernatorial nomination, businessman Chris
Doughty, can do the job.
The health of
Massachusetts’ democracy is at stake....
The Massachusetts GOP,
under Baker, is one of the few vestiges of
responsible Republicanism in the country. If
party leaders — and rank-and-file members —
snuff that out, what do we have left?
The Boston Globe is fully
in favor of two-party democracy in Massachusetts
— so long as both parties and their
positions are indistinguishable from the other. They can call
themselves anything they like, so long as they adhere to The Globe's
left-wing ideology and dogma.
The only way I can see
Chris Doughty defeating Geoff Diehl in the Republican primary is if
enough unenrolled voters take a Republican ballot and vote for him.
There are rumors that this ploy is already in the works and it
wouldn't surprise me. Doughty is more in the mold of Weld,
Cellucci, Romney, and Baker but even so I don't think that ensures
he can or would win in the November general election against
Attorney General Maura Healey (more on her and yesterday's Democrat
convention follows).
I've always thought the
Massachusetts party registration and voting system has a serious
problem: Unenrolled voters are capable of voting in either party's
primary election and deciding who becomes that party's candidate in
the general election in November, the candidate who ultimately runs against the
other party's preferred candidate.
As of last September there
were 1.4 million registered Democrats in Massachusetts, 469,000
registered Republicans, and 2.7 million voters registered as
unenrolled or "independent," being of no political party.
Why are
non-partisan voters unaffiliated with any political party able to
vote in either party's primary election and sway if not decide
its outcome — create the resulting notorious
mischief? Fortunately, in many states (such as Kentucky) you
must be enrolled and registered in a political party to vote in that
party's primary
election to choose its candidate — the way it rightfully ought to
be.
The Globe's partisan
perspective was not surprising and will only ramp up until November
and beyond, regardless of how much it praises any Republican
of any stripe. Its readership base demands no less. Yesterday's
Democrat Convention speakers made it look mild in comparison, but
that is even less surprising considering they are the most loyal Democrats,
the hierarchy of the
overwhelmingly dominating party in a virtually one-party state.
Here's a flavor of some of its candidates' remarks:
State House News Service ("Republicans
Top Of Mind At Democrats' Convention; Warren Blasts 'Trump Wannabe,'
Says 'It's Time To Get Angry'")
U.S. Rep. James McGovern of
Worcester said that the Republican Party has
embraced conspiracy theories and misinformation
and lashes out at any one who disagrees as
"pedophiles and murderers." He told attendees of
his experiences on the U.S. House floor during
the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, and said those
"very same people" are now trying to rig future
campaigns.
"We refuse to let that
happen because for all of our party's flaws and
imperfections, the Democratic Party is the party
of democracy...."
Like McGovern, [U.S. Sen.
Elizabeth] Warren also brought up "the big lie"
in her remarks and said that Democrats around
the country, including in liberal bastions like
Massachusetts, need to mobilize to counteract
the conservative movement.
"When national Republican
leaders tell us they're coming for our rights,
and when state Republican leaders describe
efforts to protect ourselves as extreme and
radical, then it is time to get angry, deep down
angry, and to channel that anger into powerful
action," she said.
Warren, who easily turned
away a challenge from Republican gubernatorial
candidate Geoff Diehl in the 2018 U.S. Senate
election, tied the front-runner on the GOP side
to the national GOP policies and ideas that
Democrat after Democrat railed against Saturday.
"Now a Donald Trump wannabe
is running for governor right here in
Massachusetts. Geoff Diehl has jumped on the
extremist bandwagon," Warren said. "Geoff Diehl
can try to talk out of both sides of his mouth
on every issue, but at the end of the day, he
stands with the white supremacists and January 6
insurrectionists and anti-choice radicals who
have taken over the Republican leadership even
here in Massachusetts. And that this why he will
not be the next governor of this commonwealth."
State House News Service ("Dem
Delegates Endorse Healey, Qualify Chang-Díaz For Ballot; LG
Candidates Hinds, Bero Tossed From The Competition"):
Massachusetts Democrats on
Saturday afternoon endorsed Maura Healey's quest
to move from the attorney general's office to
the governor's suite but also put Sonia Chang-Díaz
on the September primary ballot, ensuring that
Healey will have some intraparty competition
before she could turn her full attention to any
Republican opponents....
Her speech to the delegates
focused mostly on her record as attorney general
and contrasts between herself and the Republican
candidates for governor here.
"They'd take us backwards
on racial justice, immigration, gun violence, on
reproductive rights and climate change. The
choice in this election could not be more clear;
a choice between progress or partisanship,
between delivering for people or dividing them,"
Healey said. "Our campaign is about coming
together to fight for the things that matter,
that actually matter to people and families all
across Massachusetts."...
The Boston Herald ("Massachusetts
Democrats and Maura Healey running against Donald Trump" by Joe
Battenfeld:
Attorney General Maura
Healey won over a crowd of liberal activists and
Massachusetts Democrats made clear they intend
to run against Donald Trump — even if Trump
isn’t on the ballot.
“Now a Donald Trump wannabe
is running for governor right here in
Massachusetts,” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren told
a crowd of several thousand delegates at the
Democratic state convention. “Geoff Diehl has
jumped on the extremist bandwagon.”
Warren added that Diehl —
who was endorsed by Republican delegates last
month as the party’s gubernatorial nominee —
“stands with the white supremacists and January
6 insurrectionists and anti-choice radicals who
have taken over the Republican leadership even
here in Massachusetts.”
Healey — who sued Trump
dozens of times when the former president was in
office — also referenced Republicans embracing a
far right Trump agenda at their convention.
“There are some who say
that Republicans in this race are different here
in Massachusetts,” Healey said. “Give me a
break. Look at that convention two weeks ago —
so much hatred and vitriol. They’re going to
take us backwards on racial justice,
immigration, gun violence, reproductive rights
and climate change and more.”
Attorney General Maura
Healey easily won the Democrat nomination for its candidate for
governor with
more than 71 percent of the convention delegates'
votes. I would have been shocked if she hadn't. Over a
year ago (April 5, 2021), before she announced running,
I
wrote:
On the political
front it's looking more like the Democrats' candidate to run
against the Baker/Polito administration whether that will be
Charlie or Karyn will likely be the ambitious Attorney General
Maura Healey.
State Democrats apparently
are going to run a national campaign to win local offices.
This is not just a Massachusetts strategy, it's happening elsewhere
as well. I don't think that is a winning strategy for them
considering the state of the union, installed President Biden's
plunging favorability polls and serial failures, and the shellacking
Democrats are expected to suffer across the nation in November,
especially in the U.S. House of Representatives.
One of the most
despicable, shameless campaign videos I've ever seen was put out
this week in Kentucky and nationally, "Pain of our Past" was
released by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker.
It's the first I've ever seen preceded by a warning.
Seemingly it must have
been produced by Jussie Smollett or a wannabe, I think it is
devastating for the candidate. Did they miss that whole
Smollett scandal and fraud? I can't imagine why the Booker
campaign thought it was a good idea! What little support
Booker had in his Quixotic quest to unseat U.S. Senator Rand Paul
just plunged outside of Louisville, Kentucky's largest urban city
and liberal enclave. Its target can't be Kentucky voters but
instead a national audience — hoping to
pull in campaign cash from outside the Bluegrass State in an attempt
to catch up with Sen. Paul's campaign war chest. It is nothing
short of sick.
"Pain of our
Past"
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker's
Introductory Campaign Video
CLICK ABOVE GRAPHIC TO OPEN VIDEO
(But remember the warning!)
What the Booker campaign failed
to mention was reported in Lexington Herald-Leader on
Wednesday, June 1 in
a report by David Catanese:
. . . “Please
retweet this far and wide,” tweeted Black media personality
Roland Martin, reacting to Booker’s video. “Defeat Rand Paul.
Elect Charles Booker.”
Paul’s initial
objection to the bill in 2020 was rooted in language he believed
would have led to more minor crimes being characterized as
lynching, a heinous act of violence that originated in the Jim
Crow South.
But earlier this
year, the Kentucky Republican signed on as a co-sponsor of a
revised version of the legislation, which was signed into law by
President Joe Biden in March. To date, there have been over 160
recorded lynchings in Kentucky, according to the Booker
campaign.
Democratic Sen.
Cory Booker of New Jersey, who isn’t related to Kentucky’s
Booker, hailed Paul at the time for his work on amending the
bill to create “the bipartisan backing that we have to finally
meet this moment and help our nation move forward from some of
its darkest chapters.”
“Dr. Paul worked
diligently with Senators Booker and Scott to strengthen the
language of this legislation and is a cosponsor of the bill that
now ensures that federal law will define lynching as the
absolutely heinous crime that it is. Any attempt to state
otherwise is a desperate misrepresentation of the facts,” said
Paul’s deputy campaign manager Jake Cox.
Booker’s campaign
has struggled to fundraise and gain traction against Paul, who
isn’t seen as vulnerable to defeat in what’s shaping up to be a
difficult year for Democrats.
Nationally, the Democrat Party
is in panic, recognizing it is about to lose its grip on
absolute power. This is going to be one nasty, ugly
campaign season ahead straight through the November
election, and I doubt the climate will improve much if any
beyond but will only get worse. Campaigns like this
and the ones ramping up in Massachusetts will make it so.
As Maura Healey stated in 2020 about violent protests, “Yes,
America is burning. But that’s how forests grow,”
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
|
State House News
Service
Friday, June 3, 2022
Revenue Collections Again Beat Expectations In May
By Chris Lisinski
The good times continue to roll for Massachusetts tax
collectors and for the lawmakers who remain on track to be
gifted a massive election-year surplus.
Baker administration officials announced Friday that the
Department of Revenue hauled in $2.478 billion in May, $186
million or 8 percent more than the monthly benchmark after
accounting for a new elective pass-through entity excise
that affected collections.
May 2022 revenues dropped compared to last year, when DOR
took in just more than $4 billion, but officials said that
decline is largely because of one-time changes in the annual
income tax filing timeline made in 2021.
"The decrease in May 2022 revenue in comparison to May 2021
is primarily due to an expected decline in income tax return
payments, which is largely attributable to the extension of
last year's income tax filing and payment deadline from
April 15, 2021 to May 17, 2021," DOR Commissioner Geoffrey
Snyder said. "The decrease in income tax return payments was
partially offset by increases in other major tax categories
including withholding, sales and use tax, and 'all other'
tax."
Massachusetts so far has collected $36.969 billion in tax
revenue through the first 11 months of fiscal year 2022.
After adjusting for the new excise, that pot stands $4.726
billion or 15.5 percent higher than the same period in
fiscal year 2021 as well as $1.965 billion or 5.9 percent
more than the year-to-date benchmark.
The Bay State would only need to bring in a little less than
$700 million in taxes in June to surpass the third and
latest benchmark upgrade of $37.666 billion, which the Baker
administration set in mid-May after a string of
way-above-projected monthly collections.
Baker has been pushing for months to enact $700 million in
tax relief, including reforms to the capital gains and
estate tax as well as breaks for renters, seniors and
low-income residents. Democrats who control the House and
Senate have not embraced Baker's push, and while they say
they intend to advance a tax relief package by the July 31
end of formal sessions, they have yet to outline any
specific plans.
Massachusetts Department of
Revenue
Press Release
June 3, 2022
May Revenue Collections Total $2.478 Billion
Monthly collections down $1.524 billion or 38.1% vs. May
2021 actual; $138 million above benchmark
Boston, MA — Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR)
Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder today announced that
preliminary revenue collections for May 2022 totaled $2.478
billion, which is $1.524 billion or 38.1% less than actual
collections in May 2021, but $138 million or 5.9% more than
benchmark. [1]
May 2022 revenue collections were impacted by the recently
enacted elective pass-through entity (PTE) excise. After
adjusting for PTE excise, May 2022 collections are $1.483
billion or 37.1% below actual collections in May 2021, but
$186 million or 8.0% more than benchmark.
FY2022 year-to-date collections totaled approximately
$36.969 billion, which is $6.519 billion or 21.4% more than
collections in the same period of FY2021, and $2.666 billion
or 7.8% more than the year-to-date benchmark. After
adjusting for PTE excise, FY2022 year-to-date collections
are $4.726 billion or 15.5% more than collections in the
same period of FY2021 and $1.965 billion or 5.9% more than
the year-to-date benchmark.
“The decrease in May 2022 revenue in comparison to May 2021
is primarily due to an expected decline in income tax return
payments, which is largely attributable to the extension of
last year’s income tax filing and payment deadline from
April 15, 2021 to May 17, 2021,” said Commissioner Snyder.
“The decrease in income tax return payments was partially
offset by increases in other major tax categories including
withholding, sales and use tax, and ‘all other’ tax.”
Historically, May is a mid-size month for collections,
ranking seventh of 12 months in seven of the last 10 years.
Net revenue collections in May are influenced by the
individual tax filing season, which generates both inflows
and refund outflows during the month. Estimated payments
from individuals and businesses are not significant in May.
However, because of measures enacted this year and last
year, historical comparisons between May 2022 results and
prior years should be used with caution. Examples of such
measures include, but are not limited to:
● The late start to the 2021 filing season.
● The extension of the income tax filing and payment
deadline from April 15th, 2021 to May 17th, 2021.
● The recently enacted elective pass-through entity excise.
Details:
● Income tax collections for May totaled $1.360 billion, $38
million or 2.7% below benchmark, and $1.661 billion or 55.0%
less than May 2021. After adjusting for PTE excise, income
tax collections for May 2022 are $10 million or 0.7% above
benchmark, but $1.621 billion or 53.7% less than May 2021.
The decrease in income tax collections in comparison to May
2021 is primarily the result of the extension of last year’s
income tax filing and payment deadline mentioned previously.
● Withholding tax collections for May totaled $1.289
billion, $27 million or 2.1% above benchmark, and $122
million or 10.5% more than May 2021.
● Income tax estimated payments for May totaled $35 million,
$9 million or 20.0% less than benchmark, and $23 million or
39.1% less than May 2021.
● Income tax returns and bills for May totaled $189 million,
$5 million or 2.6% less than benchmark, and $1.953 billion
or 91.2% less than May 2021.
● Income tax cash refunds for May totaled $154 million in
outflows, $51 million or 48.8% above benchmark, but $191
million or 55.4% less than May 2021.
● Sales and use tax collections for May totaled $785
million, $165 million or 26.5% above benchmark, and $95
million or 13.8% more than May 2021.
● Meals tax collections, a sub-set of sales and use tax,
totaled $121 million, $35 million or 40.0% above benchmark,
and $35 million or 40.6% more than May 2021.
● Corporate and business tax collections for May totaled $70
million, $36 million or 34.4% below benchmark, and $2
million or 3.1% less than May 2021.
● “All other” tax collections for May totaled $263 million,
$48 million or 22.1% above benchmark, and $45 million or
20.5% more than May 2021.
[1] With the enactment of the FY2022 budget, monthly revenue
benchmarks were developed for the August 2021 through June
2022 period only. In December 2021, monthly benchmarks from
December 2021 through June 2022 were further modified to
reflect the impact of the recently enacted pass-through
entity excise (PTE excise) and the impact of taxation of
non-residents. On January 14, 2022, the Secretary of
Administration and Finance announced a revised tax revenue
estimate of $35.9 billion for FY2022, an increase of $1.5
billion from the prior estimate of $34.4 billion. This
revision is based on recent revenue performance and improved
economic data. The revised FY2022 benchmark estimate of
$35.9 billion represented July 2021 through December 2021
actual collections, adjusted for PTE excise collections, and
the then forecasted collections for the months of January
2022 through June 2022. On May 18, 2022, the Secretary of
Administration and Finance announced a revised FY2022 tax
revenue estimate of $37.7 billion, an increase of $1.7
billion from the prior estimate of $35.9 billion. The full
fiscal year benchmark has been adjusted to reflect the
revised forecast. However, the benchmarks for May 2022 and
June 2022 have not changed.
###
The Boston
Herald
Sunday, June 5, 2022
A Boston Herald editorial
Blindness on Beacon Hill
Gas prices have hit a new record high in the Bay State at
$4.84 per gallon.
The cost of butter, bacon, meat and poultry is heading in
the same direction. Inflation is just hammering family
budgets.
And the state Legislature is moving quickly … to override
Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto of a bill allowing illegal
immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. That vote is set for
Wednesday in the House.
The lawmakers are not, however, doing anything to lessen the
hurt at the pump. Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, Maryland,
New York, California and Michigan have all moved to help by
dropping the gas tax or are discussing how to bail residents
out.
Alaska, Illinois, Minnesota and Virginia have all discussed
it with no action taken yet.
In Massachusetts? It’s not that important, it seems, but
racing to override the Republican governor at every turn
seems to be the go-to move of the day. It’s not lost on
anyone that this weekend’s Democratic state party convention
was the next step in Maura Healey’s front-runner march to
the Corner Office.
But, could Democrats be headed for a big surprise come
November here? Nationwide there’s no doubt voters are fed up
with Nancy Pelosi’s failed leadership of the House with
President Biden seemingly tripping over his own dismal poll
numbers and looking for excuses.
Bay State Republican gubernatorial candidates Geoff Diehl
and Chris Doughty have an opening if the state Legislature
continues to ignore just how difficult life has become for
taxpayers. A year ago a gallon of regular gas was $2.92 in
the state.
With the pandemic easing and more workers being pulled back
to the office, the demand for gas is only increasing.
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance announced Friday they
intend to hold lawmakers accountable for the override votes
on the driver’s license bill for illegal immigrants.
Recording a vote always makes Democrats sweat.
In his veto, Baker said the RMV can’t easily verify
identification documents from other countries and that the
bill “specifically prevents the RMV from sharing citizenship
and immigration status with the state entities tasked with
ensuring only citizens register to vote,” MassFiscal added.
“The Governor’s letter stated, ‘this bill significantly
increases the risk that noncitizens will be registered to
vote,'” the advocacy group added.
It’s just a mess. The RMV, an agency that has never earned
the confidence of motorists, is now going to oversee this
new program that is sure to help some but hurt others. But
that’s what is important to lawmakers these days.
Forget about the elderly living on fixed incomes or young
parents trying to juggle bills.
Instead of thwarting Baker at every turn, the state
Legislature needs to do what they’ve been elected to do —
serve the people.
“Instead of prioritizing a gas tax suspension, or any kind
of broad tax relief aimed at the middle class, Speaker Ron
Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka have used their
political capital to appease the special interest groups
that dominate Democratic primaries,” said MassFiscal’s
spokesman Paul Diego Craney.
Martha Coakley made a similar mistake. She won her primary
for the U.S. Senate in the 2010 special election to fill Ted
Kennedy’s seat. She took a victory lap and put her feet up.
That allowed Republican Scott Brown to fire up voters.
She was defeated 52% to 47%. Beacon Hill could be on that
same track if enough people ultimately say “enough” this
fall.
The Boston
Herald
Monday, May 30, 2022
Massachusetts Legislature moves budget to final committee,
leaves tax cuts for later
By Matthew Medsger
The budget that the House and Senate will need to square
between them has left the upper chamber, ballooning to just
shy of $49.8 billion and leaving the two legislative bodies
little time to consider the tax cuts not included in either
body’s bill.
“This budget contains no tax increase, this contains no tax
decreases,” Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues
said to start debate on the budget.
Three days and more than 1,100 amendments later — over 500
of which were adopted — and Rodrigues’ prediction proved
true. None of Gov. Charlie Baker’s tax cut proposals were
included in the final engrossed version of the bill.
“We know the governor has filed, separately from the budget,
tax relief proposals totaling well over $700 million. We
know (Senate President Karen Spilka) has been very public
and clear that we in the Senate will engage in tax
discussions and a tax debate in the near future, so we can
apply our collective wisdom on how to provide and how to
focus relief for hardworking people in the Commonwealth,”
Rodrigues told the Senate.
The Senate’s budget, grown by nearly $100 million over days
of debate, was approved unanimously and will now move to
conference with the House; the lower chamber’s April budget
proposal also neared $50 billion in spending with no tax
cuts included.
Rodrigues, of Westport, and House Ways and Means Chair Aaron
Michlewitz, of Boston, will lead a committee to resolve the
two chambers’ budget differences. The two legislative bodies
will select six members, who typically conduct their
negotiations behind doors.
The committee’s schedule has not been published, but the
legislative session will officially end on July 31.
Republicans in both chambers have attempted to offer a gas
tax holiday in light of recent record-high fuel prices. Both
chambers rejected those proposals by wide margins.
Republicans also offered tax cuts to mirror Baker’s
offering, which would have seen relief for seniors, renters
and low-income families and a reduction in estate and
property taxes. Those proposals were also resoundingly
rejected.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano told reporters last week he had
his colleagues in the House working on some sort of tax
relief, though he wouldn’t allow himself to be nailed down
on what that relief would look like but said the House will
“try and put some things together.”
“We’re working on something. My goal is to have something
done,” he said.
The House and Senate are also due to approve new rules on
sports betting and attempt a veto override after Baker
rejected a bill that would grant driver’s licenses to those
without legal status. Mariano said he suspects his
colleagues will find the urgency they need.
“Anyone who’s been involved with the Legislature knows that
we operate best up against deadlines because it forces
people to take a realistic view of their position,” Mariano
said.
— Herald wire services
contributed to this report.
State House News
Service
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Senate Session Summary - Thursday, June 2, 2022
Committees Keep Grip On Bills As Formal Sessions Wind Down
The Senate joined the House Thursday in appointing members
to a conference panel to negotiate a final version of the
fiscal 2023 budget bill, led by Ways and Means chairmen Sen.
Michael Rodrigues and Rep. Aaron Michlewitz. The new fiscal
year dawns July 1, and Gov. Charlie Baker gets 10 days to
act on a spending plan once it hits his desk, meaning that
the Legislature would need to get the bill to the governor
by around June 20 if leadership wants to ensure an on-time
budget.
Such attention to deadline compliance has faded on Beacon
Hill in recent years. Back-room budget negotiations usually
run into overtime and the Legislature routinely keeps
government operating on interim budgets in the fiscal year's
nascent weeks.
Deadlines have also lost some of their meaning for reports
from standing committees. Under legislative rules,
committees were required to report on timely-filed
legislation by Feb. 2 -- but most committees secure multiple
deadline extensions without much resistance, allowing them
to postpone action on scores of bills.
One of the six deadline extensions agreed to Thursday in the
Senate would push the Revenue Committee's deadline to act on
96 bills until Sunday, July 31 -- the final day of formal
sessions for this term....
EXTENSIONS - REVENUE: Without
objection, two extension orders were considered as one.
Question came on adoption in concurrence of:
-- H 4719 granting the Committee on Revenue until Thursday,
June 30 to report on H 4634 and H 4637
-- H 4754 granting the Committee on Revenue until the final
day of formal sessions -- Sunday, July 31 -- to report on S
788, S 1798, S 1799, S 1801, S 1812, S 1814, S 1821, S 1823,
S 1824, S 1827, S 1832, S 1835, S 1839, S 1841, S 1842, S
1847, S 1852, S 1853, S 1858, S 1861, S 1874, S 1884, S
1885, S 1889, S 1891, S 1898, S 1901, S 1905, S 1911, S
1924, S 1929, S 1938, S 1942, S 1962, S 1972, S 1984, S
1997, H 2811, H 2812, H 2826, H 2834, H 2843, H 2846, H
2853, H 2854, H 2860, H 2866, H 2871, H 2878, H 2881, H
2883, H 2887, H 2888, H 2890, H 2892, H 2893, H 2894, H
2895, H 2922, H 2928, H 2943, H 2959, H 2964, H 2965, H
2969, H 2972, H 2973, H 2974, H 2976, H 2979, H 2984, H
2985, H 2990, H 2998, H 2999, H 3030, H 3035, H 3036, H
3038, H 3043, H 3044, H 3052, H 3057, H 3062, H 3080, H
3081, H 3085, H 3090, H 3801, H 4042, H 4074, H 4173, H
4179, H 4306, H 4361, and H 4362
The clerk said the first extension is two bills until June
30, and the second order is 96 bills until July 31.
State House News
Service
Thursday, June 2, 2022
House Session Summary - Thursday, June 2, 2022
Sends Early Intervention Provider Bill Back To Gov. Baker
By Colin A. Young
The House processed nearly a dozen extension orders
Thursday, giving committees a little more of the limited
time left for formal lawmaking to consider bills before
them.
Among the bills extended Thursday was the so-called Safe
Communities Act (H 2418) which would restrict local and
state law enforcement officials from asking about a person's
immigration status and limit cooperation with federal
immigration officials. The Committee on Public Safety and
Homeland Security now has until June 24 to decide how to
handle that bill. It was previously due to render its
decision by Wednesday.
Reps. Michlewitz, Ferrante and Smola were named during
Thursday's session to serve as the House's negotiators on
the fiscal year 2023 budget conference committee. That group
will try to iron out a compromise budget of nearly $50
billion by July 1. If history is a guide, the budget talks
will probably run into July with a temporary budget put in
place to start the new fiscal year.
The House also moved along local bills Thursday, including
some of importance to Brewster, Worcester, Lynn, Salem and
Canton. The House returns to action on Monday for another
informal session.
State House News
Service
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Budget Negotiators Named With 29 Days 'til Fiscal New Year
By Colin A. Young
It will be a familiar group that works over the next month
(and possibly longer) to hammer out a compromise plan for
spending about $50 billion next budget year and to decide
which of the various policy riders lashed to the House and
Senate budgets will actually make it to the governor's desk.
The House and Senate on Thursday morning each appointed its
Ways and Means Committee chair, vice chair and ranking
minority member to serve on the budget conference committee:
Reps. Aaron Michlewitz of Boston, Ann-Margaret Ferrante of
Gloucester and Todd Smola of Warren, and Sens. Michael
Rodrigues of Westport, Cindy Friedman of Arlington and
Patrick O'Connor of Weymouth.
The budget conference committee is likely to begin its
discussions in public and then vote to retreat behind closed
doors to hash out differences between the House and Senate
versions of the budget (H 4701 / S 2915). It was not
immediately clear Thursday if the first meeting had been
scheduled and spokesmen for the Ways and Means committees
did not immediately respond.
While the spending levels are similar -- $49.76 billion in
the House bill and $49.92 billion in the Senate's proposal
-- the two bills take different approaches to that spending
and each branch included its own suite of policy proposals.
The Senate, for example, included licensing protections for
doctors and other professionals involved with providing
reproductive care in its budget while the House budget would
extend free, universal school meals for another year, make
phone calls free for incarcerated people and ban child
marriage.
Last year, the same group of six lawmakers was appointed as
budget conferees on June 7 and agreed on July 8 to a
compromise $48.1 billion budget bill. The new budget year,
fiscal year 2023, begins July 1 but Massachusetts rarely has
its annual budget in place by then. Instead, the Legislature
and governor typically approve one month's worth of spending
as a stop-gap measure.
Twenty-nine of the 46 states that start their fiscal years
on July 1 have already put their budgets in place, according
to the National Association of State Budget Officers.
State House News
Service
Friday, June 3, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Train in Vain?
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Colin A. Young
A month and a half ago, it sounded as if it was basically a
done deal.
"We're ready to yell out 'all aboard!' in the western part
of the state to go east," Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno
said April 26 after a meeting in which he, Gov. Charlie
Baker, Congressman Richard Neal and nearly every state
legislator from western Mass. came to an agreement to make
the long-awaited extension of passenger rail service west of
Worcester to Springfield and Pittsfield a reality.
The agreement that Neal and Baker described at Springfield's
Union Station (or, as Sarno called it, "The House That Neal
Built") hinged on the Legislature adding language to a bill
that Baker had filed in March that would start setting up a
new rail authority to oversee East-West Rail.
"I think if that happens, that certainly expedites things,"
Neal said.
Despite their decades working in and around legislative
bodies, it was notable that not one person who spoke about
the agreement at the April 26 press conference had served in
the Great and General Court, where agreements have a way of
grinding to a stand-still over extraneous issues and almost
nothing is as simple as it first seems.
When the $9.7 billion infrastructure bond bill that was
anointed as the legislative vehicle for the new rail
authority came before the Bonding Committee this week, the
fact that East-West Rail remains unaddressed in the bill was
the elephant in the room and the Democrats in charge of the
panel would not say what -- if anything -- they'll do by the
end of July to carry out an agreement they weren't directly
part of.
"I don't know the answer to that yet," Rep. Danielle
Gregoire told the News Service when asked if the Bonding
Committee will add the new rail agency framework or
dedicated East-West Rail funding to the bill. She didn't
rule it out though, saying, "everything's on the table at
this point."
If there is going to be a new rail authority in
Massachusetts, maybe don't let it take advice about safety
from the MBTA. The incident-prone agency is trying to figure
out how two Green Line trolleys crashed into each other and
derailed Wednesday night all while federal safety regulators
who are already "extremely concerned with the ongoing safety
issues" at the T are watching over its shoulder.
The Legislature is on its own biennial collision course with
July 31, typically the end of serious lawmaking for the
two-year session as the political world shifts into campaign
mode.
"We have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do
it," Gregoire said this week.
She was talking specifically about work on the
infrastructure bond bill, but her words are essentially the
mantra of Beacon Hill lawmakers now that the their 19-month
window of opportunity is closing.
The only thing that the Legislature is really required to do
is finalize a budget. The House and Senate got the gang back
together this week, reappointing the same six lawmakers who
knitted the current year's compromise budget to do the same
for the budget year that starts July 1.
Reps. Aaron Michlewitz of Boston, Ann-Margaret Ferrante of
Gloucester and Todd Smola of Warren, and Sens. Michael
Rodrigues of Westport, Cindy Friedman of Arlington and
Patrick O'Connor of Weymouth will meet virtually Wednesday
to start the talks that are expected to lead, some time by
the end of July, to a compromise budget that will spend
about $50 billion.
One of their first orders of business could be to update the
expected revenue base that each chamber built its spending
plan on. Word came Friday from the Department of Revenue
that fiscal year 2022 tax collections are at least about $2
billion ahead of expectations with one month left and have
already surpassed next year's consensus revenue estimate of
$36.915 billion that was announced in January.
Unless the budget negotiators work much faster than has been
their custom, the tan that Baker picked up in San Diego this
week will likely have faded by the time a budget hits his
desk. The Boston Celtics could be the NBA champions by then,
too.
"Watched the @celtics close out the @warriors in Game 1 of
the @NBA Finals on my phone with Governor @CharlieBakerMA
standing on the beach at the @CNN #LifeItself event,"
Harvard professor David Liu, who also spoke at the Life
Itself conference this week, tweeted Friday morning
following the Celtics' 120-108 win over Golden State.
The conference promised "mind-blowing talks and
entertainment" and that the exclusive list of attendees will
"create unexpected connections and new long lasting,
productive business relationships and friendships" at the
ritzy Hotel Del Coronado beach resort. Conference media
partner CNN's coverage of the event includes pieces on a
"ghost heart" made out of "the scaffolding of a pig's heart
infused with human stem cells," talks on preparing for the
next pandemic, and 99-year-old producer Norman Lear's
thoughts on aging.
There is no coverage of Baker's speech, which was said to be
part of a segment on the COVID-19 pandemic, but Liu offered
one tantalizing comment that could cast light on the
outgoing governor's future plans.
Along with a photo of himself with the Green Team governor,
Liu also posted, "Earlier, Gov. Baker noted he would be 'in
the picture' in the 2024 election." ("I am not, nor will I
ever be -- OK? My wife is standing right back there and she
will be the first to vouch -- a candidate for national
office," Baker said in July 2015.)
LOOSE ENDS: Attorney General Maura Healey agreed to a
settlement that will pay out $14 million to 31,000
defendants who had criminal convictions vacated in the wake
of the massive state drug lab scandal of the last decade ...
The MassGOP's eyebrow-raising release of detailed delegate
voting information shed light on the state of the primary
between Geoff Diehl and Chris Doughty ...
In a reversal of the usual dynamic, some police officers are
uncomfortable with questions being asked of them ...
Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy retires from the
flagship next June after more than a decade and Amesbury
Rep. Jim Kelcourse could be the latest representative to
flee the House, this time for the Parole Board.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Having struck an agreement with
Congressman Neal to make the long-discussed East-West Rail
project happen, Gov. Baker needs a non-committal Legislature
to help him paint a portrait of (a rail) authority.
CommonWealth Magazine
Friday, May 27, 2022
Baker vetoes driver’s license bill for undocumented
immigrants
Cites concerns about identification, voting
By Shira Schoenberg
Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday vetoed a bill that would have
allowed immigrants without legal status to obtain a
Massachusetts driver’s license, a day after the bill reached
his desk.
In his veto letter, Baker cited concerns about
identification and about unintentionally giving non-citizens
the ability to vote.
“I cannot sign this legislation because it requires the
Registry of Motor Vehicles to issue state credentials to
people without the ability to verify their identity,”
two-term Republican governor wrote.
Baker had previously voiced misgivings about the bill, so
his veto was not entirely unexpected. The bill’s prospects
for being enacted, however, remain good, with the
Democratic-dominated House and Senate both passing the
measure by margins great enough to override Baker’s veto.
The bill would require immigrants to provide two documents:
a foreign passport or consular identification document and
one of five other documents, which could include documents
issued in another country, like a foreign license or birth
certificate. Baker worried that registry employees do not
have the expertise or ability to verify the validity of
documents issued by other countries.
“Consequently, a standard Massachusetts driver’s license
will no longer confirm that a person is who they say they
are,” Baker wrote.
Baker said he does not like that under the bill, there would
be no distinction between a state driver’s license issued to
a person who is lawfully present in the US and one who is
not. (A REAL ID, which has additional federal requirements,
could only be issued to someone in the US legally, but under
the bill, a standard state license could be issued to both
legal and non-legal residents.)
The bill would also restrict the RMV from sharing
information about citizenship with election officials –
although it would direct the secretary of state to develop
rules to ensure there is no improper voting registration.
Baker said that protection is insufficient. “This bill
significantly increases the risk that noncitizens will be
registered to vote,” Baker wrote.
The bill’s advocates say there are already many people who
have licenses but cannot vote, like Green Card holders.
“There are many non-citizens who are legally able to drive
here that do not vote or register to vote,” said Sen.
Brendan Crighton, Senate chair of the Transportation
Committee, in an interview before the bill passed.
Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts
Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said the group is
“deeply disappointed” by Baker’s veto. “The policy would not
only make our communities safer, but benefit our economy and
bolster trust between law enforcement and immigrant
communities,” Sweet said in a statement. “We hope that the
legislature will waste no time in overriding the Governor’s
veto.
The bill has generally split the Legislature along party
lines, with Democrats supporting it and Republicans opposing
it. The House passed the final version of the bill by a
118-36 vote, and the Senate passed it 32-8. Both votes
exceed the two-thirds margin needed to override the
governor’s veto.
The bill will now return to the Legislature, where is likely
lawmakers will vote to override Baker’s veto and pass it
into law.
State House News
Service
Friday, June 3, 2022
Advances - Week of June 5, 2022
Lawmakers are set Wednesday to begin the final votes
necessary to enact a new law granting immigrants without
lawful presence in the state the ability to obtain a
standard driver's license. The votes are there in the House
and Senate to override Gov. Charlie Baker's veto of the
bill. The House is ready to start the override process on
Wednesday and the Senate intends to override next week, and
plans to hold a formal session on Thursday.
Lawmakers now have just eight weeks left to wrap up scores
of important loose ends, all of which remain tied up in
either House-Senate conference committees or further back in
the queue before joint or standing committees.
The week ahead will also feature the slow-build of election
season, with Democrats and Republicans positioning
themselves coming out of their political conventions and
entering the three-month sprint toward the Sept. 6 primary
elections. While candidates will try to cash in on their
standing with party insiders, they are about to wade into an
electorate that is mostly unaligned with either party and is
about to render its first decisions on statewide races since
the COVID-19 pandemic changed how people think about work,
transportation, housing, and public leadership, including
managing the state through crises.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
Baker Picks GOP Rep. Kelcourse For Parole Board
Guv Continues To Thin House GOP Ranks
By Katie Lannan
Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday nominated Rep. James
Kelcourse for a seat on the state's Parole Board, a move
that could create another vacancy in the House of
Representatives in the tail end of the legislative session
and further dwindle the ranks of the House's minority caucus
ahead of this fall elections.
Baker tapped Kelcourse, an Amesbury Republican and defense
attorney, and Maryanne Galvin, a forensic psychologist from
Plymouth, for a pair of seats on the board that grants and
supervises paroles. Their nominations are subject to
approval by the Governor's Council.
Kelcourse has served in the House since 2015, where he is
one of 28 Republicans in the 160-seat body. He ran
unsuccessfully for mayor of Amesbury last fall and was
backed by Baker in that bid.
In January, Baker nominated another House Republican, Sheila
Harrington of Groton, to serve as Gardner District Court
clerk magistrate. She resigned in February to join the court
and her seat will remain vacant through the end of this
session.
Ipswich Republican Brad Hill left the House last year to
join the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, and Rep. Jamie
Belsito, a Topsfield Democrat, flipped the seat in a special
election.
Along with Harrington's, the House has four other districts
without representation due to Democrats departing for other
posts this year -- Ambassador to Ireland Claire Cronin of
Easton, Federal Emergency Management Agency Regional
Administrator Lori Ehrlich of Marblehead, Lowell City
Manager Tom Golden, and Carolyn Dykema of Holliston, who now
works for the solar energy company Nexamp.
President Joe Biden's September 2021 nomination of
Framingham Democrat Rep. Maria Robinson as assistant
secretary of energy in the Office of Electricity is still
pending after a U.S. Senate Committee deadlocked on it last
month.
Democrats hold a 126-seat supermajority in the House, with
Rep. Susannah Whipps of Athol, a former Republican, as the
sole unenrolled lawmaker.
Baker's nomination of Kelcourse comes a day after the May 31
deadline for legislative candidates to submit their
nomination papers to the secretary of state's office.
Kelcourse currently represents Amesbury, Newburyport and
Salisbury. His district was redrawn in the 2021
redistricting process, losing two Amesbury precincts and
picking up the town of Merrimac.
The Boston
Globe
Monday, May 30, 2022
Even in Massachusetts, GOP politics are all about Trump
Conservative party convention in reliably blue state raises
questions about future of moderate Republicans
By Emma Platoff
They are an increasingly marginalized breed in Texas and
Florida. They haven’t made it to the front of the
presidential pack in a decade. And even in Massachusetts,
once a cradle of Rockefeller Republicanism, the moderate GOP
teeters on the brink of extinction: most of the party’s
candidates for statewide office this year revere Donald
Trump and reject the politics of retiring Governor Charlie
Baker.
At the Massachusetts GOP’s convention two weekends ago,
speakers falsely claimed that the 2020 election was
“stolen,” labeled Democrats “evil,” and reprised a 2016
greatest hit, chanting “Lock her up! Lock her up!” at the
mention of Hillary Clinton. Baker, the party’s top elected
official and one of the nation’s most popular governors, was
present only on the back of candy wrappers, sporting a red
clown nose under mocking valediction: “Adiόs, Chuckles.”
Rayla Campbell, the GOP’s candidate for secretary of state,
baselessly warned the crowd that public schools are
instructing 5-year-olds to perform oral sex on each other.
(Many fellow Republicans disavowed her vulgarity, but backed
up the sentiment.)
That rhetoric is easy to dismiss as irrelevant in a reliably
blue state where those extreme voices are unlikely to win
elected office. But the hard-right turn the party has taken
nonetheless signals the continued decline of the moderate
New England Republican, long popular here for conservative
fiscal policy, a hands-off approach to social issues, and as
a counterbalance to a Democratic-dominated Legislature.
And it raises questions about the character of the party
nationally: If moderate voices cannot prevail in the
Massachusetts Republican Party, then where?
“I do not recognize the party today as the party I led,”
said Fergus Cullen, who chaired the New Hampshire GOP in
2007 and 2008. He described support for Trump as the litmus
test for candidates and political operatives across the
country.
In Massachusetts, “of all states,” one might expect
conservative Republicans to recognize that “maybe we’re a
minority, maybe we’re not the mainstream, maybe not everyone
out there agrees with us or shares our perspective,” Cullen
added. “And yet you have a faction within that group that is
dominating.”
A party once united around lowering taxes and protecting
free trade is now splintered by social issues. Some argue
that moderate Republicans can still rebound in New England.
But for this year, at least, it’s the Trump-influenced wing
of the Massachusetts GOP that will appear on the ballot.
Analysts say state Republican parties — though not as
influential as they once were, and not always a good
barometer of a party’s electorate — have trended to the
right over the past decade, with support for Trump
increasingly seen as a requirement for their leaders. It’s
been much the same story in Massachusetts, where the pull of
Trump and a widening rift between Baker and party leadership
has left some longtime moderate operatives feeling like they
no longer have a home in their party.
“I left the room for a lot of [the convention] because a lot
of what was said was going to be disturbing.… A lot of
xenophobia, a lot of misogyny,” said Jaclyn Corriveau, the
only Asian American member of the GOP state committee. “It’s
just not the party I identify with.”
That brash messaging is not likely to succeed, she added:
“Read the room. It’s Massachusetts, not Alabama.”
In the past, Massachusetts Republicans have succeeded by
running away from the culture wars and hot-button
controversies of the national party. Now, they are running
toward them.
Case in point: pins distributed at the GOP convention
bearing American flags in the shape of fetuses.
Conservatives heading the party now argue that Baker’s
moderate approach has achieved little; the GOP has tiny
minorities in the state Legislature, and fewer than 10
percent of Massachusetts voters are registered Republicans.
A new strategy is needed, they argue, one tied to party
principles rather than reliant on a single popular
politician.
Running that play is Jim Lyons, the party’s controversial
chairman, who has made opposition to abortion and false
claims of election fraud central to the party’s message
while publicly feuding with Baker. Lyons did not return a
request for comment.
Not everyone is convinced Lyons’ playbook is the wrong one.
Brad Todd, a national GOP strategist, said social issues
could be winners for Massachusetts Republicans if they’re
able to appeal to blue collar voters supportive of populist
figures like Trump.
Baker successfully attracted wealthy suburban centrists by
signaling, “‘I’m a Republican, but not really,’” Todd said.
But that’s not the only way the GOP can win here, he argued.
“I think the model going forward is going to be, ‘I’m a
Republican, but not really,’ but it’s a different ‘not
really.’ It’s, ‘I’m not a country club Republican,’” Todd
said. “It’s the same formula, it’s just a different group of
independents.”
Still, on social issues, Democrats enjoy a major edge over
Republicans in Massachusetts. Seventy-four percent of
Massachusetts adults believe abortion should be legal in
most or all cases, polling has shown, and 98 percent of
registered voters support background checks for anyone who
buys a gun. The state GOP’s leadership vehemently opposes
abortion, and the candidate the party endorsed for governor,
Geoff Diehl, has in the past earned support from the
National Rifle Association.
Trump won roughly 32 percent of the vote in Massachusetts in
2020 and 2016, less than Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain
in 2008.
But you would not have known it from the crowd at the
MassGOP convention, where Trump was a particularly animating
force, even if not all delegates were blindly loyal to the
former president.
“Donald J. Trump is the greatest president in my lifetime!”
Lyons exclaimed from the convention stage, pulling many in
the crowd of 1,200 delegates to their feet for a long
applause.
In interviews with the Globe, a number of delegates said
they’d like to see Trump policies dominate the party going
forward, while acknowledging that Trump himself might not be
the best person to carry them.
“I would like to see his policies run,” said Stacey Morano,
a delegate from Sudbury. But, she added, “I don’t know if
he’s too polarizing.”
John Margie, a 68-year-old East Bridgewater delegate, called
himself a “huge Trump fan,” but said the party could benefit
from nominating someone “smoother,” such as Florida Governor
Ron DeSantis.
John Paul Moran, a Billerica delegate and onetime
Congressional candidate, said he hopes DeSantis runs for
president — just not against Trump.
“It would be better for the party to have someone younger,”
Moran said. “I just hope they don’t run against each other.”
Such comments are an indication that even if Trump recedes
from the national spotlight, his populist politics have
indelibly shaped Republican politics even in blue states
like Massachusetts.
Some Republican strategists caution against overinterpreting
the rhetoric of the state party convention. It’s common for
such events to draw the most extreme members of any party:
It’s the most dedicated activists who are willing to spend
on tickets and travel and devote their sunny spring weekends
to debates on political endorsements and party platform
planks. The positions of those party faithful do not
necessarily represent the average party voter, some analysts
point out.
“The state party convention is inside, inside, inside,
inside baseball…. That is not the new Republican party,”
said Jennifer Nassour, a former chair of the MassGOP. “The
Republican Party is the one that believes in fiscal
conservatism, the one that believes that the next governor
should carry on the same messaging that Governor Baker has.”
But Baker’s was not the predominant message of the
candidates who won the most support at the convention, and
it is their positions whose popularity will be tested on
November’s ballot.
Polling suggests Diehl, the Trump-backed conservative who
won the party’s endorsement for governor, is faring better
than his opponent, businessman Chris Doughty, who has made
his campaign more about economic issues than social ones.
Diehl led with 37 percent support to Doughty’s 9 percent in
a recent Emerson College poll of Republican primary voters.
And in hypothetical general election match ups, Diehl fared
better than Doughty against both Democratic contenders,
Suffolk University polling found.
Still, in every matchup, Democrats handily defeated their
GOP opponents.
— Matt Stout and Samantha
Gross of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
The Boston
Globe
Sunday, May 29, 2022
A Boston Globe editorial
A fateful moment for Massachusetts Republicans
A hard turn to the right could snuff out one of the last
vestiges of responsible conservatism in the United States.
There has always been a duality to the Massachusetts
Republican Party — something noble and something dark.
One of the party’s most iconic figures, Henry Cabot Lodge,
led an admirable, if ultimately unsuccessful fight to
protect the Black vote — even as he traded in an ugly
nativism. In language that would be recognizable to any Fox
News viewer today, he blamed immigrants for depressing wages
and bringing disease and criminality to American shores. And
he even seemed to countenance vigilantism, suggesting a New
Orleans mob lynching of 11 Italian Americans was “not mere
riot, but rather that revenge which Lord Bacon says is a
kind of wild justice.”
Over the last few decades, the Massachusetts GOP’s nobler
side has mostly prevailed. Governor William Weld combined a
traditional Republican push for privatization of public
services with forward-looking views on gay rights and other
social issues. Governor Mitt Romney worked to expand health
coverage in a precursor to Obamacare. And Governor Charlie
Baker has served as a beacon of civil and constructive
conservatism in a truly frightening moment in national
Republican politics.
But Baker isn’t running for reelection this year. And party
activists who have embraced former president Donald Trump
and chafed under Baker’s leadership in recent years see a
chance to steer the party in a very different direction.
The state’s voters got a visceral sense for what that could
look like at the state GOP’s convention last weekend. The
party’s candidate for secretary of state, Rayla Campbell,
called Democrats “rotten devils” and railed against a public
education system that, she said, was “telling your
5-year-old that he can go suck another 5-year-old’s
[expletive].” Trump’s “border czar,” Thomas Homan, led the
assembled in a chant of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” And
Trump-endorsed Geoff Diehl won the party’s backing for
governor by an overwhelming margin, pledging to send the
National Guard to the southern border “to stop the
lawlessness” and hire back state workers fired by Baker for
refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“The radical left wants us to sit down in the corner and do
what we’re told,” said the state party’s combative chairman,
Jim Lyons. “This is a new Republican party. A party that is
going to stand and fight.”
It was an inauspicious start to the campaign season. And
this page isn’t especially hopeful that the message will
improve.
But if Diehl is unwilling to steer the party away from the
science denialism and immigrant-bashing that represent
American conservatism at its worst, perhaps his more
moderate challenger for the GOP’s gubernatorial nomination,
businessman Chris Doughty, can do the job.
The health of Massachusetts’ democracy is at stake. The
state’s string of GOP governors have offered an important
check on an overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature — and real
representation for the sizable share of Massachusetts voters
who identify as right-of-center. If the party’s leaders make
a hard turn to the right, defeat is virtually guaranteed,
and an already deep blue Massachusetts will turn into a
truly one-party state.
But it’s not just the Commonwealth that will suffer. America
is in desperate need of a responsible conservative party
that represents the sincerely held views of right-leaning
voters without venturing into conspiratorial nonsense.
Without one, the country runs the real risk of democratic
collapse.
The Massachusetts GOP, under Baker, is one of the few
vestiges of responsible Republicanism in the country. If
party leaders — and rank-and-file members — snuff that out,
what do we have left?
State House News
Service
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Republicans Top Of Mind At Democrats' Convention
Warren Blasts "Trump Wannabe," Says "It's Time To Get Angry"
By Colin A. Young
While Democrats in other parts of the country feel like they
and their ideas are increasingly under duress at the
national level, a parade of elected officials on Saturday
urged Massachusetts Democrats to not become complacent with
the almost universal Democratic control of elected offices
here.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party's convention at the DCU
Center in Worcester on Saturday focused on the candidates
running for state office, but speakers also rallied the more
than 5,000 blue-blooded Democrats participating as delegates
to get behind the party's broader national messaging around
issues like abortion rights, gun control and the threat that
extremism poses to American democracy.
U.S. Rep. James McGovern of Worcester said that the
Republican Party has embraced conspiracy theories and
misinformation and lashes out at any one who disagrees as
"pedophiles and murderers." He told attendees of his
experiences on the U.S. House floor during the violence of
Jan. 6, 2021, and said those "very same people" are now
trying to rig future campaigns.
"We refuse to let that happen because for all of our party's
flaws and imperfections, the Democratic Party is the party
of democracy. We cherish voting rights, Republicans want to
take voting rights away. We protect women's rights, they
want politicians to tell women when they can get an
abortion. When we build bridges, they burn books. When we
promote peace, they embrace Putin. When we improve
infrastructure, they incite insurrection," McGovern said.
Secretary of State William Galvin referenced the speech that
Republican candidate for secretary of state, Rayla Campbell,
gave two weeks ago at the GOP convention in Springfield as
an example of what Democrats are up against. In her remarks,
Campbell suggested that teachers in Massachusetts were
telling five-year-old boys they can have oral sex with each
other and referred to Democrats as "rotten devils."
"They have become the party of suspicion and intimidation
and hatred. Just two weeks ago, my Republican opponent stood
in Springfield and delivered a vile, homophobic attack on
the citizens of our state and all states," said Galvin, who
will need to win his own party's primary before Campbell is
his direct opponent. "We are the party of pride, not of
attacks. They are the party of suspicion and hatred. We need
to call them out when it occurs."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said it makes her "downright
furious ... but not surprised" that the right is poised to
see Roe vs. Wade fall at the Supreme Court and to roll back
abortion rights around the country.
"Yes, Massachusetts has strengthened protection of Roe, but
understand this: We are under attack," Warren said. "Just a
few weeks ago, Mitch McConnell told us where these extremist
Republicans are heading next. If they can take control of
Congress and the White House, Mitch McConnell says they're
coming after every state, red or blue, to make abortion
illegal across this country. If Mitch McConnell has his way,
there will be no safe havens anywhere in America."
Reproductive Equity Now Executive Director Rebecca Hart
Holder asked Democrats to "double down on state politics" as
a backstop to the rightward shift at the national level. She
said the "anti-abortion" agenda is not simply to ban
abortion in red states, but to ban it across the country and
to then target other existing policies.
"They are coming for birth control and same sex marriage,"
she said. "They are terrified of immigrant and racial
justice and they are making it more difficult to vote them
out of office."
Though the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde, TX, and
Tulsa were not a central theme of any remarks Saturday,
Warren did raise the issue of the "epidemic of gun violence"
and pointed out that 110 Americans are killed by guns each
day.
"And yet, in Washington, not one single Republican is
willing to tackle gun violence head-on. Not one Republican
politician is willing to take even the smallest steps to
improve gun safety. Not one Republican politician is willing
to take on the NRA to save lives," she said.
Like McGovern, Warren also brought up "the big lie" in her
remarks and said that Democrats around the country,
including in liberal bastions like Massachusetts, need to
mobilize to counteract the conservative movement.
"When national Republican leaders tell us they're coming for
our rights, and when state Republican leaders describe
efforts to protect ourselves as extreme and radical, then it
is time to get angry, deep down angry, and to channel that
anger into powerful action," she said.
Warren, who easily turned away a challenge from Republican
gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl in the 2018 U.S. Senate
election, tied the front-runner on the GOP side to the
national GOP policies and ideas that Democrat after Democrat
railed against Saturday.
"Now a Donald Trump wannabe is running for governor right
here in Massachusetts. Geoff Diehl has jumped on the
extremist bandwagon," Warren said. "Geoff Diehl can try to
talk out of both sides of his mouth on every issue, but at
the end of the day, he stands with the white supremacists
and January 6 insurrectionists and anti-choice radicals who
have taken over the Republican leadership even here in
Massachusetts. And that this why he will not be the next
governor of this commonwealth."
At times, though, the Democrats got a bit carried away with
their rousing speeches to delegates and let the truth get
away from them. U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, for example, boomed
to the crowd in Worcester that he and Warren had voted to
confirm the nation's first Black Supreme Court justice,
Ketanji Brown Jackson, while "every Republican voted no."
In fact, three Republicans in the U.S. Senate -- Susan
Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and former Mass.
governor Mitt Romney of Utah -- voted to support Jackson's
confirmation.
State House News
Service
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Dem Delegates Endorse Healey, Qualify Chang-Díaz For Ballot
LG Candidates Hinds, Bero Tossed From The Competition
By Colin A. Young
Massachusetts Democrats on Saturday afternoon endorsed Maura
Healey's quest to move from the attorney general's office to
the governor's suite but also put Sonia Chang-Díaz on the
September primary ballot, ensuring that Healey will have
some intraparty competition before she could turn her full
attention to any Republican opponents.
Healey, serving her eighth year as attorney general and who
has long been viewed as a gubernatorial candidate in
waiting, took more than 71 percent of the votes cast by
party delegates at their nominating convention at the DCU
Center in Worcester. Chang-Díaz, a state senator of more
than a decade, got about 29 percent of the delegate vote,
almost double the 15 percent required to make it onto the
Sept. 6 primary ballot.
Healey was the favorite coming into the gathering -- a fact
that Chang-Díaz used in her speech to highlight her
independence from the political establishment -- and she
mostly played it safe as she addressed the receptive crowd.
Though she ticked off a list of things she'd do as governor
-- "cutting the costs of housing, energy, and health care,"
creating more housing, making East-West Rail a reality, and
passing same-day voter registration -- Healey did not use
her remarks to dive into detail specifics.
"We are in a moment of great challenge, but also, great
opportunity. We've seen loss, heartache, hardship, and
problems made worse during this pandemic. But we've also
seen it bring out the best in us. You see, I believe in our
state and I believe in our people. I believe in our promise
and our potential," Healey said. "And I believe this is our
moment -- right now -- to tear down the barriers that hold
people back, to come together, to lift people up, and to
bring opportunity to every person in every region in this
state."
After the results were announced, Healey told reporters, "I
wanted to come in and do well at this convention and we did
extremely well, and I'm really excited and can't wait to
move forward with this campaign."
The field of candidates vying to be either Healey's or
Chang-Díaz's lieutenant governor was trimmed by delegates
from five to three with Sen. Adam Hinds and businessman Bret
Bero falling short of the support needed to make it onto the
September ballot. The LG campaigns of Salem Mayor Kim
Driscoll, Rep. Tami Gouveia and Sen. Eric Lesser rallied
enough delegate support to stay active and Driscoll claimed
the party's endorsement.
While the party insiders at the convention and their
endorsement matter (they represent just one-third of one
percent of all Bay State Democrats; these are the hardcore
party loyalists), there is no convention for the voters who
will have the greatest say when it comes time to pick the
state's next governor in November: unenrolled voters.
As of Feb. 2021, there were 4,731,940 registered voters in
Massachusetts -- 31.6 percent were registered as Democrats
and 9.7 percent were registered as Republicans, but 57.4
percent of Massachusetts voters were unenrolled in any
party, according to the secretary of state's office.
And "winning" the convention has never been a reliable
predictor of success in the September primary or November
general election. Steve Grossman took the party's convention
endorsement in 2014 but then lost the primary election to
Martha Coakley, for example.
Governor
Healey, 51, of Boston's South End, has served since 2015 as
the state's attorney general. In her first run for elected
office in 2014, Healey seemingly came out of nowhere to
capture more than 62 percent of Democratic primary votes
over former state Sen. Warren Tolman of Watertown, whose
candidacy was backed by Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor
Martin Walsh.
Her win made Healey the country's first openly gay state
attorney general and she would make state history, if
elected, as the first woman to be elected governor and the
first openly gay governor of Massachusetts.
Chang-Díaz, 44, of Jamaica Plain, has served in the
Massachusetts Senate since 2009 and would also make history
if she's chosen by voters in November. Chang-Díaz would be
the state's first elected female governor and the state's
first Latina and Asian American governor.
She also holds the distinction of being the first Latina
elected to the Massachusetts Senate. Chang-Díaz came up
short in a 2006 primary challenge of Sen. Dianne Wilkerson
and eked out a narrow victory in a 2008 rematch. Wilkerson
launched a sticker campaign to keep her seat, but was
arrested on federal bribery charges days before the election
and was trounced by Chang-Díaz.
A steady voice for progressive causes and someone who has
not shied away from prickly or sensitive debates on Beacon
Hill, Chang-Díaz launched her gubernatorial bid nearly a
year ago citing her legislative accomplishments around
education funding and criminal justice reform, but also
knocking Beacon Hill "insiders" who she said are "more
interested in keeping power than in doing something with
it." She stuck with that theme Saturday and delivered a
rousing speech that was nearly cut off by party officials as
it approached the time limit.
In her speech, the senator called attention to her having
been stripped of her chairmanship of the Education Committee
and seat on the Ways and Means Committee after talks around
an education reform bill fell apart. Chang-Díaz framed it as
a positive and as evidence that she would stand up to
entrenched power if elected governor.
"It cost me favor with Beacon Hill leadership and, frankly,
better pay ... I lost the trappings of power. But kids here
in Worcester today have the support staff and school
counselors that they never would have had otherwise," she
said. "That's a trade I would make every time. And friends,
that's what courage gets you."
Facing an uphill battle as the underdog in the primary,
Chang-Díaz told delegates that she is the candidate, not the
front-runner Healey, whose positions most closely align with
the platform that the party's delegates voted to approve.
She said she is the only candidate in the race who supports
Medicare for All, fare-free public transportation and
debt-free public college and pitched herself as the
candidate who would rally the full power of the Democrats'
one-party rule.
"I am here to tell you that we can get there -- but we have
to be clear-eyed. The reason we haven't achieved these
things yet isn't due to a lack of resources, or public
opinion, or even Republicans in our state. We have a
Democratic supermajority in both chambers of the
legislature," Chang-Díaz said. "It's because too few of our
political leaders display the same acts of courage that
working people do every day."
As attorney general, Healey focused a lot of her fire on
President Donald Trump and major corporations like Exxon
Mobil and Purdue Pharma. Her office has also been deeply
involved in the details as Massachusetts shifts towards new
sources of energy and attempts to meet climate commitments.
With her run for governor, which she made official only
after Gov. Charlie Baker announced his intent not to run,
Healey is attempting to show voters that she has the skills
and vision for a broader role overseeing all of state
government.
Her speech to the delegates focused mostly on her record as
attorney general and contrasts between herself and the
Republican candidates for governor here.
"They'd take us backwards on racial justice, immigration,
gun violence, on reproductive rights and climate change. The
choice in this election could not be more clear; a choice
between progress or partisanship, between delivering for
people or dividing them," Healey said. "Our campaign is
about coming together to fight for the things that matter,
that actually matter to people and families all across
Massachusetts."
Lieutenant Governor
Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, who has been running the North
Shore city since 2006, topped the LG field with support from
41.4 percent of the delegates at the convention. She got
into the lieutenant governor's race in January promising a
"new focus from Beacon Hill" on the needs of cities of
towns. Driscoll previously worked as chief legal counsel and
deputy city manager in Chelsea and served on the Salem City
Council.
"I'm proud to be part of the get-stuff-done wing of
government with a record of delivering results every day for
people counting on us to do better. Those of you who serve
or volunteer in a local office -- whether it's your school
board, town meeting, a committee or any other form of
service -- you know what I'm talking about. There's no
hiding in local government. We're there front and center,
fully accountable, doing the hard work to make our
communities better," Driscoll said. "The stakes are higher
being a leader in your community. It makes you listen. It
makes you more accountable. And it makes you a better
leader."
Rep. Tami Gouveia of Acton was a distant (but safe) second
in the lieutenant governor's field, taking 23 percent of the
delegate votes cast. Gouveia was one just two House
Democrats not to support Ron Mariano for speaker last
January and has openly called for more transparency in the
House and within the joint committees. She was a public
health project manager and executive director of Tobacco
Free Massachusetts before leaping into elected politics in
2018.
"Many are locked out of opportunities, denied access to
basic resources, and suffer the indignities and violence of
racism and poverty. We have failed to solve the major issues
that erode our faith in each other -- income inequality,
environmental degradation, corporate greed, and violence and
racial injustice," Gouveia said. She added, "This moment
calls for a new type of lieutenant governor, a lieutenant
governor who has the lived experience, the expertise, the
courage and the track record to break through the same old
politics to enact the bold plans you need for the quality of
life we all want and all deserve. I am that lieutenant
governor."
Right behind Gouveia in Saturday's balloting was Eric
Lesser, a fourth-term state senator from Longmeadow and
chairman of the Economic Development Committee. He had the
support of about 21 percent of delegates. He dove into the
race by telling voters that he "is ready to confront the
reality that Massachusetts, despite its progressive history,
has become one of the most unequal places in the country."
Lesser said Saturday that he is not running to point out or
complain about the state's problems.
"Quite frankly, there's plenty of people that do that
already. I'm running to solve them," he said.
Lesser's speech largely centered around his support and
advocacy for East-West Rail, and what that long-discussed
project would mean for the state's economy, job
opportunities and housing costs. He also acknowledged that
many people don't really know what a lieutenant governor
does and said that he would use the office to make
meaningful change.
"It's understandable that people ask whether their
government is listening, whether it's even in our capacity
anymore to meet today's challenges. But my life and my work
has shown me that, yes, we can do big things. I'm running
because I want to do that work, as I have all my life in the
White House for President Obama and in the State House,"
Lesser said. "Now, I want to make sure our next governor is
a success in whatever way she asks."
Sen. Adam Hinds, of Pittsfield, fell short of the 15 percent
threshold with 12.4 percent of the delegate vote Saturday.
Bret Bero, a Babson College business professor and former
small business owner, also came up short with just 2 percent
support at Saturday's convention.
Bero pitched himself Saturday as a "distinctly different
candidate" who could bring different experience to the
party's ticket.
"I was a small business owner in Central Mass. for over 20
years and I've worked in and understand industries critical
to Massachusetts -- health care, technology, professional
and financial services, manufacturing, and hospitality. As a
member of the faculty of Babson College, I'm the only
candidate who's been inside the classroom working with our
students. And I've been part of organizations working on
organizational issues and providing mental health care and
addiction support services to our vulnerable citizens," he
said. "In short, my decades of diverse experience enable me
to bring a new and needed perspective to Beacon Hill."
Bero, who was sometimes overshadowed in the race for
lieutenant governor to the point that two polls completely
left him out of their surveys, made a motion during the
convention to have the delegates vote by acclamation to put
all candidates for statewide office on the ballot regardless
of the convention outcome.
Democratic Party Chairman Gus Bickford declared the motion
rejected because, he said, it ran afoul of party convention
rules and because there was at least one delegate who
objected to the motion, which would have had to pass with
unanimous consent.
"Today, I ask for your support. If not because I'm your
first choice, then because you believe in giving voters a
real choice in the September primary," Bero said during his
address to the delegates.
History, Sort Of
During the day Saturday, some speakers talked about making
Healey and Chang-Díaz "the first female governor" of
Massachusetts. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, for example, said
it is time for Massachusetts to have a woman in the corner
office.
Though it has been almost two decades, there was a woman in
the corner office as recently as January 2003, when
Republican Gov. Jane Swift left the governor's office after
filling that post when Gov. Paul Cellucci stepped down.
Swift was not elected governor of Massachusetts, though, so
Healey or Chang-Díaz would be the first elected female
governor of Massachusetts if one of them wins in November.
But to this point, neither of the two women running for
governor this year has set herself apart from others who
came before. Martha Coakley, another Democrat, could have
been the state's first elected female governor, but she lost
to Charlie Baker in 2014.
The Democratic primary, as well as the Republican one, will
be held Tuesday, Sept. 6.
— Matt Murphy contributed to
this report.
State House News
Service
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Dem Delegates Back Sullivan Over Galvin In Secretary Race
Palfrey, Dempsey Get Endorsements In AG, Auditor Races
By Colin A. Young
Quentin Palfrey was endorsed for attorney general, Tanisha
Sullivan was endorsed for secretary of state, and Chris
Dempsey was endorsed for state auditor, but every Democrat
running for those offices this year secured enough support
Saturday from delegates at the Democratic Party convention
to lock up a spot on the Sept. 6 primary ballot.
Candidates needed to win the backing of at least 15 percent
of the delegates at the convention in Worcester to keep
their campaigns alive over the summer, when they will be
able to make their case to voters statewide. The 15 percent
threshold was not too great of a hurdle for any of the seven
Democrats running for attorney general, secretary of state
or auditor.
The fields remain unchanged post-convention: Andrea Campbell
(39.2 percent), Quentin Palfrey (38.8 percent) and Shannon
Liss-Riordan (21.9 percent) for attorney general, Tanisha
Sullivan (62.4 percent and party endorsement) and William
Galvin (37.6 percent) for secretary of state, and Chris
Dempsey (52.7 percent and party endorsement) and Diana
DiZoglio (47.3 percent) for state auditor.
The Democratic primary election will be held Tuesday, Sept.
6 and will also feature Maura Healey and Sonia Chang-Díaz
for governor, and Kim Driscoll, Tami Gouveia and Eric Lesser
for lieutenant governor. Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, who has
no primary challenger, was endorsed for a third term on
Friday night.
Attorney General
All three candidates for attorney general cleared the 15
percent bar on the first ballot, but the party's endorsement
was decided on a second ballot between only Campbell and
Palfrey because none took a majority of the delegate vote in
the first round. Palfrey, the party's 2018 lieutenant
governor nominee, secured the party's official endorsement
for attorney general with 54 percent on the second ballot.
"In this critical time, Massachusetts needs an attorney
general who has the experience, progressive values and
independence to take on the big challenges on day one,"
Palfrey, who once led the health care division in the
attorney general's office and served as general counsel in
the U.S. Commerce Department, said.
After touting his resume and highlighting some of the
differences between candidates, he added, "I promise you, if
I have the great honor to be your attorney general, I will
stand up against special interests, I will fight for health
care as a human right, urgent climate change, racial
justice, public schools, and an economy that works for
everyone."
Palfrey name-checked Campbell during his remarks,
contrasting his opposition to charter school expansion to
Campbell's views, but he did not call out Liss-Riordan in
the same way. His remarks largely focused on climate change,
the opioid epidemic, a carbon tax, fare-free public transit
and defending voting rights.
Campbell, the first Black woman to serve as Boston City
Council president and a former deputy legal counsel under
Gov. Deval Patrick, ran for mayor of Boston in 2021 but
turned her sights to the attorney general's office early
this year hoping to make the position "an advocate for
fundamental change and progress."
"The sense of urgency is crystal clear to me. To end the
cycle of violence, poverty and divisiveness, we've got to
unite to tackle our toughest problems together. Together we
can bring about fundamental change and progress to the very
systems that are holding us back. And we have an
opportunity, an opportunity to build coalitions between
communities of color in urban centers and poor rural
communities -- in different communities, of course, but
they're facing similar issues. We have an opportunity to
meaningfully bring together communities of different
cultures, different religions, different ethnicities,
beliefs, genders, sexual orientations, and backgrounds. And
as attorney general, I'll seek to do just that."
Liss-Riordan, a labor attorney who began running in 2019 for
U.S. Senate in what would have been a challenge to incumbent
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey before backing out, is known
primarily for the lawsuits she has brought against major
corporations on behalf of workers, including Starbucks,
FedEx, American Airlines, GrubHub, Doordash and others.
"We are in very troubled times facing crises on almost every
front, from reproductive rights to gun safety, the opioid
crisis, the housing crisis, economic justice, racial justice
and climate change. I could go on, but you don't need
somebody to tell you what the problems are. We need to
figure out how to fix them together," Liss-Riordan said.
She said after the results were in that she was "humbled" to
be on the ballot and is looking forward to "moving past the
5,000 people who participated in this process and talking to
all the voters across Massachusetts."
While Campbell and Palfrey were fighting it out on a second
ballot for the party's endorsement, Liss-Riordan said she
was looking forward to the opportunity to debate her two
rivals for the office.
"I really hope Andrea Campbell will engage with us now about
having debates for this race, because I think it's important
for the voters of Massachusetts to have a robust discussion
about who they want to be the next people's lawyer," she
said.
Democrats, starting with former House Speaker Robert Quinn,
have held the attorney general's office since 1969.
Secretary of State
Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston branch of the
NAACP, attorney and life sciences executive, earned a
resounding victory at the convention over the incumbent
William Galvin. She was supported by more than 2,500
delegates while Galvin was backed by about 1,500 delegates.
Sullivan said she was compelled to run for the office at "an
inflection point in our democracy. On Saturday, she pledged
to expand voting rights and make public records more
accessible in what she called "the least transparent state
in the country." Her remarks Saturday focused on having
"proactive leadership" in the secretary of state's office.
"Despite record voter turnout in 2020, hear me on this,
voters from some of our most vulnerable communities still
saw the lowest voter turnout across Massachusetts, leaving
behind far too many voices. I'm talking about the voices of
Black, indigenous, Latinx and AAPI folks. I'm talking about
our working families, our disability and immigrant
communities. I'm talking about our seniors. I'm talking
about residents experiencing poverty. These are our
neighbors who have been left out because we've had reactive
leadership. It is time for proactive leadership that
understands that voting is not a privilege, it's a right,"
Sullivan, who took the microphone in her hand and energized
delegates by delivering the climax of her speech while
pacing the stage of the DCU Center. "Simply put,
Massachusetts needs a secretary of state who fights on the
ground with us every day, fighting for the democracy we
deserve."
Galvin is seeking his eighth four-year term as the secretary
of state, having served since 1995. The Brighton Democrat
who was elected to eight terms in the Massachusetts House
beginning in 1975 could surpass former Secretary Frederic
Cook's record 28-year tenure in the constitutional post if
he wins this September and November.
Galvin has lost at the party convention but then prevailed
in the party primary three times previously -- in 1990 when
he ran for treasurer, in 1994 when he first ran for
secretary of state and in 2018 when the upstart campaign of
Josh Zakim won the party's endorsement before being crushed
by Galvin when the contest extended beyond the most hardcore
party insiders.
As delegates were voting, Galvin told reporters that he was
"optimistic" about getting the convention's backing but also
pointed out that he has repeatedly won statewide even when
the party insiders don't give him their blessing at the
convention.
"I've actually not been the endorsee of the convention on
three different occasions and I've won by more every single
time. So I guess I have a mixed opinion," Galvin told
reporters. "I think the difference between now and four
years ago is I think, more than ever before, people
recognize the importance of secretary of state, not just
here but everywhere in the country."
Sullivan, speaking to reporters, said much of the same when
asked why this year could be different from the previous
years that Galvin lost at the convention to later win
re-election.
"2020, in many respects, was a turning point for folks
across the country and our understanding about just how
important the office of secretary of state is," she said.
She added, "More people understand the critical role that
this office has to play. And I believe that that's going to
make a difference. People are paying attention."
Galvin told the delegates that he delivered on his promises
from his 2018 reelection to oversee a fair count of
Massachusetts residents through the 2020 Census, to ensure
that the 2020 presidential election here was conducted
securely and to protect voting rights, and said that he will
use his seniority and experience to promote the party's
values and policies around voting rights at the national
level if he is elected to an eighth term.
"Make no mistake about it, we confront a huge challenge this
year, but especially in 2024. With the shift in the
electoral college that's occurred, with the changes that the
Republicans have relentlessly brought about in other states,
we are up against it. I am now the senior Democratic
election official in the United States and I intend to use
that role to make sure that we're able to make sure that
citizens throughout our country have the opportunity to
vote. I intend to speak to my colleagues, as I have in the
past, encouraging them in best practices and things to do.
But I need your help. I want to continue our mission."
The secretary said he has been accurate, competent, honest,
"and I have delivered ... I want to continue doing that for
us."
A statewide post, the secretary of state's office oversees a
broad suite of functions, ranging from elections and voting
to corporations and securities, public records, lobbyists,
the decennial census, and historical commission and state
archives.
State Auditor
Chris Dempsey, a public transportation advocate who helped
lead the grassroots movement to prevent the Olympics from
coming to Boston in 2024, narrowly edged out Sen. Diana
DiZoglio for the party's endorsement as auditor. He
announced his campaign for auditor last year saying that the
office "must stand up to special interests to protect the
public interest." He has the backing of outgoing Auditor
Suzanne Bump.
In her remarks introducing Dempsey, Bump said he is the only
candidate in the race who has "the skill set, mindset and
value set to be the next auditor."
A former assistant secretary of transportation during Gov.
Deval Patrick's administration, Bain & Company consultant
and director of Transportation for Massachusetts, Dempsey
has shown his willingness -- especially during the push to
prevent the Olympics from being awarded to Boston -- to
tangle with the powerful and has pitched that willingness as
a good quality for a state auditor. On Saturday, he also
cited his work inside government.
"I'm running to be your next chief accountability officer
and I have the background and the experience and the track
record of independence to do that job for you," he said. "As
assistant secretary of transportation for Gov. Patrick, I
made Massachusetts the first state on the East Coast to make
smartphone apps available to track your bus or train. I've
made government work better for all of us and I've stood up
to protect the public interest."
DiZoglio served three terms in the House before winning
election to the Senate in 2018. In the last year, she has
criticized lawmakers for not offering more pandemic relief
to restaurants and other small businesses, clashed with
Democratic leadership about how much time lawmakers receive
to review legislation, and argued that low legislative pay
has "priced diversity and equity" out of Beacon Hill.
The second-term senator has long been a vocal advocate for
restricting the use of non-disclosure agreements on Beacon
Hill. As a member of the House in March 2018, DiZoglio used
a floor speech to break the NDA she'd signed when fired from
a job as a House aide years earlier. She said Saturday she
had signed the agreement "under duress" and that she was
fired because of discredited rumors about inappropriate
behavior.
"But I didn't let them get rid of me or keep me quiet and I
didn't leave state government like they told me to do,
friends," DiZoglio said. "When I got elected, I knew it was
my responsibility to fight like hell for working families
like ours who have been dismissed, ignored or
disenfranchised from a system in our state government that
is still not working for all residents the way that it could
and the way that it should. But not everyone on Beacon Hill
appreciates these calls for transparency, accountability and
equity and unfortunately, those who want to protect the
status quo continue to dismiss our calls to audit the
Legislature."
— Matt Murphy contributed to
this report.
The Boston
Herald
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Massachusetts Democrats and Maura Healey running against
Donald Trump
By Joe Battenfeld
Attorney General Maura Healey won over a crowd of liberal
activists and Massachusetts Democrats made clear they intend
to run against Donald Trump — even if Trump isn’t on the
ballot.
“Now a Donald Trump wannabe is running for governor right
here in Massachusetts,” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren told a
crowd of several thousand delegates at the Democratic state
convention. “Geoff Diehl has jumped on the extremist
bandwagon.”
Warren added that Diehl — who was endorsed by Republican
delegates last month as the party’s gubernatorial nominee —
“stands with the white supremacists and January 6
insurrectionists and anti-choice radicals who have taken
over the Republican leadership even here in Massachusetts.”
Healey — who sued Trump dozens of times when the former
president was in office — also referenced Republicans
embracing a far right Trump agenda at their convention.
“There are some who say that Republicans in this race are
different here in Massachusetts,” Healey said. “Give me a
break. Look at that convention two weeks ago — so much
hatred and vitriol. They’re going to take us backwards on
racial justice, immigration, gun violence, reproductive
rights and climate change and more.”
Diehl hasn’t won the primary yet — he faces GOP challenger
Chris Doughty — but he’ll be heavily favored to win the
primary.
If that’s the case, Healey — who easily defeated rival Sonia
Chang-Diaz at Saturday’s convention — will be happy to
reprise her role as Trump antagonist in November’s general
election.
And Republicans are now poised to try and portray Healey as
too far left to be in step with most moderate voters, while
tying Healey to unpopular President Joe Biden.
“Maura Healey’s radical record and extreme statements while
serving as Attorney General make clear that she would be the
most progressive governor ever in our state’s history,”
Diehl said in a statement. “Democrats have chosen to double
down on a far left political agenda they know has failed
under the Biden administration.”
More than 70% of Democratic delegates backed Healey over
Chang-Diaz, embracing a white, openly gay law enforcement
official over a far-left Latina and Asian American state
senator.
In the Democratic race for Attorney General, delegates also
endorsed the white candidate — Quentin Palfrey — over a
Black candidate, former Boston City Councilor Andrea
Campbell.
More than a little awkward for a party that embraces
diversity.
Delegates did pick a Black candidate, Boston NAACP head
Tanisha Sullivan, over the incumbent, William Galvin, in the
race for Secretary of State. But that has more to do with
Galvin’s broad unpopularity with the liberal wing of the
Massachusetts Democratic Party. Galvin lost the convention
endorsement four years ago yet easily won the primary.
But he’ll face a much tougher battle against Sullivan in
September. It will be the Democratic race to watch.
The odds are now heavily against Chang-Diaz, a staunch
progressive who was hoping to win over more votes against
the more moderate Healey. She will face extreme shortages of
money and support. |
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
|
