Even in a year when women are expected to make strong political gains, there are no guarantees. Beth Lindstrom, who came in third in the Republican primary for US Senate, and Gerly Adrien, who came in a close second in a Democratic primary for a state rep's seat from Everett, explain why they ran for office and why they think they lost on CommonWealth's Codcast, hosted by Democrat Jesse Mermell and Republican Jennifer Nassour.
The “bro” culture of pot is a dominant image of marijuana. Cheech and Chong are the dudes who most represent the “stoner” generation while the legal industry is increasingly seeing corporations and investors dominated by men. The reality is a little more diverse, though, and Massachusetts is aiming to hold the door open for previously disenfranchised people who want entrée into the booming business, such as minorities, ex-convicts with marijuana-related records, and women. Perception often being...
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez filled in one big missing piece of his campaign platform last week, a plan for how to pay for the new investments in transportation and education he has vowed to pursue if elected. His proposal to levy a 1.6 percent annual tax on the holdings of Massachusetts colleges and universities with endowments greater than $1 billion became the topic of the week in the race — and it’s the first of two issues Jennifer Nassour and Jesse Mermell tackle in their...
Everett wanted to launch a dedicated bus lane, so Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. just did it in December 2016. No community meetings or endless analysis. DeMaria gave residents four days notice that the parking lane on a 1.5-mile stretch of Broadway was going to be eliminated during the early morning hours and then put up orange cones.. Jay Monty, the city’s transportation planner, said everyone expected complaints. But bus riders and drivers alike said the dedicated bus lane improved their commute, so...
“Politics, Ideas & Civic Life in Massachusetts” has been the tagline describing the focus of CommonWealth’s coverage since the magazine was launched 22 years ago. We didn’t say it explicitly, but the goal also was to promote a civil civic life here. A robust exchange of views and ideas, argued vigorously but respectfully, seemed then like an essential ingredient to maintaining a healthy body politic -- and it still does today. With today’s episode of The Codcast, two smart voices -- from eit...
Two Democrats -- Quentin Palfrey and Jimmy Tingle -- are vying for the September 4 nomination for lieutenant governor. The winner will be paired with the victor in the party’s gubernatorial primary and go into the November match-up against the GOP ticket -- widely expected to be led by Gov. Charlie Baker (who faces underdog challenger Scott Lively) and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito (who is unopposed for the Republican nomination). The two Democratic hopefuls, who came in for separate conversations on th...
Will this be a change election in Massachusetts? A lot of political energy has been unleashed in reaction to Donald Trump’s election two years ago. Nationally, Democrats are hoping it will translate into big gains in the midterm congressional elections, with possibility of taking back control of the House. In Massachusetts, where Democrats already hold the overwhelming share of elected offices, that energy and the appetite for change is mostly playing out within Democratic primaries, with severa...
Mayor Jon Mitchell has come out strongly against the expansion proposals, arguing they would be devastating to city finances and the state of its district schools. The head of the state charter school association, Tim Nicolette, penned an op-ed last week in the New Bedford Standard-Times in support of the charter growth and the options they give families who are desperate for quality school options. He said New Bedford is the fourth lowest performing school district in the state. “Parents and st...
In today’s Codcast, we talk to two Democrats challenging incumbents from their own party – Samantha (Sam) Hammar of Melrose, who is taking on Sen. Jason Lewis of Winchester, and Ted Steinberg of Needham, who is running against Rep. Denise Garlick of Needham.
Gov. Charlie Baker has an R next to his name, but many Republicans don’t think it belongs there. Ed Lyons, a Republican activist who is a big fan of Baker, said the governor’s acceptance of the grand bargain in the recently completed legislative session disturbed many in the GOP. The grand bargain embraced legislation raising the hourly minimum wage to $15 and mandating paid medical and family leave as a way to take ballot questions off the table that would have accomplished both actions more qu...
To say there’s a chasm as wide as the Rio Grande between both sides of the immigration debate would be an understatement. The conversation about compromise is a non-starter because neither side can even agree on what terms to use. US Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling, in a recent sit-down with CommonWealth, acknowledged his office is ramping up identifying defendants by their nationalities if they are immigrants who commit a crime in the country. And Lelling said he refuses to call them ...
Uber and Lyft are expanding their vision of ride-sharing to include not just cars but bicycles, electric bicycles, and electric scooters. Uber jumped in first, adding the electric bikeshare company Jump to its app earlier this year in San Francisco and then acquiring the company outright in March for an estimated $100 million. Lyft earlier this month bought Motivate, the nation’s largest bikeshare company, with operations in such cities as Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. The...
Massachusetts is in the midst of procuring vast amounts of clean energy, but on Beacon Hill clean energy advocates say the state isn’t doing nearly enough. The Senate approved legislation that would triple the annual increase in renewable energy purchases. The House last week took up a bill that would have doubled the annual increase, but then, under pressure from some in the business community, watered it down when the legislation came up for a final vote. The House and Senate will now have to ...
Alli Gold Roberts says the business community is a bigger supporter of addressing climate change than you might think. A senior manager for state policy at Ceres, which works with Fortune 500 companies and other business groups in addressing sustainability issues, Roberts said many businesses view climate change from a perspective of self-interest. Transportation, for example, accounts for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions in New England. Business leaders want to reduce those emissio...
July 1 has come and gone and no one legally bought marijuana in Massachusetts. Plenty of people bought illegal marijuana and legally smoked it, sort of a "don't ask/don't tell" situation. But the date viewed by many as a launch for retail recreational sales is now looking like the end of the summer, almost two years after voters approved a statewide referendum legalizing adult use. James Smith, a former state representative who championed legal weed back in the 1970s and now is an attorney repre...
Marty Walsh rolled to a huge reelection win last year and just hosted a national gathering of the US Conference of Mayors, where he could bask in the glow of a city booming on the strength of its enviable position as a leader in areas driving the global economy. But the city’s mayor knows better than to rest on Boston’s laurels, and Walsh, in a Codcast conversation with Bruce Mohl and me, was frank about the challenges facing Boston -- from development and transportation gridlock to the state of...
Charlie Baker, the most popular governor in America, looks like a lock for reelection, according to polls, pundits, and even lots of Democrats you talk to. But don’t count John Walsh as one of them. The former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party insists Baker can be defeated -- and he says the governor’s team knows it. It explains why, Walsh says, Baker is furiously raising millions of dollars for his campaign -- and bending all sorts of campaign finance rules to do so. Is Walsh onto ...
Transportation guru Fred Salvucci said on the Codcast that the proposed West Station is needed now to deal with congestion in Kenmore Square and the Seaport District, not future congestion caused by Harvard University's creation of a new neighborhood in the Allston Landing area. Salvucci’s position is sharply at odds with the views of the Baker administration, which believes current ridership projections for the station are too low to justify building West Station in the near future. Transportat...
Fred Salvucci, one of the state’s most influential transportation officials, traces the decline of the MBTA to the early years of the administration of former governor William Weld. Salvucci, who served 12 years as secretary of transportation under former governor Michael Dukakis and now teaches at MIT, said support for transit gained momentum after former governor Frank Sargent in the early 1970s brought a halt to new highway construction inside Route 128. Under Dukakis, Salvucci said, transpor...
Buses aren’t as sexy as new Orange Line cars or the extension of the Green Line into Somerville and Medford. But they are a lot cheaper to buy and much easier to operate. Which is why a bus renaissance of sorts is happening – a series of initiatives that hold the promise of changing the transportation landscape in a relatively short period of time. On this week’s Codcast, Chris Osgood, the chief of streets for the city of Boston, and TransitMatters guys Jim Aloisi and Josh Fairchild sing the pra...
When New England Patriots co-captain Devin McCourty joined the protests first set off by Colin Kaepernick and “took a knee” during the National Anthem last season, he was making a statement about racial justice issues in the country and the treatment of blacks by law enforcement officials. President Trump quickly “hijacked” the issue, McCourty says on the Codcast, by painting it as a sign of disrespect toward those who have served in the military. It’s an absurd charge, says the team’s standout ...
"Time to degree" is key by CommonWealth Beacon
When disputes arise between communities bordering each other, the public proclamations are usually fairly muted and respectful. Then there’s the battle between Quincy and Boston over rebuilding the Long Island Bridge to connect to a planned addiction treatment and recovery campus. “Boston answers to a different set of rules, said a fired-up Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch in a conversation with The Codcast. “They get all sorts of special legislation. Boston does what it wants. I don’t think they give t...
Richard Freeland is a man of careful thought and measured words. That made it noteworthy when the former state higher education commissioner and president emeritus of Northeastern University appeared at a recent hearing of the state Board of Higher Education and blasted the announcement that the University of Massachusetts Amherst planned to buy the Newton campus of Mt. Ida College. And it prompted us to invite Freeland to talk more about his concerns on The Codcast.
The sweeping criminal justice bill that Gov. Charlie Baker signed earlier this month received widespread, but not universal, praise as a welcome turn away from the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and ‘90s. One notable dissenting voice was that of Setti Warren, the former Newton mayor who is now one of three Democrats vying to challenge Baker in the November election. Warren said there was lots that he liked in the bill, which pulled back sanctions in all sorts of areas, including eliminatin...
Two of the state’s leading health care analysts say they aren’t sure whether creating a powerful alternative to Partners HealthCare will reduce health care costs in Massachusetts or increase them. “It’s the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know,” said John E. McDonough, a professor of public health practice at the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. “Are we better off having one Partners or two Partners?” Paul Hattis, an associate professor of public health and commun...
Attorney General Maura Healey wants to shut down the companies that sell electricity to residential customers in Massachusetts, but officials with two of the firms say the answer to any problems with their industry isn’t less competition but more. Chris Kallaher, senior director for government and regulatory affairs at Direct Energy, and Ed Brolin, director and assistant general manager of Just Energy, said on this week’s Codcast that the attorney general is overreacting.
It’s been a long march for the Boston Police Camera Action Team, but nearly four years after the community-based group set out to push Boston police to have officers deployed with body-worn cameras it looks like victory is in sight. In recent days, Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner Bill Evans have both signaled that body cameras are coming to Boston. “We are happy that the mayor is listening the majority of Bostonians now,” says Segun Idowu, a cofounder of the group, on this week’s Codca...
On this week’s Codcast, Josh Fairchild of TransitMatters chats with Andrew McFarland, community engagement manager at the Livable Streets Alliance, and Kathryn Carlson, director of transportation for the business-backed group A Better City.
Boston residents are probably more reliant on the MBTA than anyone in the state, yet city government has no formal say in the operation of the T. It’s been an easy way for city officials to pass the buck about problems with the T – of which there have been more than a fair share in recent years. But city officials are finally stepping up and speaking out on transit issues. One of the strongest voices has belonged to City Councilor Michelle Wu, who joined Bruce Mohl and me for this week’s Codcast...
