Former president Barack Obama waded into political races across the country on Monday, endorsing 260 Democratic candidates in 29 states, including six in Massachusetts. Obama made a series of endorsements in August, but none of those was in Massachusetts. This time he backed Jay Gonzalez and Quentin Palfrey for governor and lieutenant governor, Ayanna Pressley […]
Politics
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Slow pot rollout costing state tax revenue
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE SAYING MASSACHUSETTS HAS missed out on $16 million in marijuana taxes, officials behind the 2016 legal marijuana ballot question on Monday pointed to staffing levels and bureaucracy at the Cannabis Control Commission as potential reasons for the slow rollout of retail sales in Massachusetts. “The Cannabis Control Commission needs to pick […]
Posted inEducation
New Bedford’s charter school battle
Nearly two years ago, voters weighed in on a contentious ballot question over charter school expansion in the state. But the battle over the independently run, but publicly funded, schools hardly ended there. Ground zero for the latest showdown: New Bedford, where the K-8 Alma del Mar Charter School is hoping to expand by adding […]
Posted inHealth Care
Health commission seeks ‘guardrails’ on merger
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE AN APPREHENSIVE HEALTH POLICY COMMISSION voted unanimously Thursday to refer the Beth Israel-Lahey Health mega-merger to Attorney General Maura Healey and Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel for further review, with commission members hoping enforceable “guardrails” can be put in place to mitigate their concerns that the deal will threaten access to […]
Posted inThe Back Story
A stash of cash for troubled pols
EARLIER THIS YEAR, on April 13, the city of Fall River signed a host community agreement with Northeast Alternatives, which already operates a medical marijuana dispensary in the city, to open up a retail recreational pot operation in a strip mall near the Rhode Island line. Four days later, on April 17, J.H. Holdings Group Inc., whose principals are executives of the medical marijuana dispensary, donated $20,000 to Mayor Jasiel Correia’s […]
Posted inGambling
Gaming commission chair resigns, denies charges of bias
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE STEPHEN CROSBY, who served as chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission since its inception and has overseen the implementation of casino gaming in the Bay State, resigned from the commission Wednesday afternoon, effective immediately. Crosby’s departure comes as the Gaming Commission prepares to make public the findings of its investigation into […]
Posted inTransportation
Gonzalez calls for Baker to fire MBTA general manager
DEMOCRATIC GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE Jay Gonzalez said Gov. Charlie Baker should fire MBTA General Manger Luis Ramirez, citing a recent lawsuit against the Texas company he once led that charged Ramirez and other executives with issuing false and misleading financial reports. “A judge just found that Luis Ramirez knowingly mislead investors of the company he was […]
Posted inThe Download
The Codcast: The ‘Harvard tax’ plus transgender rights on the ballot
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
MA ruling on corporate donations is a missed opportunity
THE RECENT DECISION by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court regarding corporate campaign contributions was a missed opportunity by the state’s highest court to eliminate the country’s most unfair campaign finance law. Instead of closing the union loophole, which gives an unfair advantage to unions over individuals and employers, they ruled that discrimination is constitutional. They upheld the […]
Posted inPolitics
For tax plan, Gonzalez’s gives it the college try
THE MASSACHUSETTS REPUBLICAN PARTY has hammered Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jay Gonzalez for not releasing details of how he would pay for an ambitious agenda that calls for new spending on education and transportation. Gonzalez has answered that with a plan — but he’s now getting hammered over the details of it. Gonzalez is proposing a […]