WHAT DO YOU call the opposite of a trial balloon?
A deep-six signal?
Whatever the term for it, it sure looks like legislative leaders are giving it some play when it comes to Boston’s home-rule petition to reestablish rent control in the city.
Mayor Michelle Wu has made reining in rents a centerpiece of her housing policy. She got the City Council to sign off on a home-rule petition that would let Boston regulate rent increases, something that was outlawed via a 1994 statewide ballot question ending rent control.
That sent the measure to Beacon Hill, where it must win approval of the Legislature and governor to take effect.
There has been skepticism all along about the Legislature’s interest in opening the door to rent control, but this week that wariness seemed to become something closer to outright antipathy.
WBUR’s Steve Brown reported yesterday that the home-rule petition, filed by first-term Boston state Rep. Sam Montaño, has drawn no cosponsors thus far.
What’s more, House Majority Leader Mike Moran of Brighton pointed to the fact that the House overwhelmingly rejected reinstating rent control as part of an 2020 economic development bill.
“A lot of members will say, ‘What is the point of even bringing this up?’ Because the overwhelming majority of us took a position on this two years ago,” Moran told Brown. “Do we bring it up every two years? There’s other things we can talk about with regard to housing. Why are we letting this take up oxygen?”
As the top deputy to House Speaker Ron Mariano, it seems safe to assume that Moran’s views reflect those of the Speaker.
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Executive Editor, CommonWealth
About Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in early 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His cover story in CommonWealth's Fall 1999 issue on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Michael got his start in journalism at the Dorchester Community News, a community newspaper serving Boston's largest neighborhood, where he covered a range of urban issues. Since the late 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to the Boston Globe. For 15 years he wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe's City Weekly section.
Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In 1989, he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for "Our Times," a weekly magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.
Michael lives in Dorchester with his wife and their two daughters.
About Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in early 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His cover story in CommonWealth's Fall 1999 issue on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Michael got his start in journalism at the Dorchester Community News, a community newspaper serving Boston's largest neighborhood, where he covered a range of urban issues. Since the late 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to the Boston Globe. For 15 years he wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe's City Weekly section.
Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In 1989, he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for "Our Times," a weekly magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.
Michael lives in Dorchester with his wife and their two daughters.
The bill has been assigned to the Joint Committee on Housing, but there appears to be no rush to schedule a hearing for it.
“My focus right now is on taxes and the budget,” Sen. Lydia Edwards, an East Boston Democrat and co-chair of the housing committee, said Tuesday. She said there’s a lot that can be done in those two areas to help address the housing crisis for renters as well as would-be homeowners, citing the proposed increase in the state tax deduction for renters and funding for public housing as examples.
“If it’s this summer, I’d be surprised. It might be this fall,” Edwards said of a hearing date on the Boston bill. Edwards has not staked out a position on the Boston home-rule bill. The comments from Moran and Edwards, key players in the bill’s fortunes on Beacon Hill, can’t be very comforting to Wu – they are both close political allies of the mayor’s. Add House Ways and Means chair Aaron Michlewitz of the North End, another key Wu ally, who, Politico noted last month, voted against the 2020 amendment to restore rent control, and Wu could be muttering to herself the old adage that begins, “With friends like these…”
