Good Sunday morning, all. Congratulations on surviving a week that included an epic heat wave and the Celtics’ victory parade.
If you’ve been understandably sequestered in a dark room, with the air conditioning blasting, and regarding the headlines in much the same way Prometheus faced the day (”New liver, same eagles,” as they say.), here’s a look back at the political news you might have missed over the last seven-ish days.
We’ve got bills
Any hope that the majority-Democrat state Legislature would get an approved state budget onto Gov. Maura Healey’s desk before the new fiscal year starts on July 1 pretty much has evaporated.
On Thursday night, Healey’s office sent out a terse, two-sentence email letting everyone know that the Democratic governor had filed a $6.9 billion short-term spending bill to keep the wheels of government turning until July 31.
In a letter to legislative leaders, Healey urged lawmakers to get the funding bill onto her desk no later than Monday.
Last week, senior lawmakers appeared cautiously optimistic about getting a compromise spending plan to Healey by-ish the deadline-ish.
The two chambers each have approved spending plans coming in at around $58 billion. A joint House/Senate conference committee has been working since to iron out the differences between the two chambers’ proposals.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, told reporters last week that talks between House and Senate negotiators were “very advanced.”
”We all want the same thing. So it’s just a question of working out the details and making sure that no one feels that their issue [is] short-shrifted,” the Quincy Democrat said.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairperson Michael J. Rodriques, D-1st Bristol/Plymouth, appeared ready to settle in for the long haul.
“Nights, weekends, holidays are all workdays for us,” the upper chamber’s lead budget negotiator said, according to Politico.
And for those of you playing along at home, it’s been 14 years since the executive and legislative branches managed to pass an on-time budget, according to State House News Service.
So send us your over/unders for this year, please.
More money, lots more problems
Reminding us once again that political campaigns consume cash the same way the rest of us consume oxygen, Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s reelection campaign tried to scare some coin out of her supporters last week.
The villain, in this case, is a “new right-wing Super PAC‚” with ties to former President Donald Trump and outgoing U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Warren’s campaign wrote.
Its allies include “Big Oil and Big Pharma,” both of whom Warren has managed to annoy during her time on Capitol Hill.
That means it’s likely the Senate Leadership Fund, which has ties to McConnell and the allied American Crossroads.
As Politico reports, it’s spending gobs of cash to knock off Democratic Senate incumbents, including U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
“Defeating us in Massachusetts would virtually guarantee a GOP-controlled Senate,” Warren’s campaign wrote in its email. “And national Republicans are desperate to take power so they can enact their radical agenda, from banning abortion nationwide to slashing taxes for billionaires and giant corporations … We have to fight back.”
Warren will face whoever emerges from a three-way Republican primary this fall. Recent polling shows that it’ll be an uphill fight for the eventual GOP nominee.
But forewarned and forearmed, and all that.
They said it
“Black babies have 2.4 times the overall infant mortality rate and are nearly four times more likely to die from low birth weight complications compared to white babies. Now, I don’t say this to claim an issue that absolutely affects women of all races. I say this to inform you of the harsh realities that I once was ignorant of that has now affected me to my core.”
— State Rep. Chris Worrell, D-5th Suffolk, speaking during floor debate last week on an omnibus maternal health bill. Worrell spoke to his House colleagues about the pregnancy loss he and his wife endured just two weeks before a planned gender reveal party
Don’t Let the Door Hit You Dept.
Is the Bay State losing its rich people because of its more than-year-old “Millionaire’s Tax?”
While there hasn’t exactly been a tidal wave of departures, a trade group for accountants warned last week that some of the state’s very wealthiest citizens are, indeed, heading for the lifeboats.
Two-thirds of respondents to a poll by the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants said that at least one high-income client had skedaddled, State House News Service reported.
Nine in 10 respondents to that same poll said that high earners were considering leaving the state, and that just about two-thirds (64%) said the state’s 4% tax on earnings above $1 million was a factor in their relocation deliberations, the wire service reported.
The top destinations for those who were leaving — or thinking about it — were New Hampshire, Florida and Texas, the trade group said.
Watch for that cross-border beef to escalate ...
On the calendar
Set your alerts now. On Monday, the state Senate’s Ways & Means Committee will release a member poll on the chamber’s version of the housing bond bill, with a vote likely to follow on Thursday, according to a spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk.
The long-awaited vote comes after the state House gave its approval earlier this month to a $6.5 billion housing bill.
That bill, it’s worth noting, came in more than $2 billion above the $4.1 billion housing bond bill that Gov. Maura Healey proposed last fall.
State House watchers had been wondering when the Senate would take up the proposal — especially since formal sessions end for the year on July 31.
Turned up to 11
If there is a song that sounds like summer and isn’t “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, then it’s “This Girl,” a 2016 jawn by Kungs vs. Cookin’ on 3 Burners. Every time I hear it, I feel like I should be outside someplace, preferably with a pool, and most likely grilling. So here’s your Sunday soundtrack.
Your Sunday long read:
Yes, MBTA riders have it tough, what with constant line closings, slow zones, shuttle buses and the like. But give thanks that, last week, your train didn’t go through New York’s Penn Station.
There, the thousands of New Jersey Transit and Amtrak commuters who pass through its doors daily, faced a “hellacious commute,” according to NYMag’s Intelligencer.
No spoilers: But the cause should ring familiar for T strap-hangers.
That’s it for this week. See you all back here next week.
More analysis from John L. Micek
- Did Quincy’s mayor deserve his giant pay hike? That might be the wrong question | John L. Micek
- Anybody but Wu? The ‘why’ has to come first | John L. Micek
- Trump found guilty. What happens next? Where do we go from here? | John L. Micek
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