Gov. Deval Patrick is quickly losing control of the debate over state transportation funding and management. The governor's vague proposal (spelled out in a Nov. 13 op-ed column) to abolish the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, raise tolls and Registry of Motor Vehicles fees, and consolidate transportation agencies isn't getting a lot of support. The Turnpike Authority board on Nov. 14 did […]
Massachusetts Legislature
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Piecemeal toll hike
Gov. Deval Patrick says he wants to consolidate the state’s transportation agencies under one unified command, but he is preparing to pay for the services those agencies provide on a piecemeal basis. Rather than push for an increase in the state gasoline tax, Patrick is cobbling together revenues from a hodge-podge of sources. The first […]
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Old-school ways
Yesterday’s State House buzz centered on state Rep. David Flynn, the senior member of the House, who told reporters that five members have raised with him the idea that he serve as interim speaker should House Speaker Sal DiMasi be forced from power by ethics investigations looking into a lucrative state contract awarded to software […]
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Loyalty, ethics, virtue, and Wilkerson
Friday’s press conference by Gov. Deval Patrick to announce that he’s naming a special commission on ethics had an interesting moment. Although Patrick said a string of troubling cases involving ethics in state and local government prompted his move, there was little doubt that this was all about Tuesday’s arrest of state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson […]
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Dianne Wilkerson’s long slide down
This morning’s arrest of state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson on extortion and wire fraud charges looks like the final chapter in a pitiful tale whose installments have come with almost predictable regularity over a period stretching more than a decade. Though she’s entitled to her day in court, the charges that Wilkerson took payments as part […]
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Wilkerson backers take the low road
Monday, October 27, 2008 Dianne Wilkerson is counting on a big turnout of black voters for Barack Obama to boost the desperate write-in campaign she’s waging after losing last month’s Democratic primary for state Senate to Sonia Chang-Diaz. Despite Wilkerson’s effort to hitch her wagon to the Democratic presidential nominee, I suggest in my column […]
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Finneran: I was playing a word game
By Colman M. Herman What do former House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and former President Bill Clinton have in common? They both parsed their words under oath in a way that came back to haunt them. Clinton told a grand jury that he wasn’t lying when he told his top aides “there’s nothing going on […]
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Channel tax anger at Dems?
Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi picks up today on our recent post highlighting the fact that Massachusetts ranks last in the country in contested races by major party candidates for the Legislature. She ties the issue to the looming ballot question that would eliminate the state income tax, quoting Republican state Representative George Peterson and […]
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Massachusetts ranks dead last in contested elections
Massachusetts, once known for its raucous politics, now ranks last in the nation in the percentage of voters with a choice as to who represents them in the State House. (Click here for data.) There are both Democratic and Republican candidates in only 27 28 of 160 state representative districts this year. (With contests in […]