Middleboro Review 2: POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: Inside the Legislature's latest power struggle

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: Inside the Legislature's latest power struggle

With help from Kelly Garrity

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE JOINT COMMITTEES — The House and Senate have been so deeply at odds over joint committee rules for so long that all it took to blow everything out into the open was a notice for a hearing.

State Sen. Michael Barrett on Monday accused his House co-chair on the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy of scheduling a hearing on energy bills for later this week without his consent. “There's a small chance this is merely a serious error,” Barrett said in a statement. “Otherwise, I regret to say, the use of my name appears to be fraudulent.”

But Barrett isn't just peeved about one listening session. He said state Rep. Jeffrey Roy’s “unilateral act” not only violates the rule that joint committee chairs agree on hearing schedules, but also breaks with broader governing practices designed to give the Senate an equal say on panels where their members are outnumbered. And he claimed other Senate chairs "are being pressed along similar lines."

Barrett is giving voice to what some senators have been privately griping about for months. They say House chairs pushed boilerplate rules this session that would let them leverage their chamber’s numerical advantage on joint committees by using majority votes to call hearings and move bills without senators' consent.

Barrett echoed those concerns in his statement: "It’s almost as if the House is done with the delicate power-sharing that enables joint committees to work. It wants either to dominate the joint committees due to the House’s sheer numerical advantage or drive us towards the Congressional model, in which the House and Senate handle bills separately," he said. "Either way, this is quite a turn in the road.”

But four representatives who chair joint committees told Playbook that senators are the ones pulling a power grab by trying to hold onto veto power on panels where they’re in the minority. And they say the House is just trying to bring uniformity to joint committees that often operate under informal agreements between chairs — arrangements that sometimes carry over several sessions.

"I am advocating for committee rules that prevent one Chair from maintaining absolute control over which bills are released from Committee," Roy said in a statement, adding that such "power ... not only diminishes the influence of each individual member of the Committee" but was "wielded last session to delay the consideration of major energy legislation, and to block hundreds of other bills from advancing through the Committee."

Roy argued that rules debates "should not prevent the Committee from holding hearings on critical legislation."

But the intra-committee feud is potentially thwarting progress on energy initiatives as the state scrambles to meet its climate goals. House members on the TUE committee are planning their first hearing of the session on Thursday, while senators are slating their own for Friday — a split that could, as the State House News Service points out , force some people to testify twice on bills that touch on everything from offshore wind to clean-energy credits.

"We're going to be in separate rooms," Barrett told Playbook. "I don't see how that's going to help us in the fight against global warming."

Interchamber tensions are could also threaten activity on other committees as lawmakers sift through thousands of bills and negotiate over which ones will move forward. While not every pair of co-chairs is at odds, the energy committee kerfuffle has laid bare one area of Democratic disagreement that's derailed the lawmaking process in the past sessions (read: CommonWealth Magazine's recap of the 2015 joint committee fight ) and could so again as this one ramps up.

GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Salem voters are heading to the polls to pick their next mayor today. They're choosing between Dominick Pangallo, the former chief of staff to mayor-turned-Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, and former Salem Mayor Neil Harrington. Patch and The Salem News have what you need to know about the candidates.

TODAY — Gov. Maura Healey is on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” at 11:30 a.m. Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu speak at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s annual dinner at 5:45 p.m. at the Omni Boston Seaport hotel. Wu speaks at the city’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month celebration at 4:45 p.m. at City Hall Plaza. Driscoll testifies at the inaugural hearing of the 21st Century Agriculture Commission at 10 a.m. Sen. Ed Markey hosts a press conference on expanding SCOTUS at noon outside of the court.

Tips? Scoops? More joint committee tea? Email me: lkashinsky@politico.com .

DATELINE BEACON HILL

— HEALEY HAS HER HOUSING SECRETARY: Gov. Maura Healey has tapped former Worcester city manager Ed Augustus as the state’s first standalone housing secretary in more than 30 years, the State House News Service scooped . The former state senator and chief of staff to Rep. Jim McGovern stepped down as chancellor of Dean College in Franklin last month. He starts his new gig as the face of Healey’s housing efforts on June 1 .

The Healey administration said the new secretariat, which is being split off from the state’s economic development office, will work to “create more homes and lower costs” and focus “on the urgent need to build places to live that are affordable and closer to public transit.”

— “Amid high political tensions, Healey administration weighs in on federal protections for trans student athletes,” by Samantha J. Gross, Boston Globe: “Governor Maura Healey’s administration on Monday stepped into what has quickly become a political minefield: transgender student participation in school sports. Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler submitted public comment in support of the Biden administration’s proposed changes to a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.”

— “Thousands of police officer disciplinary records could be released next month, POST official says,” by Chris Van Buskirk, Boston Herald: “Thousands of disciplinary records detailing misconduct among police officers all across Massachusetts could be released to the public as soon as next month, the head of the state’s law enforcement licensing agency told the Herald.”

— “Report: Mass. outward migration increases fourfold,” by Christian M. Wade, The Eagle-Tribune: “ The outward migration of taxpayers and income leaving Massachusetts has nearly quadrupled over the past decade, with the state’s top earners leading the exodus, according to a new report. The Pioneer Institute’s 'Tax Reality Sets In' report, which is based on newly released U.S. Census data, found that between 2019 and 2021, Massachusetts rose to the fourth highest among states with the largest net outmigration of wealth, following behind California, New York and Illinois.”

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FROM THE HUB

— REDISTRICTING SAGA RESUMES: Boston’s latest redistricting hearing got off to a sputtering start yesterday after councilors couldn’t even agree on what they were legally allowed to talk about, Kelly Garrity writes in.

Councilors at the civil rights and immigrant advancement committee session debated whether they could directly address potential new maps or had to stick to discussing the judge’s ruling overturning the last one, lest they potentially violate the state’s open meeting law — part of what led to the initial lawsuit.

After an extended recess, committee chair Ruthzee Louijeune got the conversation rolling, opening the floor for councilors to “talk about generally what people want to see in a map,” without discussing specific proposals.

Old tensions flared up, and when the hours-long meeting wrapped it was unclear whether the group had made progress.

The clock is ticking. A new map needs to be drawn by May 30 to avoid delaying this year's municipal elections. There are currently three plans on the table — one from Louijeune, one from Mayor Michelle Wu and one from Councilor Kendra Lara . Wu also said her team is in talks with Council President Ed Flynn to set up special meetings, the Dorchester Reporter’s Gintautas Dumcius reported last night .

— “Boston Public Schools’ improper billing practice wasted $25,000, opened avenues for potential corruption, city finds,” by Naomi Martin, Boston Globe: “Boston Public Schools improperly handled a plumbing vendor’s invoices and wasted nearly $25,000 that could have been spent on students, an investigation released Sunday by a city watchdog agency found.”

— “Teachers union votes to split from Greater Boston Labor Council,” by Gintautas Dumcius, Dorchester Reporter: “Members of the Dorchester-based Boston Teachers Union [last] week voted in support of breaking away from the Greater Boston Labor Council, a union umbrella group with 100,000 members. The teachers union has more than 8,000 members, making it the largest city of Boston union.”

WHAT'S ON CAMPBELL'S DOCKET

— “AG investigating BPD to determine if ‘gang unit’ engages in ‘unconstitutional policing,’” by Chris Faraone, DigBoston: “The inquiry came to light through an email that Suffolk Lawyers for Justice (SLJ) sent to hundreds of public defenders and criminal defense attorneys on May 2. The Boston nonprofit oversees bar advocates who provide services to indigent clients, and explained in the group memo that ‘the Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General’s Office is conducting an investigation into [YVSF] to determine whether that unit engages in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing.’”

— “AG Andrea Campbell picks her targets,” by Jennifer Smith, CommonWealth Magazine: “She ran on an equity platform that extended from her years on the council, pledging to work to restore faith in the criminal justice system and put state muscle into protecting vulnerable populations and their interests. Practically, that’s turned out to be complicated.”

PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES

— “Train service from Boston to Foxboro scheduled to resume Tuesday,” by David Linton, The Sun Chronicle: “Those traveling to the Taylor Swift concerts at Gillette Stadium this weekend by MBTA Commuter Rail can breathe easy again. A tweet pinned to @MBTA_CR, the agency’s Twitter account, on Monday evening said regular train service between South Station and Foxboro would resume Tuesday morning.”

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DAY IN COURT

— “Charlie Baker’s son pleads ‘not guilty’ to OUI charge after allegedly blowing 0.15 on breath test,” by Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald: “[Andrew ‘AJ’] Baker, dressed in a well-tailored blue suit, did not speak during court while his attorney pleaded not guilty on his behalf or when walking out of the building after quietly accepting the stipulation for his release that he not operate a vehicle without a valid license.”

FROM THE 413

— “Amherst Town Council charts racial equity steps,” by Scott Merzbach, Daily Hampshire Gazette: “A volunteer from AmeriCorps who will lead youth programming on behalf of the town’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service departments; and hiring a consultant to help establish a Resident Oversight Board for the Police Department and review public safety protocols used by officers are among steps being taken to fulfill goals outlined by a community visioning process to improve police-community relations and further the town’s racial equity goals.”

— “New data: Homelessness in western Massachusetts reaches five-year high,” by Alden Bourne, New England Public Media: “The Western Massachusetts Network to End Homelessness released a report saying more than 3,300 people did not have housing as of January 2023."

THE LOCAL ANGLE

— “Salem leaders scale back psilocybin enforcement,” by Dustin Luca, The Salem News: “Psilocybin, the psychoactive compound at the heart of fungi-based plant medicines like magic mushrooms, has been effectively decriminalized in Salem after a unanimous vote from the City Council Thursday night.”

— “Braintree teachers, town reach contract agreement after months of contentious talks,” by Fred Hanson, The Patriot Ledger.

— “As anti-Semitic hate crimes spike in Massachusetts, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston launches ‘Face Jewish Hate’ campaign,” by Rick Sobey, Boston Herald.

MEANWHILE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

— "4 New Hampshire Republicans who endorsed Trump 19 days ago are now backing Ron DeSantis," by Dasha Burns and Jonathan Allen, NBC News: "'I’m endorsing both,' [Juliet Harvey-Bolia] said in a telephone interview. 'DeSantis has a lot of promise for the future, and Trump is great now.'”

HEARD ‘ROUND THE BUBBLAH

TRANSITIONS — Emily Carwell and Ian Staples are joining Democratic Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s office. Carwell will be policy director and previously was staff director of the Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. Staples will be national security adviser and previously was acting deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Senate Affairs.

— Andrew Brinker is now a reporter on the Boston Globe's business team covering housing.

— Juliet Schulman-Hall is now the Northampton enterprise reporter for MassLive.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY — to Christian Scorzoni , the Lowell Sun’s Alana Melanson , Emma Rothschild and Alvin Gunnion .

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