The Codcast

State leaders appear to be serious about finally passing new legislation this year that would update the state’s education funding formula for K-12 schools. But exactly what would a new funding bill look like? Tracy Novick of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and Liam Kerr of Democrats for Education Reform tackle that question on The Codcast. Their spirited conversation offers a p...

Two first-term legislators who tried unsuccessfully last week to change the way the speaker is selected say the fight for rules reform in the House is far from over. Rep. Maria Robinson of Framingham and Rep. Patrick Kearney of Scituate said on the Codcast that a broader rules reform package is in the works, and one of their chief concerns is with the way rules are routinely suspended in the House...

Jim Aloisi likes to write a holiday verse every year for CommonWealth, and this year he went all out. This year’s ditty is a clever take on linking the Red and Blue Lines. You can read/sing it yourself (to the tune of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) or you can listen to Aloisi and Chris Dempsey, the director of Transportation for Massachusetts, belt it out for you. Enjoy, and have a happy holiday...

Republican Jenn Nassour and Democrat Jesse Mermell tee up a year-end conversation for the final 2018 installment of "Disagreeing Agreeably" on the Codcast. To help them, they brought in guests who lean left, political consultant Wilnelia Rivera, and right, Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. Asked for a one-word description of politics for the year that was, their guests had starkly...

What’s it like to be in charge of nearly half the state budget? Extraordinarily humbling,” said Marylou Sudders. But don’t confuse humbling with cautious indecision or lack of tenacity. Gov. Charlie Baker’s health and human services secretary has a reputation for strong leadership and a social worker’s commitment to the enormous range of state programs she oversees, led by the Medicaid program tha...

Emily Rooney, who is celebrating her 20th year hosting Beat the Press on WGBH, says the biggest change she's witnessed over that time period has been in the news-gathering business itself. In television, the network and local news shows have narrowed their focus and range. Locally, she says, the focus increasingly is on traffic, weather, and "two-bit crime coverage. Anchors, once known by their fi...

The head of the MBTA’s oversight board says the hoped-for transformation of the transit agency has a long way to go yet. “We’re still at the very beginning,” says Joseph Aiello, the chair of the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board. He says the collapse of the T during the winter of 2015 exposed the sorry state of the agency. “We were probably in as dark a hole as you can possibly be in,” he...

Some people may have been taken aback by the overflow crowd of 350 people who showed up earlier this month for a Boston City Council hearing in Roxbury to hear concerns about displacement. Kim Janey was not one of them. “I was not surprised at all,” said Janey, the district city councilor who represents Roxbury along with parts of Dorchester, the South End, and the Fenway. Janey, who sponsored the...

Rep. O'Day discusses National Grid legislation by CommonWealth Beacon

It feels like an odd time to be celebrating charter school success in Massachusetts, but that’s just what Cara Candal does in a new book that not only touts the schools, but telegraphs a bold claim about them in its title. The Fight for the Best Charter Public Schools in the Nation, published by the charter-friendly public think tank Pioneer Institute where Candal is a senior fellow, leaves no dou...

Mark Twain once famously observed, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” The irony is, of course, there’s nothing much you can do about it but grumble. That is perhaps where we are at with transportation, especially public transit, here in Massachusetts. The MBTA is getting a lot of attention in the gubernatorial race, with Democrat Jay Gonzalez constantly trying t...

Frank Bellotti is 95, the kind of 95 you'd want to be if you live to be 95. Trim, tan, sharp of mind (but perhaps slower of gait), Bellotti joined me recently to record a CommonWealth Codcast. He is, I'm pretty sure, the oldest living former statewide office holder - he was lieutenant governor from 1963 to 1965, and attorney general for 12 years, from 1975 to 1987. Most people today probably remem...

Even in a year when women are expected to make strong political gains, there are no guarantees. Beth Lindstrom, who came in third in the Republican primary for US Senate, and Gerly Adrien, who came in a close second in a Democratic primary for a state rep's seat from Everett, explain why they ran for office and why they think they lost on CommonWealth's Codcast, hosted by Democrat Jesse Mermell an...

The “bro” culture of pot is a dominant image of marijuana. Cheech and Chong are the dudes who most represent the “stoner” generation while the legal industry is increasingly seeing corporations and investors dominated by men. The reality is a little more diverse, though, and Massachusetts is aiming to hold the door open for previously disenfranchised people who want entrée into the booming busines...

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 with endowments greater than $1 billion became the topic of the we...

Everett wanted to launch a dedicated bus lane, so Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. just did it in December 2016. No community meetings or endless analysis. DeMaria gave residents four days notice that the parking lane on a 1.5-mile stretch of Broadway was going to be eliminated during the early morning hours and then put up orange cones.. Jay Monty, the city’s transportation planner, said everyone expected...

“Politics, Ideas & Civic Life in Massachusetts” has been the tagline describing the focus of CommonWealth’s coverage since the magazine was launched 22 years ago. We didn’t say it explicitly, but the goal also was to promote a civil civic life here. A robust exchange of views and ideas, argued vigorously but respectfully, seemed then like an essential ingredient to maintaining a healthy body polit...

Two Democrats -- Quentin Palfrey and Jimmy Tingle -- are vying for the September 4 nomination for lieutenant governor. The winner will be paired with the victor in the party’s gubernatorial primary and go into the November match-up against the GOP ticket -- widely expected to be led by Gov. Charlie Baker (who faces underdog challenger Scott Lively) and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito (who is unopposed for t...

Will this be a change election in Massachusetts? A lot of political energy has been unleashed in reaction to Donald Trump’s election two years ago. Nationally, Democrats are hoping it will translate into big gains in the midterm congressional elections, with possibility of taking back control of the House. In Massachusetts, where Democrats already hold the overwhelming share of elected offices, th...

In today’s Codcast, we talk to two Democrats challenging incumbents from their own party – Samantha (Sam) Hammar of Melrose, who is taking on Sen. Jason Lewis of Winchester, and Ted Steinberg of Needham, who is running against Rep. Denise Garlick of Needham.

Gov. Charlie Baker has an R next to his name, but many Republicans don’t think it belongs there. Ed Lyons, a Republican activist who is a big fan of Baker, said the governor’s acceptance of the grand bargain in the recently completed legislative session disturbed many in the GOP. The grand bargain embraced legislation raising the hourly minimum wage to $15 and mandating paid medical and family lea...

To say there’s a chasm as wide as the Rio Grande between both sides of the immigration debate would be an understatement. The conversation about compromise is a non-starter because neither side can even agree on what terms to use. US Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling, in a recent sit-down with CommonWealth, acknowledged his office is ramping up identifying defendants by their nationalities...

Uber and Lyft are expanding their vision of ride-sharing to include not just cars but bicycles, electric bicycles, and electric scooters. Uber jumped in first, adding the electric bikeshare company Jump to its app earlier this year in San Francisco and then acquiring the company outright in March for an estimated $100 million. Lyft earlier this month bought Motivate, the nation’s largest bikeshare...

Alli Gold Roberts says the business community is a bigger supporter of addressing climate change than you might think. A senior manager for state policy at Ceres, which works with Fortune 500 companies and other business groups in addressing sustainability issues, Roberts said many businesses view climate change from a perspective of self-interest. Transportation, for example, accounts for more th...

July 1 has come and gone and no one legally bought marijuana in Massachusetts. Plenty of people bought illegal marijuana and legally smoked it, sort of a "don't ask/don't tell" situation. But the date viewed by many as a launch for retail recreational sales is now looking like the end of the summer, almost two years after voters approved a statewide referendum legalizing adult use. James Smith, a...