The Codcast

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...

Marty Walsh rolled to a huge reelection win last year and just hosted a national gathering of the US Conference of Mayors, where he could bask in the glow of a city booming on the strength of its enviable position as a leader in areas driving the global economy. But the city’s mayor knows better than to rest on Boston’s laurels, and Walsh, in a Codcast conversation with Bruce Mohl and me, was fran...

Charlie Baker, the most popular governor in America, looks like a lock for reelection, according to polls, pundits, and even lots of Democrats you talk to. But don’t count John Walsh as one of them. The former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party insists Baker can be defeated -- and he says the governor’s team knows it. It explains why, Walsh says, Baker is furiously raising millions of...

Transportation guru Fred Salvucci said on the Codcast that the proposed West Station is needed now to deal with congestion in Kenmore Square and the Seaport District, not future congestion caused by Harvard University's creation of a new neighborhood in the Allston Landing area. Salvucci’s position is sharply at odds with the views of the Baker administration, which believes current ridership proj...

Fred Salvucci, one of the state’s most influential transportation officials, traces the decline of the MBTA to the early years of the administration of former governor William Weld. Salvucci, who served 12 years as secretary of transportation under former governor Michael Dukakis and now teaches at MIT, said support for transit gained momentum after former governor Frank Sargent in the early 1970s...

Buses aren’t as sexy as new Orange Line cars or the extension of the Green Line into Somerville and Medford. But they are a lot cheaper to buy and much easier to operate. Which is why a bus renaissance of sorts is happening – a series of initiatives that hold the promise of changing the transportation landscape in a relatively short period of time. On this week’s Codcast, Chris Osgood, the chief o...

When New England Patriots co-captain Devin McCourty joined the protests first set off by Colin Kaepernick and “took a knee” during the National Anthem last season, he was making a statement about racial justice issues in the country and the treatment of blacks by law enforcement officials. President Trump quickly “hijacked” the issue, McCourty says on the Codcast, by painting it as a sign of disre...

"Time to degree" is key by CommonWealth Beacon

Richard Freeland is a man of careful thought and measured words. That made it noteworthy when the former state higher education commissioner and president emeritus of Northeastern University appeared at a recent hearing of the state Board of Higher Education and blasted the announcement that the University of Massachusetts Amherst planned to buy the Newton campus of Mt. Ida College. And it prompte...

The sweeping criminal justice bill that Gov. Charlie Baker signed earlier this month received widespread, but not universal, praise as a welcome turn away from the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and ‘90s. One notable dissenting voice was that of Setti Warren, the former Newton mayor who is now one of three Democrats vying to challenge Baker in the November election. Warren said there was lot...

Two of the state’s leading health care analysts say they aren’t sure whether creating a powerful alternative to Partners HealthCare will reduce health care costs in Massachusetts or increase them. “It’s the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know,” said John E. McDonough, a professor of public health practice at the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University. “Are we better off h...

Attorney General Maura Healey wants to shut down the companies that sell electricity to residential customers in Massachusetts, but officials with two of the firms say the answer to any problems with their industry isn’t less competition but more. Chris Kallaher, senior director for government and regulatory affairs at Direct Energy, and Ed Brolin, director and assistant general manager of Just En...

It’s been a long march for the Boston Police Camera Action Team, but nearly four years after the community-based group set out to push Boston police to have officers deployed with body-worn cameras it looks like victory is in sight. In recent days, Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner Bill Evans have both signaled that body cameras are coming to Boston. “We are happy that the mayor is listeni...

To listen to the state’s newest regulatory commission in its meetings, the tenor and terms, for the most part, are no different than hearings regarding oversight of most industries in the state. But the big difference is the industry they are charged with overseeing – legal marijuana – and members of the Cannabis Control Commission have just hit a historic milestone, finalizing regulations to get...

This week’s Codcast features representatives from the two opposing camps -- Robert Rio, the senior vice president of government affairs at Associated Industries of Massachusetts, one of the founding members of the Coalition for Sustainable Energy, and Elizabeth Turnbull Henry, the president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, which also represents many members of the business community....