Thursday, July 9, 2015
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By George Donnelly (@geodonnelly) with Keith Regan
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Here's what's happening
Gov. Baker speaks at the opening ceremony for "The Wall That Heals," an aluminum replica of the Vietnam War Memorial, which will be in Gloucester through Sunday. Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr also will attend. It's at the Fuller School, 4 Schoolhouse Road, Gloucester, 10:00 am... The Health Connector Authority Board meets at One Ashburton Place, Boston, 9 am... The Massachusetts Gaming Commission meets at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Room 107B, 10:30 am. The commission plans to "discuss key dates in the schedule for the Region C (Southeastern Mass.) license award, the Community Mitigation Fund, and MGM Springfield's construction timeline."
Pacheco on suspending the Pacheco Law:
Sen. Marc Pacheco did not take the three-year moratorium of the Pacheco Law lying down. Needless to say, he sees dark days ahead, and sooner than most would imagine. Here's a snippet of his 43-minute speech on the Senate floor yesterday:
"The MBTA, under the legislation before us, could be 100 percent privatized within months, not years. Bus drivers, overwhelming majority women African American minorities that have finally got themselves up into a middle class state, we will see potentially a future for them which is all about a race to the bottom. Any profits a company would make they make on the backs of those workers. Decreased wages, decreased health care, that's how they make those profits. A hearing Sen. Warren had in the last couple of weeks... she had transportation experts in to look at a GAO report and they did a survey and on average the private providers of service will cost more money, not less. Why? Because they have to make a profit. Put some money in their pocket. Pay their bills and go get another contract. That is what's going on across America."
The aftermath: Unions lick wounds
Given the rhetoric above, it's obvious how difficult it was for many senators to vote to suspend the Pacheco Law. The Globe's David Scharfenberg provides an analysis on why Pacheco's colleagues relented. The momentum was powerful, the governor is popular, and as he notes, it didn't hurt that the Pacheco Law moratorium was attached to the budget.http://bit.ly/1Hkf7qc
The film tax credit survives
Gov. Baker knows that every entitlement has a constituency, and he learned that the one supporting the state's film tax credit, which rebates movie studios 25 percent of their in-state production costs (including the salaries of movie stars), has emerged as a force -- and was a win for union power -- and, some argue, a defeat for economic logic. MassLive's Gintautus Dumcius covers the aftermath of the local film industry's great escape:
Funds for Earned Income Tax Credit = tax hike?
For many, the money to pay for the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit magically appeared. But as CommonWealth's Bruce Mohl explains, it wasn't magic. The Legislature eliminated a corporate tax deduction known gloriously as FAS-109, and it's real money to more than 100 corporations. In eliminating the deduction permanently -- it's yet to be implemented -- it has the distinct appearance of a tax increase, although the governor is saying otherwise. http://bit.ly/1Cr4DK4
NIH bonanza puts Warren and Kennedy on different sides
One would think an $8 billion surge in funding for basic medical research through the National Institutes of Health would be cause for great celebration in these parts. After all, Massachusetts receives more than its fair of NIH funding to drive its unparalleled life sciences industry. But the money comes with strings, including speeding up the Food and Drug Administration, which has been criticized for being to slow. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III is thrilled with the extra funding; Sen. Elizabeth Warren is drafting her own bill, saying, "Many Republicans in Congress are focused on lowering the FDA standards for approving drugs. That's a dangerous game." http://bit.ly/1HPd9CX
Budget includes Gov. Council pay bump
It didn't take too long for the Herald to find something in the still-drying state budget to get fired up about: The 40 percent raises for the members of the Governor's Council, which the paper says is a body some believe shouldn't exist at all. The budget contains a two-step raise for councilors, boosting their salaries by about $10,000 to $36,025 by January 2016. The part-timers typically meet only once a week to review gubernatorial appointees to the parole board and other agencies and the council has been the subject of several attempts to do away with it. As for the pay raise, the ball is now in Gov. Baker's court and his office tells the Herald the raises are under review. "I would hope he would take a very quick look at it and veto it," GOP state Sen. Robert Hedlund told the paper, saying the raises never came up in a public hearing. http://bit.ly/1CqXOIj
SJC strikes down strip club booze ban
The Supreme Judicial Court struck down a Mendon bylaw that bans alcohol in strip clubs, saying the regulation is too broad, a ruling that has adult entertainment venues statewide breathing a sigh of relief, the Herald says. The SJC said Mendon was on solid ground with its reasoning for the move, saying it had gathered evidence to show that alcohol plus strip clubs would equal more crime, but that it overreached with its outright ban. "If the Supreme Judicial Court had ruled in a different way, you would see many towns banning alcohol at adult entertainment establishments," Thomas Lesser, an attorney for Showtime Entertainment, which had brought a federal suit against the Mendon bylaw, told the Herald. "It would be the preferred method of going after adult entertainment that you may not like." http://bit.ly/1MhijXW
Common Core vote coming?
A newly formed group hopes to have Bay State voters decide in 2016 whether the state should keep or toss out the Common Core federal education standards implemented in 2010, the Telegram reports. Led by former Worcester School Committee member Donna Colorio, End Common Core Massachusetts said it already has support from several lawmakers and former state education officials for their bid to return the state to its own set of educational standards. Common Core has become a hot-button issue in the early stages of the 2016 Presidential race and local critics said the state's own standards better suit Massachusetts. The group will need 70,000 signatures to earn a spot on the ballot that is already expected to contain at least one referendum seeking to legalize marijuana and the question of whether voters support the effort to attract the 2024 summer Olympics to the state. http://bit.ly/1JQvUbj
Remembering the Globe's first black columnist
Here's a fascinating slice of Boston history in the obituary of a pioneer at the Globe, Dexter Eure, who was given a column in the late 1960s and made it his mission to speak truth to power. http://bit.ly/1UClXBC
How to reach me and MASSterList
Nothing makes me happier than comments, tips, suggestions. Also, opinion articles also will be considered. Please don't hesitate to weigh in on what we're missing and where we should look. Reach me at gdonnelly@massterlist.com or on Twitter @geodonnelly.
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