Weekly roundup - What's wrong with boring?
No fireworks during State of the Commonwealth
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When the red lights on the television cameras started blinking Thursday night, Gov. Charlie Baker arguably faced a bigger challenge than simply articulating his agenda and setting the tone for the year to come: nostalgia.
As he stood on the House rostrum delivering remarks he had been practicing for days, there would be no call to arms to fight income equality and poverty, no grandiose challenge to eliminate homelessness or leave a cleaner planet for his grandchildren's grandchildren.
Baker, in his first State of the Commonwealth, stayed true to form, embracing his inner wonk and the "boring" details of delivering government services that he seems to find endlessly fascinating.
And why not? Voters who elected him in 2014 knew what they were getting, and so far they seem to like it.
"The speech lacked any true vision for the future of the Commonwealth," state Democratic Party spokesman Pat Beaudry opined after the lights dimmed, no doubt longing for the days Deval Patrick stood on that same rostrum to deliver a stemwinder about "generational responsibility."
But Baker being Baker has worked for the governor who now enters his second year enjoying good relationships with most lawmakers and a reasonable expectation that priorities such as legislation to strengthen the state's battle against opioids will eventually wind up on his desk.
THE GE TAXPAYER SCAM?
Some Democratic leaders after the speech credited Baker with a willingness to tackle the malfunctioning MBTA, and admitted luring General Electric to Boston is a nice feather in the governor's cap.
Baker also put down markers for the budget he intends to file next Wednesday, including commitments to increase local aid, stow away cash in the rainy day fund - which did not happen until a surplus emerged last year - and invest in vocational education.
The local aid question is a tricky one for Baker, who on the campaign trail promised to grow "total local aid," including "education funding and unrestricted aid," at the same rate revenues grow. But for the second year in a row, Baker plans to check the box next to that campaign pledge even though Chapter 70 aid - by all accounts a form of local aid - will only grow by 1.6 percent in his budget.
Revenue estimates and unrestricted aid will both grow by 4.3 percent comparatively.
The only section of Baker's speech that landed with a thud was his proposal to once again target the tax credit designed to lure film production business. The governor may have learned his lesson after last year when House Speaker Robert DeLeo essentially threw his budget plan to eliminate the tax credit into his fireplace, but aides say they were not simply casting about in the dark when they decided this year to try and scale the program back to its original 2005 form.
By reimposing a per-film cap on credits and prohibiting film companies from cashing in unused credits with the state, the administration says $43 million in savings could be reinvested in low income housing and tax reform for multi-state corporations to encourage them to grow in Massachusetts.
DeLeo and champions of the film tax credit, like Majority Leader Ron Mariano, weren't wild to hear the governor raise this issue again, but they haven't completely snuffed it out yet.
Within a matter of days - which is rare in these parts - the conference committee negotiating a compromise substance abuse prevention bill was formed, met and produced.
Ok, so maybe the senators and representatives weren't able to sort out their differences on, say, opioid prescription limits within a matter of hours, but they did report out a small piece of the bill that would stop the practice of placing women civilly committed for substance abuse problems in a correctional institution.
Not only did the conference unanimously agree on that section, but it was passed by both the House and Senate on Thursday magically in time for Baker to load a line into his teleprompter and claim victory during his address to the state Thursday night.
Coincidence? Maybe, but unlikely. The willingness of Democrats to just hand over an applause line to the governor, even if they do all agree, shows just how much Baker has Beacon Hill eating out of the palm of his hand. This is what bipartisanship looks like, and it's one reason why party executive director Matt Fenlon may have the toughest job in Massachusetts Democratic politics.
The allegations of ethical and campaign finance transgressions dogging one member of the Democratic Party - Sen. Brian Joyce - has not made that job any easier, but Joyce this week escaped the crosshairs of the Office of Campaign and Political Finance fairly unscathed.
Joyce, of Milton, agreed to donate $4,600 to charity to resolve several issues identified by OCPF with his campaign committee's accounting and spending, including Joyce's use of campaign donations to partially finance his son's high school graduation party.
Campaign finance regulators ultimately concluded that additional unreported spending and accounting problems were not malicious, but honest mistakes, and Joyce agreed to hire an outside accountant and change some of his practices to resolve the questions.
Continuing to insist that he's done nothing wrong, Joyce still faces possible ethics violations stemming from allegations that he improperly used the influence of his office for personal gain, but the Ethics Commission also cleared Joyce of at least one charge - obtaining discounted sunglasses for his colleagues.
Senate President Stanley Rosenberg can only hope this means the Joyce distraction will die down, especially since he is preparing to embark on another exercise that could, if history serves, suck a lot of oxygen out of the building.
Rosenberg, after months of taking the temperature of his members, said Wednesday that he would try to find compromise on charter school legislation after all. The sound defeat in the Senate in 2014 of a charter school expansion bill left many to think Rosenberg would be content to let the ballot campaign to lift the cap play out.
Instead, the Amherst Democrat has put Sens. Sonia Chang-Diaz, Patricia Jehlen, Dan Wolf and Karen Spilka in charge of writing a charter school bill that could address funding, admissions policy, student retention and maybe, but not necessarily, the cap.
Of course, even if they can write a bill that would pass the Senate, there's no guarantee that the House, which is more amenable to charter schools, will go along, or that Great Schools Massachusetts won't go to the ballot anyway.
STORY OF THE WEEK: The state of the Commonwealth is "strong."
About the Author »
Matt Murphy covers major media, lobbying firms, government agencies, political junkies as well as towns Statewide. He likes to cover politics and campaigns.
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