Wednesday, March 30, 2016
By Jay Fitzgerald and Keith Regan
Today: Welcoming Armenia's president, film tax credit push, reforming public records law
Charlie Baker and other state and diplomatic officials will welcome Serzh Sargsyan, the president of the Republic of Armenia, to the State House, front staircase, State House, 1:15 p.m.
College professors, students and film industry workers will host a legislative briefing to discuss the role the state's film tax credit has on their sector, House Members Lounge, Room 348, 11 a.m.
The legislative conference committee tasked with reconciling bills to reform the state's public records law will meet for the third time, Room 222, 2 p.m.
The Trump Connection
What is it about Massachusetts and Donald Trump? Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney launched a nationwide crusade against the GOP presidential frontrunner. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren spent most of last week rhetorically dueling with The Donald. Now Lowell's very own Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, has been charged with battery in Florida for grabbing a reporter as she tried to ask Trump a question, the NYT reports.http://nyti.ms/1RKi8W1
Meanwhile, the Herald's Matt Stout and Chris Villani apparently had a phone-call tussle with the spokesman for the Florida prosecutor who's pressing the charges against Lewandowski. Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg is not only a Hillary Clinton supporter but he's also - brace yourself Harvard educated http://bit.ly/1ROylQd
Today's Herald editorial probably best sums up the latest presidential-race madness: "If this campaign were not happening in some sort of parallel universe, a simple apology at the time might have sufficed. But like Trump himself, those who work for him apparently never acknowledge error - and certainly not bad behavior." http://bit.ly/1TieJmK
Did a group cross the fine line between advocacy and partisanship?
We all know there's a fine line between non-profits advocating for causes and actually taking sides in elections, something they're not supposed to do as educational tax-exempt organizations. After all, we know where most groups stand on issues. We know who they ideologically like and dislike. We know who they're secretly rooting for or against. But they can't make it too explicit - and that's what the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance is now being accused of: being too explicit about the obvious in this month's special state representative races in Fitchburg and Peabody, according to the Globe's Frank Phillips. The alliance, needless to say, denies the charge. http://bit.ly/1RIf9Az
Despite reforms, the T's finances are getting worse
The Boston Business Journal's Craig Douglas is reporting the MBTA's financial picture is getting worse, not better, despite recent reforms: "The T's operating losses in fiscal 2015 hit a new high - or low, depending on your preference in defining a negative negative. In simple-speak, the MBTA's financial hemorrhaging only worsened last year, marking a record operating loss for a state agency that long ago ran off the rails." http://bit.ly/1SmfV3K
What would Frank Sargent do?
In related transportation news, James Aloisi looks around at all of the state's unmet infrastructure needs and recalls how former Gov. Frank Sargent famously announced in 1970: "I have decided to reverse the transportation policy of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." Aloisi concludes in his CommonWealth magazine piece: "Frank Sargent isn't here today to urge us on to a wiser transportation policy, but we can take lessons from what he said, and did, and apply them to the moment." http://bit.ly/1LZGAXz
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