Massachusetts Politics

Charlie Baker has been our governor for 11 months and hasn't yet met a poll he didn't like. In the past week alone, there were two news reports on polls showing that Baker enjoys a level of popularity most pols only experience in their non-waking moments. The first story concerned a nationwide poll of more than 75,000 voters in all 50 states, which  revealed that Baker is unquestionably the most popular governor in the U.S., with an approval rating in Massachusetts of 74%.  The second was on a Suffolk University poll that pegged Baker's popularity at 70%.  For context, consider that the Suffolk poll found Senator Elizabeth Warren to be the second most popular elected official in the state, with 54% favorability. If you are an admirer of Charlie Baker -- and I consider myself one -- it's almost understandable to think he just might be able to defy political gravity indefinitely.  He's the Eagle Scout of governors, cheerily solving one problem ...

The MBTA, we learned this week, is reworking its already strict guidelines for advertising on T property.  Metro Boston’s transit system wants to prohibit “ads concerning political issues or matters of public debate,” according to an agency spokesman. Although that ban has not yet been formally adopted, it is, for all intents and purposes, already in effect. You may wonder how the T does that.   Isn’t this America? Don’t we have something called a First Amendment with a guaranteed right to free speech?   And didn’t the Supreme Court rule in the Citizens United case that you can’t put limits on campaign donations because cash is the equivalent of speech and speech cannot be limited? Yes, but MBTA property is not legally considered a “public forum,” a status that was generically adjudicated and definitively settled years ago.   The Supreme Court has said that the First Amendment does not guarantee access to property “simply because it is owned or controlled by the...

Now Steve Wynn has sweetened the deal for his Eastern Massachusetts casino with a pedestrian bridge over the Mystic River.   The span would lead from the casino site in Everett to the fast-rising neighborhood at Assembly Row in Somerville. Though only a concept, it’s already a bridge too far for Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone.   He was quoted in today’s Boston Globe as saying, “A footbridge would benefit Steve Wynn and Steve Wynn only.   Wynn is looking to tap into the success of Assembly Row to get more people to his craps table.” There are a couple of reasons at least why the mayor might want to blow up this plan while it’s just an image on a computer screen. First, he’s a longtime opponent of casino gambling.   Back in the fall of 2014, Curtatone explained his views on the subject in an interview with WBUR, Boston’s public radio station.   “I’m opposed to casinos because casinos don’t build communities,” he said.   “In fact, casinos abide to the economie...