Massachusetts Politics

If a guest columnist for a major national newspaper is to be believed – and I hope he is – Boston is out of the running to be Amazon’s second headquarters city (HQ2). This would mean that the old, seldom-used Suffolk Downs horse racing track, the prime intended Boston location for Amazon’s HQ2, can be redeveloped in a better, less intense way for East Boston and Revere, and for the state as a whole. The proposal by the state, city and a private developer to build Amazon’s H2Q at Suffolk Downs includes   housing, hotels and open space, but it is primarily about eight million square feet of new office space and a technology-driven business operation requiring the services of approximately 50,000 employees. Creating jobs is, as it should be, a governmental priority in all times and seasons.   As enticing as H2Q at Suffolk Downs seems, however, there’s something scary about having so many jobs materialize in one swoop at a 161-acre site amidst densely populated neighbor...

Within a few hours of Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley announcing she would challenge   incumbent Michael Capuano of Somerville in the Democratic primary for U.S. Representative in the 7th Massachusetts District this fall, the Teamsters put out a press release endorsing Capuano.   That’s when I realized that a gigantic hot potato had landed in the lap of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. The 7th District includes a large part of the City of Boston.   (Capuano divides the federal representation of the city with Stephen Lynch of the adjoining 8th District.)   Pressley, age 43, has lived for years in Dorchester and has served as an at-large member of the City Council since 2010. Pressley was the first African-American woman ever elected to the Boston City Council.   The last three times she ran for re-election, she came in first, first and second, respectively, in the at-large races. Capuano, age 66, is a lifelong resident of Somerville, where he served as mayor ...

On April 12, 2016, two-and-a-half months shy of his 34 th birthday, Joseph Boncore of Winthrop beat six other candidates in the Democratic primary special election for the vacant seat in the First Suffolk and Middlesex Senate District, which encompasses Revere, Winthrop and East Boston, the North End and Beacon Hill sections of Boston, and one ward and four precincts in Cambridge. The seat was open due to the Jan. 21, 2016, resignation of Anthony Petrucelli, the Senate Majority Whip from East Boston, who had left the upper branch to join the lobbying firm of Kearney, Donovan and McGee.   Boncore’s primary victory meant he would automatically be elevated to the Senate in the final special election, on May 10, 2016, because there was not a single Republican in the race. The night Boncore won, the needle on the Richter scale of Massachusetts politics jumped. A first-time legislative candidate, Boncore defeated two more seasoned Democrats: Revere Mayor Dan Rizzo and Jay Livingstone, th...

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin had the task of selecting a date for the statewide primary elections to be held this fall. By law, Galvin had to schedule the primary within seven days of the second Tuesday of September, which falls this year on September 11.   He thus had to choose a date within the fourteen-day span beginning on Tuesday, September 4, and ending on Tuesday, September 18. By longstanding practice, our Secretaries of State aim to hold a statewide primary 49 days before the final election in November, which is always scheduled on the first Tuesday of the month.   The first Tuesday this year is on November 6.   If you count back 49 days from November 6, you get to September 18. September 18 this year was deemed infeasible by Galvin because the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur will be observed that day.   Likewise, Galvin ruled out September 11 because of the observance of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. That left only one possible ...