Recap and analysis of the week in state government
If the biennial rush of ballot question campaigns launching brought a sense of normalcy back to Beacon Hill, the tension between summertime merriment and lingering health risks is a reminder of how odd the current moment has become.
Massachusetts is six weeks into life after the end of the COVID-19 state of emergency, yet cases are increasing at a rate not seen since early May. And with one of the best vaccination rates in the country, that upswing has not translated into a major jump in hospitalizations or virtually any change in deaths.
Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday warned that anyone planning a large outdoor gathering this summer “should either put them off or be really careful” if participants are at a greater risk for COVID-19 complications, yet fans crowded Fenway Park in close quarters all week to cheer on Guns N’ Roses, Green Day, Weezer, and the Pride of Long Island himself, Billy Joel.
Baker jabbed at former President Barack Obama’s since-downsized plans for a Martha’s Vineyard birthday bash, yet the governor and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito will host their own Sept. 2 outdoor fundraiser — with some precautions in place — at the Cape Cod home of public relations exec George Regan.
With all of these seeming contradictions in play at once, residents face the uneasy task of balancing the possibilities that have returned and the risks that remain. Take a stroll into any grocery store, and you’re likely to find a mix of masked and unmasked shoppers and no one knows who is vaccinated and who isn’t.
Official government guidance has evolved into a complex web, hinging on dense variables such as whether federal health officials deem a county as having “moderate” or “substantial” transmission of the virus.
At the state level, the Baker administration has resisted calls for a mask mandate, leaving decisions up to communities or individuals themselves while facing heat from the Republican governor’s left.
Ben Downing, a former state senator running for Baker’s job as a Democrat, said Monday that he believes Baker ended the state of emergency too soon and called for a new statewide masking order.
Democrat Sen. Becca Rausch filed a bill that would require all students and staff to wear masks in K-12 schools and child care, and Senate President Karen Spilka on Friday ramped up the pressure by calling for a universal mask mandate in schools.
On both fronts, Baker stuck to his guns and pointed to the above-average vaccination rates in Massachusetts as justification.
“We’re in a very different place than other parts of the country are in,” he said Tuesday. “I think our guidance, which really focused on vulnerable populations and people who are most at risk, was the right way to go.”
While the Bay State has one of the best vaccination rates in the country, more than 16 percent of the state’s population eligible for a vaccine by age — roughly 1 million people — still has not gotten a single shot against COVID-19, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control data.
A growing list of industries are ordering their workers to get vaccinated in an attempt to target those holdouts. United Airlines announced Friday that all of its 67,000 U.S. employees, not just new hires, must get vaccinated by late October or face termination. Other major companies such as Google, Facebook, and Tyson Foods have also rolled out vaccine mandates for staff who return to in-person work.
Baker on Wednesday did roll out a vaccine mandate for all skilled nursing home and soldiers’ home workers in Massachusetts.
Similar requirements appear inbound for the city of Boston’s 18,000 employees. Mayor Kim Janey said Thursday that she and municipal unions are “actively working toward” a requirement that city employees get vaccinated or face regular testing, hinting an announcement will come next week.
But that news ended up largely overshadowed by a controversy Janed invited.
Asked on Tuesday if she would consider mandating proof of vaccination to enter some public spaces like leaders have done in New York City, Janey invoked American slavery and President Donald Trump’s birtherism conspiracy theory as part of “a long history in this country of people needing to show their papers.”
Her remarks drew quick criticism, including from fellow mayoral candidate and City Councilor Andrea Campbell, who called the rhetoric “dangerous.”
Janey walked back her comparisons to slavery and birtherism two days later, even as she double down on doubts about a broader vaccine mandate.
“I wish I had not used those analogies because they took away from the important issue of ensuring that our vaccination and public health policies are implemented with fairness and equity,” she said. “If vaccine passports were imposed today with a government mandate to ban unvaccinated residents from venues like restaurants or gyms, that would shut out nearly 40 percent of East Boston and nearly 60 percent of Mattapan. Instead of shutting people out, shutting out our neighbors who are disproportionately poor people of color, we are knocking on their doors to build trust and to expand access to the life-saving vaccines.”
Baker and First Lady Lauren Baker jetted off to California on Thursday for a week-long family vacation, and he won’t need to worry too much in that span about fighting with state lawmakers over a possible legislative vaccine mandate.
House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz, who is planning his own trip to New York next week amid the Legislature’s traditional August recess, said Wednesday that the state’s vaccination effort has “peaked out a little bit” but that mandates are not on the “short-term” legislative agenda.
And when lawmakers do stir back to life from the summer lull they carve out for themselves, they’ll have major decisions to make about the state’s rosy economic outlook.
The Department of Revenue on Tuesday reported an eye-popping number: in the fiscal year that ended June 30, state government collected $5.047 billion more in taxes than budget-writers anticipated.
That haul tees up Baker and lawmakers for debate on how to spend a hefty surplus, all while the Legislature continues to hear pitches for how to disperse roughly $5 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funding that sits in a savings account.
If the pace keeps up — which appears possible, based on the robust July revenues DOR reported Wednesday — supporters of a proposed surtax on income above $1 million on the 2022 ballot next year might decide to adjust their campaign pitch.
One avenue that might resonate with Bay Staters, at least in the greater Boston area, is to focus on the need for investments at the MBTA, where a collision between two Green Line trolleys last week injured 27 people.
The week brought new clarity on which questions might feature alongside the surtax proposal at the 2022 ballot. Healey’s office, which serves as the gatekeeper for the start of the initiative petition process, received a total of 28 proposed laws by a Wednesday deadline.
Depending on Healey’s constitutional review and how campaigns fare gathering signatures, voters could be asked to decide the future of a multi-state carbon emissions pact, voter ID requirements, worker classification and benefits in the gig economy, a ban on happy hour drink promotions, and hospital financial transparency.
One initiative petition would require the state to provide legal counsel in all eviction cases, an area of need that has been thrust into the spotlight. Trial Court data during the pandemic show that only about 7 percent of defendants are represented by attorneys when facing eviction for failing to pay rent, compared to almost 85 percent of plaintiffs.
Legislative leaders responded with silence when President Joe Biden on Monday called on states to implement their own temporary eviction bans after the CDC moratorium lapsed. Their inaction became moot on Tuesday, when, in the face of substantial pressure and warnings about a flood of housing removals, the CDC decided it had the authority after all to issue a new moratorium in counties experiencing substantial and high levels of COVID-19 transmission.
The latest policy might be short-lived. Landlords already brought a lawsuit against the new ban, citing a previous U.S. Supreme Court decision that said the CDC did not have authority to extend the former moratorium.
STORY OF THE WEEK: After a mostly unified response to the early days of the public health crisis, elected officials are fractured on how to get over the vaccine-holdout hump.
SONG OF THE WEEK: Fenway’s Hella Mega Tour featured only three of the four originally scheduled bands after a positive COVID-19 test, but attendees danced, danced all the same.
