Recap and analysis of the week in state government
When Stephen Brewer decided to call it a career in politics in 2014, the Barre Democrat said he looked forward to teaching himself how to play the banjo.
Brewer, who had just come out on the losing end of a battle to become the next Senate president, was 65 — the same age Gov. Charlie Baker is now — and ready to write his next chapter.
Fast-forward more than seven years, and there was Baker this week, admiring the guitar selection at Needham Music, where he was promoting the importance of shopping locally this holiday season.
“I always said that if I ever retire, I want to learn how to play the bass,” Baker remarked casually.
Whether it will end by choice, by force or not at all in 2022, Baker’s political future is the hottest question on Beacon Hill. No matter who you ask, chances are they have a strong opinion, and not always the same one. Northwind Strategies and Change Research went so far as to poll Baker’s chances should he ditch the Republican Party and run as an independent, an option the governor has dismissed.
“I don’t think he’s running, and I’m worried that will slow down a lot of things over the next year if there’s an exodus from his cabinet,” one Democratic senator said this week.
It’s a topic so hot, in fact, that Baker doesn’t even want to touch it. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that question,” he told a reporter on Monday.
But voters want to know. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito is probably curious. And presumably donors are interested as well, as they were asked this week to chip in again for an undefined political cause at a pre-Thanksgiving fundraiser for Baker at Davio’s in the Seaport.
Attorney General Maura Healey also has a stake in whatever Baker decides to do. But possibly before deciding whether she wants the governor’s job, the top prosecutor will have to make a call on whether to appeal the decision of Hampden Superior Court Judge Edward McDonough, Jr. to dismiss criminal neglect charges she brought against former Holyoke Soldiers Home superintendent Bennett Walsh and ex-medical director Dr. David Clinton.
McDonough determined that there was “insufficient reasonably trustworthy evidence” to prove that the decision by Walsh and Clinton to merge two dementia units at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak changed the health outcomes for patients who later became infected.
The case was, and still is, one being watched nationally after states around the country experienced COVID-19 outbreaks in congregate care settings like nursing homes. Healey has 30 days to decide her next move.
Baker is also thinking about next moves after Maine suspended the license for a critical transmission project to import hydropower from Canada. But as Baker imagined what it might have been like to be John Entwistle instead of browsing the leather shoe selection at Michelson’s Shoes, families across Massachusetts this week were preparing for Thanksgiving, and the extended holiday season – the first since COVID-19 vaccines were introduced to the population.
Retailers projected 6 percent growth in sales this year, which trails the national forecasts for holiday shopping as businesses contend with inflation, supply chain issues and workforce shortages.
Unlike in 2020 when public leaders were urging families to refrain from large gatherings, Baker this week said he thought the people of Massachusetts had sacrificed a lot and done the work to get vaccinated so that they could “be in a position where we can have a normal Thanksgiving.”
Even Dr. Anthony Fauci said vaccinated families should be able to safely enjoy the holidays together this year. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t cause for alarm, as cases of COVID-19 are on the rise, reaching daily counts not seen since February.
Hospitals are also encroaching on uncomfortable territory, with “longer than average hospital stays and significant workforce shortages, separate and apart from the challenges brought on by COVID” stressing the capacities of some facilities, Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said.
Acting Public Health Commissioner Margret Cooke issued an order directing hospitals and hospital systems with less than 15 percent staffed ICU and medical-surgical bed capacity to begin to scale back non-essential procedures. The order, which takes effect next week, is in response to the loss of 500 beds already across the state due to staffing shortages, according to the administration.
Hospitals, like many government agencies, have required workers to get vaccinated. Those employees are on the frontlines, facing the risks of daily exposure, or exposing patients, to COVID-19.
That hasn’t been the case on Beacon Hill where despite legislators and staff being required to be vaccinated, few work with any regularity from the State House, which remains among the last state capitols closed to the public.
House leaders this week announced the babiest of steps toward a return to normal operations, with employees told they must be “available” to work in person beginning Dec. 13 as a condition of employment, meaning the ability to work remotely is no longer an excuse for not being vaccinated.
This phase of reopening, dubbed 2A, is a precursor, according to House leaders, to calling back a larger cohort of lawmakers and staff on a more regular basis, rather than just the minimum required to facilitate sessions, which this week brought about the passage of a genocide education bill.
Who knows what the activity level inside the State House will be come January when voters elect a successor to MassBio CEO Joe Boncore, but for one the Democrats running it was a big Thanksgiving week.
Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards rolled out a deep slate of endorsements from state lawmakers on Tuesday with Mayor Michelle Wu at her side. It was a day after Edwards was at City Hall celebrating the signing of Wu’s first ordinance as mayor directing the divestment of $65 million in city investments from fossil fuel companies.
Edwards was a co-sponsor of the ordinance, and said the city was finally putting its money where its mouth was. Though at the state level, fossil fuel divestment has been less attractive to the Legislature, and Treasurer Deb Goldberg, who oversees the state pension fund, is pursuing a different strategy – working from within companies as a shareholder to shape corporate clean energy policy.
Divestment is just one area where Boston and state policy leaders may not be on the same page, and Wu disclosed this week that she discssed another – rent control – with Gov. Baker last week during their one-on-one meeting.
Wu said rent control doesn’t have to look like the “old” policy that Baker remembers from his days as a renter in Boston and opposes. But the mayor said details will have to wait.
During her first appearance on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio” as mayor, Wu also said she wasn’t ready to announce any new COVID-19 vaccine requirements, but strongly hinted that a proof-of-vaccination program for patrons of restaurants and performances venues, akin to the one used in New York City, could be in the works.
