Sam Doran  Spot, a dog-like robot produced by Boston Dynamics, holds a placard calling Massachusetts the “state of firsts,” while positioned in front of the State House on Sept. 17, 2024 for the launch of the MA250 brand celebrating the upcoming anniversary of the Revolutionary War.Sam Doran/SHNS |
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, SEPT. 20, 2024…..Everyone has a little rebel in them. Whether it’s gun owners trying to roll back a new state law, citizens who want to fight the prosecution of Karen Read, Miltonians who are sick of the state telling them what to do … or the government’s economic development chief, who sees Massachusetts as a David amongst Goliaths. Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday launched the state’s marketing brand for the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War, also known as a Sestercentennial. Queue the historical analogies, and Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao spent part of the week comparing our economic standing and the way the 90 or so Lexington Militia members stood up to hundreds of British soldiers in 1775. At the launch, Hao called the Lexington farmers “Team Massachusetts OG.” She kept the comparison rolling at a MASSterList forum in Boston on Thursday about state competitiveness: “We’re not unlike those colonists, that ragtag group,” she told the packed room. “We’re not the biggest state. We don’t have the most people. We don’t have the most weapons, in terms of tax incentives or cheap energy or no regulation. But but we have some battles to fight.” The battles, she said, involve climate change, new technology, global wars, and both a “very divided” country and a view that “we are not that functional at the federal level.” The solution? Hao’s messaging took a page right from the book of Calvin Coolidge, who in a famous 1914 speech called on people to “Have Faith in Massachusetts.” “How many of you are proud of our state, of what our leadership looks like? How many of you are proud of the values we stand for?” she asked the audience of around 300 at an event titled, “They’re Leaving Massachusetts.” She pointed to the Bay State’s long life expectancy, its level of wealth, the highest income per capita. It’s “the best state for women” and “the best state to raise a family,” she said. Plus, the civil rights like loving who you want to love, and the reproductive rights that are more progressive than other states stuck in “the 1800s.” Echoes of Coolidge, who said in his inaugural speech as Senate president that lawmakers should always “protect the rights of the weak,” and “be as revolutionary as science.” “In some unimportant detail some other States may surpass her,” Coolidge said, “but in the general results, there is no place on earth where the people secure, in a larger measure, the blessings of organized government, and nowhere can those functions more properly be termed self-government” — than in Massachusetts. To that message of local control, the Town of Milton offers a hearty “Huzzah.” It’s still pushing back on a state mandate to open up more multifamily zoning under the 2021 MBTA Communities Act. The state’s highest court is due to hear oral arguments on Oct. 7 in the attorney general’s bid to force compliance by the Dorchester-adjacent town of 28,000. At the MASSterList event, Sen. Julian Cyr said it’s the “excessive local control by 351 distinct municipalities” that is hurting the state’s housing stock, and in turn, its chances at competing for younger people who would otherwise live here and contribute to the economy.  She can play HORSE, and she can ride one, too. Gov. Maura Healey trots around Beacon Street on a horse borrowed from the National Lancers on Sept. 17, 2024, after launching the MA250 brand.Lex250 via Instagram |
And it’s not just about competing with other states’ economies and in the life sciences sector, or climate tech, or other emerging fields. Turns out, it’s also about competitiveness for centerstage in this big years-long 250th bash. “I’ll tell you, the game is on,” Healey said Tuesday. “I mean, you know, I talk to the governors in Virginia and Pennsylvania. I remind them that actually, things began here. We are the birthplace, baby, right? Of this great country of ours.” Maybe she reminded Pennsylvanians of that on Wednesday while she was down in Harrisburg stumping for Kamala Harris along with Harris’ sister, Maya. Healey’s campaign newsletter still bears a logo that says Maura Healey For Massachusetts, though the latest edition, from later this week, was all about the national issue of reproductive freedom and featured snaps from her trip. And the administration had plenty of representation in Pennsylvania this week. Keeping up with the revolutionary theme, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll was due in Philly on Friday night to help kick off the Keystone State’s “America250PA” brand. Remember, from the history books, how the militia had enough of the damn Tories and pushed them out of Boston. The Tories were those fatcat merchants who got rich while Yankee Doodle’s civil liberties were getting trampled. The ones who didn’t go back to England packed up their mahogany highboys and took their ships to Nova Scotia, as the riotous rabble of Team Massachusetts OG chased after them, clamoring for their powdered wigs. Well, the new-wave Team Massachusetts has their pitchforks and clubs aimed at another fatcat, but he has more than just a sail-powered brig to make his getaway. Dr. Ralph de la Torre, CEO of bankrupt Steward Health Care, has a jet and a gas-powered yacht at his disposal to flee to a safe haven if he’s trying to avoid the contempt charges recommended by a U.S. Senate committee this week. Committee member U.S. Sen. Ed Markey recently said that “we will not stop until he answers for what he has done or is put behind bars.” The so-called HELP Committee forwarded to the full Senate resolutions that would open civil and criminal suits against de la Torre for his failure to appear and explain his company’s actions. The Civil Rights Coalition must have loved all the historical talk of April 1775 this week. That’s the group of Second Amendment supporters aiming to repeal the new Day-Creem gun law. A few of them were fired up this week at a press conference down on the sidewalk, saying they expect to gather enough signatures by Oct. 9 in their bid to first temporarily suspend the law, then get it onto the ballot for a repeal question in November 2026. (All their literature keeps talking about the bill, H 4885, but really it’s Chapter 135 — the law — that they’re protesting now.) Healey hasn’t said whether she will act to avoid the temporary suspension, something she could do by filing language that declares the gun reforms to be an emergency law. She faces no deadline for that decision. The 2A folks aren’t the only people ready to jump ahead two years to the next campaign season. Two — yep, two — former Suffolk County prosecutors waded into the race for Norfolk County district attorney this week. Djuna Perkins, a Dedham Democrat and former chief of the Suffolk domestic violence unit, said she’s running, and Craig MacLellan, a Democrat who chairs the Cohasset School Committee, is exploring a run. Thing is, sitting DA Mike Morrissey hasn’t said he’s going anywhere, and the DA’s job isn’t on the ballot until the fall of 2026. Queue the longest continuous campaign season for a county post … Both lawyers were direct in their statements to the press about running against Morrissey, who’s been bogged down in a mire of controversy over the murder prosecution (and now re-prosecution) of Karen Read. As if the case couldn’t get more bizarre … Morrissey’s assistant, Adam Lally, didn’t convince a jury this summer of Read’s guilt, so the office announced this week it’s bringing in Whitey Bulger’s old defense lawyer, Hank Brennan, to lead the case for the prosecution at retrial in January. Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney, the controversial blogger who shined a spotlight on Read and promoted her innocence and a theory of police coverup and prosecutorial mismanagement, showed up on the State House’s front steps with a crowd of Read supporters this week. Their focus now extends to the case of the late Sandra Birchmore, who as a young girl of 12 joined the Explorers youth group of the Stoughton Police Department, only to allegedly be groomed, raped, and eventually murdered by a Stoughton cop. Some of the Read supporters see connections between the law enforcement officials in each case. Even for those who don’t buy into every conspiracy theory, there are implications for state government and the administration of justice. The first Read trial revealed hideous text messages sent by the State Police’s lead investigator in the case, leading Gov. Healey to say she was among the “disgusted” and that the “completely unprofessional” conduct undermined the “integrity” of law enforcement. Meantime, in unrelated investigations underway around the state this week, the Department of Corrections was probing circumstances around the stabbing of guards at Souza-Baranowski, where the CO union says prisoners are making shanks out of free computer tablets, according to NBC10. And there are still so many questions around the death of Enrique Delgado-Garcia, a trainee at the State Police Academy — and officials haven’t even decided who will run that investigation. SONG OF THE WEEK: Team Massachusetts OG: It’s the Militia. (Thanks to the Bay Staters of Gang Starr.) | 