Local Politics Thread

sean99090900 said:
brookline.news

Younger candidates push out some of Brookline's political old guard in progressive sweep - Brookline.News

Turnout boosted by the override, national progressive momentum and good old-fashioned campaigning meant a good day for Brookline's left wing on Tuesday.
brookline.news brookline.news
Perhaps more importantly, candidates endorsed by Brookline for Everyone (B4E), a pro-housing advocacy group, will now have a majority on the five-person board with the two newcomers along with Michael Rubenstein.
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Well thats awesome, a majority! Cant wait to see if this means brookline becomes much more pro housing now.
 

With 27 acres in a historic, tree-lined neighborhood close to the coast, the site would be perfect for the Boston suburb to expand its reach — and ensure no commercial developers get their hands on the land. The problem? Quincy would have to borrow $22.5 million from the municipal bond market at a time when its budget is already strained.

Eastern Nazarene had initially agreed to sell its campus to a real estate developer who wanted to build several hundred housing units, but that deal fell through. Koch then put forward his own plan that he said would be more palatable to neighbors worried about overdevelopment.
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:rolleyes:
 
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The site isn't amazingly transit-accessible - the adjacent 217 gets a few trips a day, the 210 (planned for 25 peak / 50 midday and weekend) is 8 minutes walk, and Wollaston station is 13 minutes walk. Neither is there particularly good auto access. The buildings are generally nice-looking, if not exceptional. Some look relatively new. Adaptive reuse seems like it'd be cheaper than building new regardless of who's running the show. I just can't imagine this being a particularly notable or tall development.
 
Love that this got picked up. It's such a stupid own-goal; an idea that should have been shut down after the initial brainstorm. No, you absolutely may not use tax payer funds to erect Catholic statues on a municipal building.
 
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www.bostonglobe.com

Mass. high court rules proposal to slash income tax can’t appear on November ballot - The Boston Globe

The state’s highest court ruled Thursday that a ballot question that would cut the state income tax in Massachusetts cannot proceed to the November ballot, dealing a blow to business groups who had argued the state is too expensive for residents and businesses.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

This ballot measure would have been a disaster if passed, but I'm also not entirely comfortable with the idea that the AG summary can't just be amended. If an AG is opposed to a particular measure can they just intentionally sabotage it?
 
KCasiglio said:
www.bostonglobe.com

Mass. high court rules proposal to slash income tax can’t appear on November ballot - The Boston Globe

The state’s highest court ruled Thursday that a ballot question that would cut the state income tax in Massachusetts cannot proceed to the November ballot, dealing a blow to business groups who had argued the state is too expensive for residents and businesses.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

This ballot measure would have been a disaster if passed, but I'm also not entirely comfortable with the idea that the AG summary can't just be amended. If an AG is opposed to a particular measure can they just intentionally sabotage it?
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I get your concern. But this seems like a pretty reasonable outcome, from a quick skim though the decision. The AG's summary was what was printed on the forms for collecting signatures. So the 85K+ who signed were being kind of misled about what they were supporting. That's a huge step in the process and it was fatally flawed, so it makes sense to keep this off the ballot.

And I don't think an AG could really intentionally sabotage a measure. The decision makes clear that the courts give the AG really wide discretion in coming up with these summaries. There have been challenges like this in the past and court seems to bend over backwards to side with the AG. If the AG were trying to sabotage a measure by coming up with a bad summary, it would generally have to be pretty blatant, and then supporters could sue to fix it much earlier in the process.
 
www.bostonglobe.com

State’s high court blocks rent control ballot question from November ballot - The Boston Globe

The stunning ruling came on the heels of a similar decision last week that saw the Supreme Judicial Court toss a question that would have lowered the state’s income tax to four percent.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

High court is on a roll apparently. The decision turns on treatment of religious institutions, which makes the question unconstitutional. Positive policy outcome (in my opinion) even if it's a bit of an out from the judicial branch.
 
This is pretty squarely just legislating from the bench, right? This is really odd. I guess the justices are pretty committed libs.
 
Longfellow said:
This is pretty squarely just legislating from the bench, right? This is really odd. I guess the justices are pretty committed libs.
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All it means is that it'll be on the ballot next year.
 
Longfellow said:
This is pretty squarely just legislating from the bench, right? This is really odd. I guess the justices are pretty committed libs.
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No, it's sloppy language in the text of the measure that chose to draw a line that could result in state-sponsored determination of what's a bona fide religious use, and that is forbidden to be included in any referendum under the state constitution. The decision notes that they could have drawn the line between for-profit and non-profit and avoided the issue altogether. I suspect that's exactly what they'll do. The quote from the decision (notable that there were no dissents in the decision):

Had the initiative simply stated that it limits rent increases in dwelling units operated by for-profit institutions, but not in dwelling units operated by non-profit institutions, a very different question would have been presented. Distinguishing for-profit from nonprofit institutions does not require an analysis that relates to religion or religious institutions.
 
Longfellow said:
I guess the justices are pretty committed libs.
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In simple left-versus-right partisan terms, one of the ballot questions thrown out (tax decrease) would have forwarded a "conservative" cause while the other one thrown out (rent control) would have forwarded a "liberal" cause. That's a 1-1 tie on the political spectrum.

Looks to me like the justices are ruling on the merits and law.
 
JumboBuc said:
In simple left-versus-right partisan terms, one of the ballot questions thrown out (tax decrease) would have forwarded a "conservative" cause while the other one thrown out (rent control) would have forwarded a "liberal" cause. That's a 1-1 tie on the political spectrum.

Looks to me like the justices are ruling on the merits and law.
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I read "libs" more as free-market liberals rather than "left". Both of these rulings are a tie on the grander political spectrum but they also completely align with establishment Democratic party interests. From the American 2-party political perspective, I don't think it shows that they are bipartisan or tied at all. This doesn't mean that the ruling has no merit or that the SJC should be bipartisan at all with the Republicans, but I don't think it proves honesty by going against the grain in the sense you imply.
 
Agreed, both these decisions favor the status quo that Mass likes so much, with the least productive legislative branch ever, and this just furthers that. Likely these justices were hired to not rock the boat.

Edit: and to clarify, this isn’t a comment on the merits of either proposal. Democrats see rules as a good in and of themselves and following norms as a higher good than material outcomes. The fact that the users above me are resorting to splitting hairs over technical wordings (when I brought up none) shows where they’re getting their satisfaction from.
 
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Longfellow said:
Agreed, both these decisions favor the status quo
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Given that all ballot measures -- by their very nature -- challenge the status quo, then yes, any decision that blocks a ballot measure will enforce the status quo.

But your allegation that the judges are "pretty squarely just legislating from the bench" is completely baseless based on your own admission! You say that you aren't "resorting to splitting hairs over technical wordings" but that is exactly the purpose of the entire judicial branch of government! The legislature makes laws, the executive executes them / carries them out, and the judicial interprets / enforces them. This is basic Intro to Government material. If you claim that a judicial finding that the "technical wording" of a law violates the state constitution represents an example of "legislating from the bench" then I don't think you know the meaning of that term.

Also: there's clear selection bias here. The ballot measures that get thrown out catch headlines but all the ones that do not get thrown out (because they're written and summarized in ways that are not deceptive and do not violate the State Constitution) do not get stories written about them. There have been plenty of controversial (and norm shattering!) ballot initiatives that have gone to the ballot in recent years without judicial intervention. If the judiciary were truly ruling in a "pretty committed" biased nature then these would have been blocked too.
 
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