New from CommonWealth Beacon |
|
INFORMAL ROUTE: Taking heat for leaving a lot of unfinished business behind, Democrats on Beacon Hill warm to the idea of playing catchup during informal sessions that run the rest of this year. Bruce Mohl sets the record straight on what can and cannot be done in an informal session, but warns that Democrats who control the House, Senate, and governor’s office have to first get on the same page.
PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCES: Climate legislation, including infrastructure siting law changes the Healey administration says are desperately needed, failed to pass because of major philosophical differences between Democrats on Beacon Hill. Bruce Mohl and Gin Dumcius have the story.
OPINION: John Martin of Elkus Manfredi Architects proposes a game plan for dealing with the hybrid work reality – focus on developing around-the-clock communities, not business districts. |
|
|
|
Political notebook: Healey hires strategist | Gov. slams Vance’s ‘childless cat lady’ comment
|
|
August 2, 2024 |
|
By Gintautas Dumcius and Jennifer SMith |
|
|
|
Nearly halfway through her first term, Gov. Maura Healey has brought into the State House a longtime political hand.
Corey Welford, who left for the private sector after serving as a top adviser to Healey when she was the state’s attorney general, returned several weeks ago to Beacon Hill with the title of senior strategist.
Governors often turn to close political advisers as they focus on the spade work of government. Michael Dukakis, who served three terms in the corner office, had John Sasso, who also joined him on the presidential campaign trail. In more modern times, Charlie Baker had Tim Buckley, who was valued because he “has no problem telling me I’m wrong,” Healey’s Republican predecessor once said.
Welford reports to Healey chief of staff Kate Cook and is working with senior adviser Gabrielle Viator. His post involves focusing on “the administration’s agenda to improve the lives of the people of Massachusetts, [and] helping to coordinate that work across secretariats and the executive office,” according to a Healey spokesperson.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CommonWealth Beacon's Jennifer Smith is joined by Sen. Jo Comerford to discuss higher education policy, including the free community college measure in the state budget, as well as the full range of programs that support students, and the role of higher education in economic development and public life. |
| LISTEN NOW |
|
|
|
|
Welford has spent the last eight years as a vice president at CTP, an advertising and public relations company based in Boston’s North End. He founded the public affairs practice at the company, whose clients have included DraftKings, Delta Dental, and the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans.
Welford graduated from College of the Holy Cross with a history degree in 1995, working as a teacher at a Billerica high school before stints as a researcher for Time magazine and CBS Sports, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He is a veteran of gubernatorial campaigns. His resume includes stints working for Shannon O’Brien and Tom Reilly’s respective runs for the corner office. Alongside Healey’s sister Tara, Welford also advised Healey during her 2022 run for governor.
Welford started his new job on July 15.
|
|
|
|
|
Prodding parentage
In an interview with the governor on Wednesday, a somewhat odd exchange occurred when GBH radio host Jim Braude asked, “Would you say you’re a childless cat lady, governor?” Gov. Maura Healey laughed, and Braude pushed, “I mean, it is fair, is it not?”
Hands clasped and a slight smile on her face, Healey replied, “Well, our step-children would disagree with that,” referring to the children of her partner, Joanna Lydgate, who shares custody with her ex-husband, “and our teenager at home would disagree with that.”
The typically private Healey, like Vice President Kamala Harris, is part of a blended family. But the parental status of women in politics has become a sour flashpoint in the context of former President Donald Trump’s veep pick – Ohio senator J.D. Vance – saying the nation is “effectively run ... by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
Vance said that those without children – specifically referencing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Harris, who has step-children; and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has adopted children with his husband – lack a “direct stake” in the country’s future.
Beyond generally advising that people not judge others’ parental circumstances, Healey asked “who are you to say what brings a woman fulfillment? … Not only is it a ridiculous, cruel, and disgusting comment, it's also really serious because what it actually speaks to, underlying all of this, the degree of misogyny and sexism that both J.D. Vance and Donald Trump have toward women.”
As the presidential race swirled with unpleasantness, one of the few major pieces of legislation to make it out of a late night end-of-session legislative rush on Beacon Hill will put a long-sought button on the question of who qualifies as a parent in Massachusetts.
People who have children through birth, adoption, marriage, surrogacy, sperm donation, and assisted reproduction like in-vitro fertilization – as well as those who become “de facto” parents – are included under updated parentage legislation now awaiting Healey’s signature. The governor expressed her support for the law earlier in 2024.
Under existing law, someone must formally adopt their non-biological child to be considered a parent. In changing that narrow requirement, Massachusetts joins the bulk of New England states to update their laws on parentage.
|
|
|
|
|
Advertise with CommonWealth Beacon
Get direct access to our growing audience of engaged readers, including policymakers, regional and community leaders, and key influencers throughout the state. |
| LEARN MORE |
|
|
|
More from CommonWealth Beacon |
|
SMALL VICTORY: Those who want to boost the number of minority teachers claim a small victory with the passage of a budget amendment requiring an analysis of whether the ranks of teachers of color are being disproportionately depleted by layoffs that tend to affect those most recently hired. Michael Jonas has the story.
OPINION: Imari Paris Jeffries of Embrace Boston says this presidential election is about a lot more than just electing a new leader.
SIGN OF TENSION: Senate President Karen Spilka throws House Speaker Ron Mariano’s words about advancing new legislation at the eleventh (or maybe fifteenth) hour back at him. Gin Dumcius has the story.
|
|
|
|
|
CommonWealth Beacon is supported by readers like you.
Become a member today to support our nonprofit, non-partisan journalism. |
| SUPPORT OUR WORK |
|
|
|
In Other News |
|
BEACON HILL
-
Critics are slamming the Legislature over the dysfunction of its end-of-session pile-up that left a lot of unfinished business, including several major pieces of legislation that had been considered big priorities. (Boston Globe) Here’s a scorecard of what got passed, what’s dead, and what’s still in limbo from GBH’s Katie Lannan, who aptly sums things up by saying “the scrap pile was bigger than the list of accomplishments.”
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
-
While Boston Mayor Michelle Wu voiced disappointment that her plan to temporarily raise tax rates on commercial property died on Beacon Hill, critics were celebrating it as a victory for building owners who have been hard hit by high office vacancy rates. (Boston Herald)
-
Boston’s planning chief, Arthur Jemison, is stepping down. (Boston Globe)
-
A break in a pressurized sewer pipe sent an estimated 675,000 gallons of wastewater into the area near the Sudbury River in Framingham on Tuesday evening. (MetroWest Daily News)
-
A group of Boston city councilors sent a letter to Gov. Maura Healey, opposing new limits for Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system that went into effect Thursday, saying they will hurt immigrant families. (MassLive)
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
-
For the Wall Street Journal, the historic prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries that took place yesterday was especially big news, as its reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained and convicted on bogus charges, was among those freed by Russia. New York Times columnist M. Gessen unspools the incredible backstory to the exchange, the roots of which she traces to a conversation between a Vienna-based investigative journalist and Russian dissident during a January 2022 stroll around a Los Angeles reservoir.
-
A secret Justice Department investigation was looking into whether Egypt funneled $10 million in cash to Donald Trump just before the 2016 election. It was later shut down by DOJ officials under Trump but the Washington Post reports on sharply differing views among those involved on whether it had reached a dead end.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
-
A settlement between the state attorney general’s office and the Housatonic Water Works Co. of Great Barrington will force improvements at the company bankrolled by a steep increase in rates – 90 percent over five years. (Berkshire Eagle)
-
Demand for lab space has fallen dramatically in recent years, leaving life science spaces outside of the Cambridge area struggling to find leases. (Boston Business Journal)
TRANSPORTATION
-
Worcester leaders have declared a “road safety and traffic violence crisis” in the city, after recent pedestrian crashes that left a 13-year-old girl dead and another 13-year-old girl in a coma. (Worcester Telegram)
-
Low-emission transport options will be available through the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority, which is making use of a $14.6 million grant to fund 13 hybrid buses along with bus facilities programs and maintenance training. (Cape Cod Times)
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
-
A minor hiccup or a sign of the ongoing danger we’ll face from building out offshore wind? Competing narratives are being spun out by offshore wind energy backers and opponents following the snapping of a giant turbine blade in the Vineyard Wind’s site off Nantucket, with debris littering nearby beaches. (WBUR) A few small pieces of foam debris from the turbine blade have landed on a beach in mainland Westport. (New Bedford Light)
|
|
|
|
|
