Supporters of Big Dig II go missing | Practice what you preach | Big decision in Waltham solar showdown | Scrounging for pennies at MassGOP | About Contrarian Boston
Beyond pathetic: Statewide Republican candidates face towering campaign cash gap
As Dems head to their statewide convention in Worcester this weekend, they have more than 8 million reasons to celebrate, and counting.
The party’s candidates for governor, secretary of state and state auditor have amassed a collective war chest of more than $8 million, led by Attorney General Maura Healey, who has raked in more than $5 million in her campaign for governor.
By contrast, Republican candidates for governor, secretary of state and state auditor, at most, have a combined $600,000 to play with, leaving Democrats with a 13-1 edge in fundraising in these key state races, state campaign finance records show.
But even that number doesn’t tell the full story here.
The hope of party moderates, Wrentham businessman Chris Doughty, is primarily self-funding his campaign. Funds from Doughty’s personal stash accounts for the vast majority of that very modest stockpile referenced above, or more than $530,000.
Take away Doughty’s largesse, and the three remaining statewide GOP candidates in our analysis have at most, a combined $63,000.
Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl, the favorite of delegates at the MassGOP’s whacky convention in Springfield, has maybe $54,000 in his campaign account. Meanwhile, even Trumpier secretary of state candidate Rayla Campbell has $4,800 in her campaign account, while candidate for state auditor Anthony Amore, despite a big endorsement by Gov. Charlie Baker, has just $5,000 on hand.
Take away Doughty’s deep pockets, and we are talking about a 127-1 campaign cash gap, advantage Democrats.
Money isn’t everything, but you at least have to have two dimes to rub together.
Curtains finally for Little Dig?
There is a ton of federal cash in the offing, and boosters of various grand transportation schemes across Massachusetts haven’t been shy about beating the drums for their favorite projects.
The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure will mean hundreds of billions for everything from roads and bridges to rail and subway projects across the country.
So where in the world is the North South Rail Link fan club? U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton and two former governors, Mike Dukakis and Bill Weld, among others, spent years of pushing for their multibillion tunnel under downtown Boston, a Big Dig in miniature, or Little Dig, if you like.
But advocates for the tunnel, which would finally link North and South Stations and connect Boston’s North and South Shores via commuter rail, have all but gone missing, with little if any public lobbying for the project in at least a year.
We can’t say we not entirely unhappy with this development, with the Baker administration having estimated the cost of boring the mile-long tunnel underneath downtown Boston at anywhere from $12 billion to $25 billion, And yep, that was a couple years ago, well before the big, pandemic surge in construction prices.
Given the Biden administration is gearing up dole out massive amounts of infrastructure money, now would be the time to make a move.
The silence, in this case, may very well speak volumes.
Awkward: Standoff on staff union in state Senate drags on
This is definitely not a good look for Senate President Karen Spilka, under whose leadership the chamber has become a dreamhouse for progressive legislation.
Nearly two months after Senate staffers announced they are forming the State House Employee Union, Spilka has yet to spill the beans on just how she plans to deal with the revolt by Senate staffers.
And things are getting more awkward by the day, with State Sen. Diana DiZoglio, a former House staffer and now candidate for state auditor, rising in the chamber to speak in favor of the unionization effort.
"Before we legislate what others should do in their workplace... we need to set the example to the Commonwealth of what a healthy workplace looks like," the Methuen Democrat said in a Senate speech that was posted on Twitter by the budding legislative staffers’ union.
To be fair to Spilka, legislative staff unions are not common, so there are likely some legal issues to noodle through. Senate staffers got 6 percent raises and a $500 pandemic bonus last year, while the Senate president is also pushing plans to scrap a 60-day waiting period for health insurance for new employees, according to the The Daily News in Newburyport.
That said, State House staffers, by all accounts, work long, pressure-filled hours for meager pay and benefits, and that’s not the worst of it, given the history of abuse claim settlements and forced nondisclosure agreements.
File under: Practice what you preach.
Big win for solar in Waltham NIMBY battle
Apparently, a whole bunch of cities towns and suburbs across Massachusetts never got the climate change memo.
The state’s Supreme Judicial Court has ruled against a bid by Waltham to bar a developer from building an access road through land the firm owns in Waltham into a planned, 413,600-square-foot solar farm in Lexington.
“The Court's decision is a victory for the growing and crucial solar energy industry in the Commonwealth,” said Ben Robbins, the New England Legal Foundation’s senior staff attorney, who wrote an amicus brief in support of the solar farm developer.
Waltham is not alone in its opposition to new solar, and for that matter, wind projects, with a number of battles between local communities and renewable energy developers across the state, and the country as well, as this Columbia University paper details.
Given the huge amount of new renewable energy projects that will be needed in the years ahead to decarbonize the power sector in Massachusetts and beyond, the local opposition doesn’t bode well.
Voice of reason: Republican state auditor candidate says Dems not ‘evil’
The MassGOP’s convention in Springfield last month made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Among other assorted nuttiness, Rayla Campbell, the party’s candidate for secretary of state, railed against “evil” Democrats in a notably foul-mouthed speech.
In a piece in CommonWealth Magazine, Anthony Amore, the Republican candidate for state auditor, strikes a very different – and welcome – tone.
“I’m in the midst of a campaign for state auditor, not a competition between good and evil,” write Amore, director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum who ran for secretary of state in 2018. “That’s because I don’t believe that the other candidates are bad people filled with malintent. I simply believe that we have different ideas about what good and efficient government looks like.”
It’s incredible that political discourse, especially but certainly not limited to the MassGOP, has fallen so low that it’s come to this.
Quick hits:
Some delicious Boston inside baseball: “Goulston & Storrs settles ‘legal malpractice’ lawsuit filed by construction company owner John Fish” Boston Globe
What’s the holdup? “The US recommended a system to prevent Green Line crashes 13 years ago. It still hasn’t been installed.” Boston Globe
Way to go, Ringo! “Beatles legend Ringo Starr receives honorary degree from Berklee College of Music” Boston Herald
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple of months asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.