Weekly Roundup – Building Bridges

Recap and analysis of the week in state government

Views of Somerville pass by a Green Line trolley window on Wednesday as it travels to the brand-new Union Square Station, which is set to open next month when the first branch of the Green Line Extension begins running passenger service. [Chris Lisinski/SHNS]

Six more weeks of winter, but only five for Democrats to select delegates to the June convention in Worcester when, presumably, the weather will be a little more pleasant.

The furry weatherman from Punxsutawney saw his shadow Wednesday, presaging another wintery blast of precipitation leading into the weekend as Democrats kicked off the caucus season and candidates begin the battle for delegates.

The field, at least on the Democratic side, appears close to set as this week brought the formal entries of former Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell and 2018 lieutenant governor nominee Quentin Palfrey to a now three-way race for attorney general.

Gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen also gave voters something to chew on as she marked the start of Black History Month with a proposal to decriminalize the personal use and possession of drugs, including heroin and cocaine, to shift the focus away from punishment to treatment.

Her competitors for the nomination shied away from endorsing or rejecting Allen’s idea, but this is one that will likely come up often over the course of the next seven months as Allen, Attorney General Maura Healey and Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz looks for ways to differentiate themselves.

Healey was far more clear when it came to her thoughts (not positive) on Republican Geoff Diehl hiring former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a Lowell native, as a senior advisor on his gubernatorial campaign. Diehl said he welcomed Lewandowski’s wealth of experience, but by leaning in on the Trump brand he will also have to accept some of the blowback in a state where Trump is not and never was popular with the general electorate.

As it stands, Healey holds a sizable lead over her rivals at the outset of the campaign with 48 percent of likely voters indicating they would support the attorney general compared to 12 percent for Chang-Diaz and 3 percent for Allen, according to a new MassINC Polling Group survey. Yet, 38 percent said they still don’t know, wouldn’t vote or are looking for someone else.

Those voters will have until Sept. 6 to make up their mind, assuming Gov. Charlie Baker signs off on that date for the primaries, included as part of a $101 million COVID-19 relief bill that would direct funds towards rapid testing, masks, and vaccination equity. The bill’s bottom line grew in each iteration, with House and Senate leaders tacking on $25 million in the final deal to replenish the COVID-19 paid sick leave reserve.

The pandemic relief bill reached the governor’s desk Thursday, while legislation known as “Nero’s Law” came within a whisker. The House voted in support of the bill that would allow medical personnel to treat and provide transport to police dogs injured in the line of duty. 

The bill’s namesake is the K9 injured during a 2018 incident during which Yarmouth Police Sergeant Sean Gannon was killed as he attempted to serve a warrant.

For other legislation, however, this week turned out to be the end of the line.

No rules are hard and fast on Beacon Hill, but the Legislature’s Joint Rule 10 required committees to render a verdict on thousands of bills filed this session, or at the very least request an extension.

The soft deadline on Wednesday breathed life into some ideas, like retrofitting 1 million homes over the next decade to be energy efficient and giving consumers more control over their data privacy online. Others – i.e., giving drivers’ licenses to undocumented immigrants and allowing municipalities to raise money for housing through new fees on real estate transfers – remain stuck in limbo as their committees requested more time.

But only opponents were toasting the demise of a bill to remove the ban on Happy Hour drink specials, as legislators referred that concept for “further study” – the bureaucratic equivalent of a bartender saying, “You’re cut off.”

Baker was in Washington, D.C. to start the week, meeting alongside other governors with President Joe Biden and members of his Cabinet during the National Governors Association winter meeting. He later had one-on-ones at the Pentagon where he said he basically secured a deal for the Army Corps of Engineers to replace the two bridges spanning the Cape Cod Canal, and hopes to have a financing plan in place by the end of the year.

The money will come, in large part, from the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed last year by Biden – the same bill that will deliver $9.5 billion to Massachusetts.

Baker visited the campus of UMass Lowell on Thursday to detail how he intends to spend much of the rest of the federal infrastructure funding, though the Legislature will have its say too once the administration files a new transportation bond bill.

Baker has his eyes set on spending billions to repair highways, electrify bus fleets and replace or rehabilitate 146 bridges in need of repair.

The visit to the UMass campus came as the governor’s team urged higher education institutions to help lead the way out of the COVID-19 pandemic, urging them to begin thinking about ways to relax restrictions that require remote learning, discourage group activities or mandate “overly aggressive surveillance testing; and mask type requirements.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders and Education Secretary Jim Peyser said the negative social and emotional effects of lasting restrictions are taking a toll on youth, and they see colleges as the place to start the transition “into an endemic, a highly contagious virus that is manageable and allows us to regain a sense of normalcy.”

William Allen, who has spent the past 27 years behind bars after being an accomplice to murder, went before the Governor’s Council this week also asking them to restore a sense of normalcy to his life.

Allen is under consideration for his first-degree murder conviction to be commuted to second degree murder, making him eligible for parole. He’s the second convicted felon to appear before the council in as many weeks after Baker made the first two commutation recommendations of his tenure.

“I promise I will make you proud by doing good and being good and that I won’t let my fellow prisoners down either,” Allen told the council.

Councilor Robert Jubinville, his attorney at trial in the 1990s, predicted Allen would soon be a free man.

“You’re a good man and you’re gonna get a commutation,” Jubinville told him.