Matt Murphy

Gov. Maura Healey will speak to municipal leaders this morning at the Hynes Convention Center at the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s annual meeting and tradeshow. The event is often used by governors to announce funding levels for local aid, the Chapter 90 road and bridge program or some other municipal initiative like broadband to help mayors and town managers […]

Former Gov. Charlie Baker was no fan of the idea of rent control, soured by the experience of being a young man living in Boston and being forced to pay market rate on a starting salary while wealthier neighbors paid less in rent-controlled apartments. “Number one, it’s unfair,” he would say. But some cities and states around the […]

There are inaugurations everywhere you look today. Three House members who – for varying reasons – missed last week’s ceremony will join their colleagues, and the four Constitutional officers not named Healey or Driscoll take their oaths. This is the easy part of Healey’s job. Swearing people into office. Showing up to support fellow Democrats and friends. But […]

Things may seem to be settling down some. Gov. Maura Healey is now more than a week into her new job. The Legislature has comfortably slipped back into a pattern of low-key informal sessions as lawmakers wait for leadership to dole out committee assignments. And much of the work of bill filing and budget preparation has moved […]

It’s MLK Day. But as the celebrations continue today after Friday’s unveiling of the “The Embrace” on Boston Common, the statue’s debut has been greeted by some pretty harsh coverage nationally. …Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz just won a sixth term as the top prosecutor on the South Shore, bucking a trend seen across Massachusetts where the GOP […]

Thousands of migrants from Haiti and various South American countries have been arriving in Massachusetts in recent months, straining the capacity of the state’s shelter system to provide adequate temporary housing. One of the state’s leading immigrant advocacy groups is now urging new Gov. Maura Healey to pick up where former Gov. Charlie Baker left off and move […]

Left-leaning Democrats have been wandering around the State House in recent days looking for bread crumbs….crumbs that will lead them to a conclusion on whether Gov. Maura Healey will be a progressive champion in the Corner Office, or govern more from the center. While it’s way too soon to be making judgments on Healey’s progressive bonafides […]

Children are expensive. Any parent will tell you that. But when raising children interferes with the ability to also work, the result can be damaging not just to families, but the state’s economy as well. A new report out today from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundations estimates that inadequate access to affordable child care in Massachusetts costs workers in Massachusetts […]

What would you do with hundreds of thousands of dollars to burn and no more campaigns to run? Throw a party, of course. The latest campaign finance filings show that former Gov. Charlie Baker and former Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito dropped $100,0000 (split evenly) in December on Coventures, Inc., the Boston-based event planning agency run by Dusty Rhodes. […]