House disses Healey's gas tax gambit, an LG candidate crash, and early votes pour in

Some Bay State voters are sick of campaign ads, some are just tuning into election season happenings, and more than 541,000 have already cast ballots.

As other deciders roll up to the polls, will the House's rejection of a gas tax holiday less than two weeks ahead of Nov. 3 weigh in their calculations?

Popular with voters but not the representatives they sent to the House, Gov. Maura Healey made the proposal central to her affordability-based campaign offensive — a response to high gas prices and a GOP challenger who pushed for gas tax relief before she did. But ahead of his birthday on Halloween, House Speaker Ron Mariano sees it all as "gimmicks and tricks," he told reporters, and his budget chief Aaron Michlewitz doesn't think drivers will benefit under Healey's plan.

"There is nothing gimmicky about a proposal to give gas tax relief to people," Healey's spokesperson said in response, pointing to Connecticut's gas tax holiday. House leaders alternatively said on the floor Wednesday, during their first formal session since July 31, that Connecticut's suspension didn't actually save drivers much money at all.

The gas tax here is 24 cents per gallon and AAA says the average price of a gallon this week was $4.27.

A few days before the House flipped off Healey's proposal, GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Shawn Oliver flipped his Lincoln Navigator late Saturday night in New Bedford and was arrested for allegedly driving drunk and careening into five parked cars. He suspended his campaign, but can stay on the New Bedford City Council, per the New Bedford Light. 

GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue said this week he and Oliver have "come to an agreement" that Oliver would resign if the GOP ticket wins and is seated. Oliver hasn't responded to inquiries about the supposed agreement.

Polls show Minogue trailing Healey, though he voiced his confidence in his chances Thursday in Hamilton.

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Minogue has banged the drum of transparency during his campaign, arguing that Healey hasn't tried hard enough to get the Legislature to comply with the 2024 audit law. Healey leaned into transparency this week, saying that she's not only voting to support Question 1 to subject the Legislature and governor's office to the state's public records law, but that she'd veto any legislation (perhaps the bills being negotiated right now) that mitigate the language of the measure. 

Lawmakers need a two-thirds vote to override a veto and political insiders see a potential showdown in the making if the question is approved, as expected, and the Legislature pushes its alternative approach to the governor's desk. Healey hasn't challenged the Legislature often and this is a storyline that may lead to a test case for Beacon Hill transparency. 

Beneath the public disagreement, there's some consensus on healthcare stabilization between Healey and the House. Reps stripped Healey's closeout budget of most add-ons, including one to create a Health Care Stabilization Fund that the state could tap if federal cuts or other shocks put pressure on MassHealth, the Massachusetts Health Connector or the Health Safety Net Fund. But it wasn't an outright "no." 

Michlewitz said he thinks it will take "a much more deeper dialogue" to get the mechanics of a stabilization fund for healthcare right. In nearly the same breath, Mariano defended the House's support for expanding gambling options to include machines similar to slot machines at simulcasting centers by pivoting to the likely need for more healthcare money due to federal policy shifts. That measure is locked up in House-Senate economic development negotiations.

The Senate now has a chance to add and subtract from the House's $2.35 billion closeout. Republican Sen. Ryan Fattman, a member of Senate Ways and Means, told the News Service on Thursday that he thinks the chamber is taking it up on Nov. 5, two days after the election. Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues' office declined to comment on the matter and did not make him available to discuss, and Senate President Karen Spilka's office said it's "too early to confirm when the Senate intends to schedule debate on the supplemental budget."

A few senators were part of a delegation of 16 lawmakers who called on Healey Monday to create a task force and put an indefinite moratorium on processing commercial drone delivery operator applications — a response to an Amazon Prime Air plan to deliver packages weighing less than 5 pounds by unmanned aircrafts from its Westborough facility. Westborough Special Town Meeting attendees voted 510-13 Monday to establish regulations for unmanned aircrafts.

In a Thursday letter from MassDOT to Amazon, the agency's Aeronautics Division Administrator Denise Garcia wrote that "Amazon cannot establish a takeoff and landing area in Westborough—or anywhere else in Massachusetts—without first obtaining a certificate of approval from the Aeronautics Division under Chapter 90."

The division hasn't yet received an official request for review, Garcia continued, and has to complete a "suitability review" and "ensure that the proposal poses no threat to safety" before any operations begin. Garcia wrote that Amazon "should expect" MassDOT to schedule at least one public hearing before determining whether the company gets a certificate of approval, invoking public concerns the agency has heard about the situation. 

Wariness remains. Westfield Sen. John Velis on Friday demanded "clear answers, robust state oversight, and enforceable public safety protections" as Amazon's plans advance. The feeling carries with artificial intelligence. Students lined up on the State House steps Wednesday, part of a nationwide walkout to call for a freeze on frontier AI and both federal and state AI regulations. AI regulation remains tied up on Beacon Hill, one of many summertime priorities that might not be settled until later this fall or even the wintertime. 

KELLER AT LARGE: 8:30 a.m., WBZ-TV. Political analyst Jon Keller hosts a mini-debate on Question 8 to end recreational marijuana sales with Ryan Dominguez of the No on 8 Campaign and Harvard professor Bertha Madras, director of the Laboratory of Addiction Neurobiology at McLean Hospital.

@ ISSUE: 9:30 a.m., NBC 10. Reporter Matt Prichard sits down with Gov. Maura Healey.

ON THE RECORD: 11 a.m., WCVB. NewsCenter 5’s Sharman Sacchetti and Ed Harding host a show featuring segments with Massachusetts Republican Party Chair Amy Carnevale and UMass Amherst political science professor Jesse Rhodes.

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