Should Massachusetts run its elections more like California? That question is cleared to appear on the ballot, according to the state’s highest court, possibly teeing up a major shift in our notoriously uncompetitive races.
Month: June 2026
In a blockbuster ruling just as ballot measure campaigns submit their final signatures, Massachusetts’s highest court cut the fuse of a revenue bomb that was set to blow $5 billion out of the state budget. An initiative aiming to cut income taxes is blocked from the ballot because of errors in the attorney general’s summary.
Gov. Maura Healey’s administration estimates that the state will need 222,000 by 2035 to deal withe existing need and population growth. Her new housing secretary, Juana Matias, says we can meet that goal, and joins CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith to talk about chipping away at decades of sluggish housing production. Matias, who was a state representative and regional administrator at HUD, talks about what she’d like to see come from the end-of-session rush and how the state can weather federal pullbacks on fair housing an public housing.
The regulations specify that for the first 12 months they’re in place, only social equity businesses are eligible to get up to six retail licenses and non-social equity businesses can hold up to five retail licenses.
Officials and transit advocates have criticized the mayor’s approach and questioned whether the youth disturbances at Union Station can be attributed to the availability of free bus rides. Some have cited the success of the fare-free program and instead called for more policing.
A recent survey of 11- to 17-year-old boys found that around a third gambled in the last year. A new state program aims to prevent problem gambling in youth. Massachusetts is in the second year of a pilot program in the schools to educate young people about the laws, risks and harms of sports betting.
The House Ways and Means Committee slimmed the Senate’s bond authorizations (S 3064) down by more than 20 percent, advancing a new draft Tuesday that would authorize $3.078 billion in borrowing compared to the Senate-supported $3.94 billion.
Massachusetts has become “a victim of our own affluence,” said Andrew Mikula, the report’s author. “It’s like we forgot how to build smaller homes that can be more affordable for folks.”
With just two weeks until a controversial rent control ballot measure could be locked in, a flurry of negotiations — and pockets of sustained resistance — puts Beacon Hill in a tricky position.
Authorizing a pilot program like this is inviting a larger debate about how Massachusetts should weigh the complicated tradeoffs associated with reaching ambitious climate targets, especially for hard-to-decarbonize sectors like air travel.