| House to debate scaled-down criminal justice bill; Baker expresses ‘very significant concern’ with Senate measure |
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| Amid pressure from progressives to pass the Senate’s sweeping criminal-justice bill, the House is expected today to set a Nov. 9 deadline to debate its own reform legislation, which likely will be a whittled-down version of the Senate plan, reports Jim O’Sullivan at the Globe. Then there’s Gov. Charlie Baker, who yesterday expressed reservations about the ambitious Senate legislataion. “I would say there are a bunch of things in there that cause us very significant concern,” said Baker, ticking off his problem with eliminating minimum sentences for drug traffickers amidst an opioid-abuse crisis, as SHNS’s Colin Young reports (pay wall). “There are a number of other elements in (the Senate plan) that just seem to not make a heck of a lot of sense.” |
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| Power still out for hundreds of thousands across New England |
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| About 36,000 customers were still without power as of early this morning in the Bay State, reports the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. That’s significantly down from the more than 300,000 customers who lost power earlier this week due to the nasty Sunday-Monday storm. But it’s a different story in Maine, where some 275,000 customers were still without power as of yesterday, 48 hours after the strong-wind and pelting-rain storm, the Globe reports. At one point, nearly two-thirds of Maine were without power and the governor has declared a state of emergency. In New Hampshire, about 52,000 customers were still without power as of early this morning, reports Eversource. |
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| The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave: Lawmakers fail to pass compromise budget, bump-stock bill |
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| We’re talking about a supplemental budget that would close out last year’s fiscal budget – which ended four months ago. From SHNS’s Matt Murphy at WWLP: “The hopes of House and Senate lawmakers to complete a budget deal before Nov. 1 faded quickly on Tuesday afternoon as negotiations, initially stymied over a procedural dispute, have bogged down over a handful of issues, including a gun control measure and funding for youth violence prevention.” |
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| Tito’s dilemma: Progressives are a dime a dozen in Boston |
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| Mayoral candidate Tito Jackson has been running as a “full-throated liberal” this year in Boston, but there’s a small problem with that strategy, writes Michael Jonas at CommonWealth magazine: Practically everyone else in Boston can portray themselves as a progressive, including the incumbent, Marty Walsh. Convenient example: Jackson is pounding away at income inequality in Boston, as Anthony Brooks reports at WBUR. But notice how he has trouble outflanking Walsh on the issue: “Walsh recognizes the challenge, but he argues that it goes back generations, which is also true.” |
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