Governor Charlie Baker signed compromise legislation that will gradually increase Massachusetts' minimum wage, require paid leave for workers and mandate an annual sales tax holiday. It was designed to keep a series of ballot questions off the November ballot, including a proposal to cut the state sales tax. Without them, will election turnout take a hit?
Katie Lannan, State House News Service: That's certainly one of the expectations, that some of these questions would drive turnout. Moving in a $15 minimum wage, a paid family and medical leave -- those have been issues progressive have been pushing for years. And there was kind of an expectation that that would play into, say the turnout with U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren also on the ballot, and whether all those kind of progressive issues could work with the Democrat turnout.
Now at the same time, on the other end of the spectrum, there is the sales tax cut and that might drive a different group of voters. So there were a lot of questions about how the Senate race, the governor's race and these ballot questions would all work together and who would get the edge in that turnout. By resolving it legislatively and keeping these issues off the ballot, it turns to more of a status quo situation.
Jill Kaufman, NEPR: The U.S. Supreme Court's decision making it possible for government employees to avoid any payments to public sector unions – that was a big story and continues to be one. Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo has turned to labor leaders. He says he wants them to suggest ways the state legislature can respond to the Supreme Court decision and soften the blow. What could state legislation do?
At the Democrat convention last month in Worcester, we heard a lot of love for unions from some of the state's political heavy hitters. And they really want to take action here. They've expressed an interest in doing so, but what that action will look like is still very murky. Even some of the heads of the labor unions themselves, they haven't come out with any specifics. So I think we're kind of in a wait and see period here.
(Disclosure: Members of the NEPR newsroom belong to a public employee union that's affiliated with the Massachusetts Teachers Association.)
One last question for you: on a flight to Boston, Governor Baker's son A.J. was accused recently of groping a woman passenger he was seated next to. The U.S. attorney's office is now reviewing the allegations. The governor has basically refused to discuss the matter. He said it's personal. First he said state police were not involved, but the Boston Globe reported they were -- at least initially. Katie, the governor has high ratings and hasn't had any significant scandals connected to him while in office. Is this something that people are talking about on Beacon Hill?
It's definitely something people are talking about. People are kind of waiting to see, again, what comes out here, how this plays its course. These are serious allegations. The governor hasn't been able to say too much citing the ongoing investigation and the fact that it, for him, is a personal family matter. But there are questions people are raising about transparency, about the role of the state police who did -- it has been reported -- respond to the airplane, although they don't have jurisdiction over what happened in the airplane. That's a federal issue and that's why it's under investigation by the U.S. attorney's office. So I think people are kind of wondering what's going to come out here.
Is that conflated with the overtime scandal right now with the Massachusetts State Police?
I don't know if there's a direct overlap between the three troopers who were arrested last week and this incident involving the governor's son. But for people who see the state police as in need of a change, as mired in trouble, it’s certainly on their minds that this same department has now been mentioned in both of these incidents.
